No place like home: The birth of Alexandria

Alexandria Joyce Gonzales. My pregnancy with her went smoothly; she was a lot like her brother. The one key difference between their two pregnancies: I didn’t have gestational diabetes this time around, so my last trimester didn’t require all the monitoring I had with her brother. That made me nervous about labor.

I didn’t feel my contractions start during the first pregnancy, so I was worried about not feeling them this time, too.

My due date was September 25, 2016.

On Monday, September 19, I noticed some blood when I went to the restroom. I figured it was my “bloody show” because I was dilated 3 centimeters the week before and I was slowly losing my mucus plug. My husband wanted to make sure all was well, though, so we went to the hospital. They kept me there for about four hours. I didn’t progress any more, so we went home. I slept all night.

The next morning I woke up at 4 a.m. while my husband was getting ready for work. I felt off. My back was hurting, but I thought it was because I had slept wrong.

My husband left for work unwillingly, and I tried to lie down while I continued to talk to him on the phone. By 7:45 a.m. I thought I might actually be feeling contractions, so I decided to try taking a warm bath.

By the time I got out of the tub, I got sick. While I was throwing up, I felt my water break. I called my sister-in-law to come over to watch my toddler, and I told my hubby to come home immediately.

When he got back into town I said, still on the phone, “We aren’t going to make it to the hospital. We may have to go to the ER because I think I need to push!”

That’s when I hung up and called the fire department.

I was standing up, leaning over on the bed to get comfortable, and breathing through contractions when my husband and the paramedics walked in. I told them if they laid me down on the bed to check me I wasn’t going to be getting up without a baby.

They had me lie down, and I had a contraction. One of them said to let me push during the next contraction. So, I grabbed a hand, threw my leg up on one of them and pushed—right as the paramedic who would catch the baby put her gloves on. There she was, our little princess. Born at home—totally not the plan at all.

I’ll admit it was scary but kind of cool at the same time. I don’t plan on doing it again, though.

She was a healthy 8 pounds, 4 ounces. The doctor said she figured it was me when they called and told her because I had been so nervous about not being monitored like I was during my last pregnancy. She did think it was kind of cool, too, though.