One
ONE.
To say that this year flew by would be the understatement of the century. I swear I was just in labor yesterday, about to hold my baby for the first time and now he is one. ONE! A whole year with the boy who changed my life.
Luca is strong, smart, brave, loving and oh so happy. He’s also loud, busy, bossy and has an attitude (LOL). He’s given up on crawling completely and now walks and tries to run everywhere. He eats everything we put in front of him but blueberries and cheese are definitely his favorites. He loves trucks and music. His favorite song is “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan — he dances to it every time we put it on. He says “dad, dog, ball, book, nan, pop pop and hi” and is understanding and using a few signs as well. Watching his personality develop has been as exciting as all of the physical milestones and each day is a new adventure I feel so blessed to be on with him.
In honor of Luca’s first birthday, I wanted to share a condensed version of his birth story. I’ve always loved reading birth stories, even before I was pregnant I loved reading women’s experiences. I had the most positive, transformative and amazing birth experience and I hope it will encourage mamas to be.
I didn’t have much of a birth plan but I knew that I wanted to have a natural birth without pain medication. I wanted to feel every contraction and push, I wanted to be in total control and most importantly (to me), I wanted my body to know what to do and guide me through it. It definitely wasn’t easy but I would honestly do it 100 more times. The pain was beyond comprehension but I loved knowing that each contraction was bringing me closer to meeting my baby, every painful push was guiding him earth side. One thing I held onto was the baby wasn’t hurt and wasn’t hurting me — this was huge for me mentally. The pain was facilitating my baby’s entrance into this world and it would be over when he arrived. And that’s the magic of childbirth, when they place your baby on your chest, nothing else matters — the pain is quickly forgotten, replaced by the most overwhelming and all-consuming love and adoration.
I know that I am extremely lucky to have had a relatively quick labor and this played a huge part in me being able to forgo pain medication. No matter how you labor or welcome your child into this world — whether natural birth, with an epidural, home birth, hospital birth, surrogacy, adoption, you are a literal super-woman and you deserve to feel proud and powerful.
Luca’s Birth Story
I had my 39 week appointment the morning of Thursday, October 11th, 2018. Hurricane Michael was supposed to hit mid-morning so I worked from home following the appointment. I worked a full-day, finished up around 6pm, made dinner, showered and watched the Eagles beat the Giants with Loki. As I was getting ready for bed around 11:30, I felt what I thought might be a contraction. I told Ry I thought contractions were starting and I tried to download a contraction counter app but the internet was down and we have terrible service in our house normally. I called my mom and assured her I was in early labor and I was going to try and get some sleep. Her and my mother-in-law were planning on coming down from Philly on Sunday but were going to come down in the morning since my labor had started. I laid in bed for about an hour until Ry came to bed but the pain became too intense while lying down. I went out into the living room and walked around and around the couch during each contraction — moving felt much better than standing still. The app had finally downloaded at this point and the contractions were coming every minute and lasting 45 seconds. From what I read I assumed I would still be in early labor at this point so I figured my tolerance for pain must be really low if the contractions were effecting me this much.
At around 3:00am I decided to call the hospital. The contractions were intense and very close together and I was starting to think it wasn’t early labor at all. The nurse took my information and told me the mid-wife on-call would call me back shortly. She called me back around 3:30am and after I told her the frequency and duration of my contractions she told me to come in and if I wasn’t dilated enough they would send me home. I didn’t want to wake Ry up until absolutely necessary because he had a mid-term the next day and for some reason I thought he was still going to be able to take it (this makes me laugh now because there was NO way he was taking that test). But I woke him up and told him the mid-wife instructed me to come in. He jumped up out of bed so fast and we quickly got everything together. I changed, brushed my hair and waited with our packed hospital bags by the door. We said bye to Thor and Loki — they must have been so confused, it was the middle of the night! —and got in the car. I couldn’t sit up front because the contractions hurt 1,000 times more while sitting or laying down so I hovered over the back seat all the way to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 4:00am and waited at the security desk for the nurse to come bring us to the OB ER room. We didn’t bring in any of our bags from the car — I had birth socks I wanted to wear (they said “May the Force Be With You) and a gift basket for the nurses but I practically jumped out of the car and ran into the hospital.
Once the nurse (I talk about her in a bit but her name was Kelly and she was a literal Angel) got me situated in the room, the hospitalist came checked me and I was 6cm dilated (praise) so they checked me in and we walked to the delivery suite. I kept having to stop due to the intensity of the contractions and by the time we made it to the room I felt like I had to push. The nurse checked me and I was 9cm dilated and told me as soon as the mid-wife arrived I could push (another praise because I had to push). My mid-wife was amazing, every nurse was amazing, (especially the nurse that was with me from check-in, Kelly — I truly don’t think I could have labored without her), my husband was amazing, it was such an encouraging and positive environment and I am forever grateful to all of those women and Ryan. We didn’t know the gender but I felt the baby was a boy throughout my pregnancy so I didn’t even react when Ry announced “It’s a boy!” at 5:45am on October 12, 2018. My mid-wife laid all 8 and a half pounds of him on my chest and I was in love. I looked up at Ry and nothing else mattered in that moment. Luca Fox Diehl, my everything.
Happy first birthday to my chunk, baby boy, stinky Stewie, cutest baby in the entire world, Luca the Fox.
