Oliver's Birth Story

     I’m still in disbelief…I’m sitting on my bed on our first day home from the hospital with not one, but two beautiful, sleeping children in our house.  God is so good!

     Though my brain is still a little foggy (and I don’t anticipate losing this ‘fuzz’ for the next year or so), I thought it would be best to go ahead and sit down and record the events (at least what I remember of them) from Oliver’s birth day, May 24, 2014. (P.S. – can you believe he was actually born on his due date?!)

     I woke up a little before 5am with some cramp-y type feelings.  They would come and go, so I started to wonder, ‘hmm, could this be labor?’ (Obviously, it sounds like it after the fact, but when you’re in the midst of something so life changing, it’s always hard to believe it’s happening.)  Well, I decided I would note how far apart they were before waking Nick up.  They came every 5 minutes (regularly), but since they weren’t lasting too terribly long (10-15 seconds) and weren’t too terribly painful, I still thought it might be a false alarm.  Well, I woke him up at 5:40 and we began ‘officially’ timing the contractions at 6am.  They were every 2.5-3.5 minutes apart and lasted about 30 seconds each time.  We decided it was time to call the babysitter and the doctor! 

     Our friend Sheilah came over around 7am and the contractions seemed to slow down (that, or I was trying to put on a show and talk to her and kept forgetting to time them…).  Nevertheless, we decided to go to the hospital at 8am and get checked in.

     There is only one entrance to the hospital, regardless of whether you are sick, injured, or having a baby.  Talk about a cesspool of germs!  We had to dodge a few barfing women and lots of fevers, but were eventually checked in at the front counter and walked through the gate (let me clarify, it is an actual floor to ceiling wire gate that a guard has to open for you! Haha). 

     We got into our room, which was very nice, and met with our doctor.  He examined me, said I was between 4-5cm dilated and he would be in to check on me every hour.  He assured us several times he would be at the hospital the entire day until I had the baby.

      Things progressed slowly at first, but that was ok with me!  We relaxed in the room and took a walk through the two halls that didn’t seem too ‘sick.’ A nurse came to check me a few times. (Let me clarify ‘check’…there are no electronic monitors or anything.  She would simply rest her hand on my stomach, and start timing on her watch whenever she felt a contraction begin and end.  Don’t get me wrong, she was great, it was just a very different ‘monitoring’ system.  Also, I never had another physical exam until I persuaded them I was literally having the baby…but we’ll get to that).  My contractions always seemed further apart when she was there, maybe because I would sit down while she timed them instead of walk around like I had been doing with Nick.  Anyways, after the second or third time she was in there, (and I’d only had 2 contractions in 6 minutes) things immediately sped up as soon as she shut the door.  I had 5 contractions, one right on top of the other, that were WAY more intense and painful.  Even I could hardly believe the change from one set of contractions to the next.  I told Nick to go find her (she said to do this if things sped up while she was gone).  Well, Nick found her and she assured him she had just checked on me and would do so again on her next pass by our room.   Thankfully Nick was able to persuade her to come back and that’s when things got ‘fun.’  This was all a little after 11:30 am.

     I told her I was feeling a lot of pressure and the contractions were very strong and frequent.  She decided to check me and surprisingly reported I was at 10 cm.  She sent a text to my doctor (whom we still hadn’t seen since check-in) but told him he didn’t have to rush because my water hadn’t broken.  Another nurse came to join her at this point and I told them the baby was coming, but they still thought we had time and didn’t take me to a delivery room.  Well, all of a sudden, my water broke and it was show time.  My body started to push automatically and I told them I couldn’t stop it.  They weren’t giving me any instructions (whether or not I could push, what position to get in, etc.) and just kept saying ‘fique a vontade,’ which basically means, ‘make yourself at home,’ or ‘feel free.’ So laying on my side, screaming like a crazy woman, still in my regular bed in my recovery room, without a doctor, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. 

     Oliver Wright Sroka was born at 12:08 pm on Saturday, May 24, 2014 weighing 3.78 quilos (8 lbs 5 oz).  He has a full head of medium color hair (although all the nurses kept marveling at his ‘blonde’ hair, haha), slate blue eyes, and is as cute as a button!  The more time passes, the more I see baby Carter when I look at him.  He is doing a great job eating and has a really great temperament J

       We had some friends who live about three hours away come up to stay with Carter while we were at the hospital and are so thankful for all they did for us!  They brought Carter up to meet his baby brother on Saturday night and were able to capture the whole thing on video.  It was the sweetest thing J  Carter kept saying, ‘Baby, baby!’, wanting to ‘touch his toes,’ and go ‘night night,’ in my lap with Oliver.  He has been a very gentle, very interested, very sweet big brother so far and we can’t wait to watch them grow and play together.

      We were discharged Sunday night and have been getting into the swing of things here at home today.  Nick leaves tomorrow to pick up his mom and step-dad from the airport a little over an hour and a half away, so we’ll see how I do on my own with 2 boys for a good chunk of the day…But honestly, I am so blessed with this sweet family of mine, I couldn’t think of a better place to be.

 Here are some differences in having a baby here in Brazil vs. my experience in the U.S.A.:

-lack of separation in the hospital between the sick/injured/operating/maternity areas

-we obviously had a language barrier as no English was spoken

-nothing was really provided: towels, baby clothes, baby soap, mommy recovery items, etc.  However, they did bring a meal for both me and Nick every time which was very nice.

-you are basically on your own.  We were very thankful to have had a baby before, because after the birth, there really wasn’t much interaction with anyone.  No one to explain breastfeeding, no one to check on how you’re doing, no one to help you out of bed, no one to check on the baby, no one to give you instructions as to what you can and can’t do…

-there’s a pretty big lack of privacy with people coming in and out of your room (yes that happened in the states, but here it could just be to talk to someone else in your room), or going into an exam room to ask the doc a question while you’re on the table, or leaving the door open, etc.

-bugs are just as common in the hospital as they are anywhere else here. For example, I shared my shower with a butterfly and a gecko kept watch at our door.

     But the bottom line is this: God has blessed us with a beautiful, healthy baby boy.  Both he and I are doing well.  There were no emergencies and no scares (well, I was scared to be having a baby without a doctor, haha, but no health scares).  And we are home and extremely happy as a family of four.