Story by Chi
We had been trying for a boy for so long. We already had two beautiful girls but we needed a boy. Maybe because we were trying so hard, I didn’t even notice I had gotten pregnant until about three months into my pregnancy after I took a test. And the only reason I took a test was that I kept missing my period and missing my period is something that is unusual for me, so I decided to go to the hospital to confirm my suspicions.
My third pregnancy was quite different from my two previous pregnancies because I showed no symptoms of pregnancy at all, no nausea, morning sickness, weight gain, nothing at all. I felt normal like I wasn’t even pregnant at all, it was really confusing for me. My husband was really elated when he got the news– you’d think it was my first pregnancy!
When I was about 35 weeks into the pregnancy, I was told by the doctor that my baby was breech, and the possibility of me having a normal delivery was slim if my baby doesn’t assume a cephalic position before my due date.
I was devastated. I didn’t want to go through a cesarean section because the majority of the stories I heard about women who had them, weren’t really good ones. After my doctor unsuccessfully tried to turn him, I decided to go to a massage therapist that specializes in this kind of thing. I went for a massage once a week from that very week till my delivery week.
About two weeks to my estimated due date (EDD), I started feeling very uneasy, going to the bathroom almost nonstop throughout the entire morning. When afternoon came around, I had gotten enough and I decided to go to the hospital to see my Ob Gyn. The funny thing was after getting to the hospital the uneasiness stopped, I felt strangely relaxed and I decided it was time to go back home.
However, the midwife on duty asked me to stay and actually see my doctor first before I go home. After my doctor saw me, he was in shock, he said I was 8cm dilated and asked if I wasn’t feeling the labor pain, I actually wasn’t, I felt normal. So he asked me to wait a bit for him while he went to check on another patient. All of a sudden I had the urge to push. Before I could gather the strength to push, I felt the head of my baby slipping out. I yelled at the top of my lungs, and then my doctor and some nurses rushed to my bedside. Before they could get to me, my baby had already pushed himself out. How? I don’t really know. Even my doctor had no explanation.
My baby looked so beautiful and tiny, that some people even thought he was a girl. This was the only pregnancy I had that I felt not even an ounce of labor pain, so I decided to name my baby boy Tender because of the experience he brought me.