Thursday, January 24, 2008.....

was the day our beautiful baby girl was born. Malia Christina Saiz weighing 7lbs. 8oz., 20" long was born at 2121. Mommy was in labor for 21 hours. At about midnight I woke up to pee and started to feel mini contractions. Wasn't sure if it was Braxton Hicks or the "real" one's. I looked up at our ceiling (our clock projects the time on our ceiling...very cool..all I have to do is open my eyes rather than sit up to check the time) to time the contractions...it seemed like it was coming at 5 minutes apart, so I woke Danny up. I said I think I may be in labor...help me time the contractions. We did that for a couple of hours since the contractions were not that severe.

At about 3am I called the on-call nurse and let them know that my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, so she said to come into the hospital. Once we got to the hospital and I was hooked up to the monitor....all of a sudden my contractions were only 10-11 minutes apart and I was only 1-2 cm dilated. I looked at Danny and was like "that is so weird I swear it was 5 minutes when we were at home". Anyways, because this was our first baby, the nurse sent us home and told us to come back when the contractions are 5 minutes apart and the contractions are so bad that you cannot talk, stand or anything....so we went home. We were a little disappointed that we had to go home because we really thought it was "time".

Once we got home, Danny busted out his laptop and created an Excel spreadsheet to track my contractions. My contractions were up and down it would go from 10 minutes to 6 minutes and then back to 10 minutes etc.... My Mom called me at about 6pm and asked me how I was doing. She could not believe that I was still home and "dealing" with contractions for so long. I told her that we couldn't go back to the hospital till the contractions were 4-5 minutes apart. My Mom was like you'd better go when its 5 not 4 minutes...so I'm like ok. But really in between our conversation I couldn't talk because I had a couple of contractions during our phone call...so my Mom could hear me say "now!" to let Danny know to start timing and then I'm breathing out the contraction. So my Mom says goodbye and I tell her I will call her when I'm on the way to the hospital.

So within an hour I decided to take a warm shower...but before I get in I pee, but during peeing I felt a pop and warm liquid but had no idea my water broke cause I was sitting on the toilet and thought it was pee...couldn't tell. Anyways, as I was in the shower it did not take long for my contractions to increase from 6 minutes to 2-3 minutes apart. Danny is screaming at me to tell me "we have to go now!" Get dressed, we cannot have th baby here!" I'm eyes closed not being able to put my clothes on...Danny helps me. He already brought all our stuff to the car earlier and so all we needed was me to get in the car. I somehow made it down the stairwell and in the car. The whole time in the car my eyes were closed and I'm saying "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! wwwwwwhhhhhhhhh!!!" We get to the hospital and I miraclely walk up to the hospital door and tell the nurse my name...they buzz us in and tell us our room is being cleaned. I'm grabbing onto Danny's arm and kinda crouched over at the nurse's desk. Within 5 minutes our room was ready. I was hooked up to the monitor and the nurse checked me. Danny got nervous cause he only heard one heartbeat-mine! I was so out of it I didn't know what was going on. The nurse adjusted the monitor and then 2 heartbeats were heard...Danny sighed of relief. The reason he could only hear 1 heartbeat was Malia was lower....I was already 10 cm dilated once I got to the hospital. The nurse said "I do not feel your cervix" Danny said "you know what that means right?" I'm like huh...he's like its time to push...so the next contraction the Dr. said I could push. Within 1/2 hour of pushing Malia was born! Once Malia came out, all the pain disappeared...I could not remember the pain at all. To this day I still do not recall. I had Malia natural with no drugs. Amazing....it was totally an out of body experience. We called our parents and my parents thought we were on the way to the hospital, but I was like no she's here...they were quite surprised, since I just spoke to them about 3 hours ago.

Once Malia was born, Danny and I hugged, kissed each other and cried happy tears together. The nurse cleaned her up, wrapped her and handed her to Danny, while the nurse was attending to me. Danny then handed her to me...she was perfect...so precious and so beautiful! Her eyes were wide-open, her skin so smooth. The love you have for your baby is instant! A truely awesome experience.