Preston's Story

It was Monday July 24^th, 2006 at 8:30 a.m., I was nine months and four days pregnant. When I woke up, something was different than from any other morning.  I was in labor. I had been having random contractions for at least the last month or so, but these were different. I could set the clock by them. They were coming every 10-15 minutes. I lay in bed for an hour to be sure. Then I rose out of bed and called my fiancé, Jason to let him know that he needed to come home from work. I called the Labor and Deliver Ward at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center, the nurse on the other end of the phone confirmed that I was in the first stages of labor. She instructed me to go about my day as usual, and to come in to the hospital when my contractions were three to five minutes apart. After my labor was confirmed I called my daughter Ayanna’s babysitter to let her know that today was indeed the day and that Ayanna was definitely coming over. I called my mother, Kathy who works just down the hill from the hospital. Now that all the appropriate arrangements have been made, it was a waiting game.

  I decided I didn’t want to wait around the house all day for the labor to progress. So I talked with Jason, and we decided to do our bridal registry while we were waiting. So, I took a shower, got ready, and we headed off to Macy’s. We were walking through all the departments deciding what theme we wanted each room to be. Having to stop what seemed like every minute, so I could have a contraction. Finally, around 2:30 p.m. I told Jason that I thought it was time to head to the hospital. So we finished up our registry, took Ayanna to the sitters, called our parents, and were on our way to have our second child.

  When we arrived at the hospital, we walked through the automatic double doors.  We rounded the information and admitting desks, and headed for the elevator that would take us to the Labor and Delivery Ward. Walking up to the nurses’ station, where they were expecting us, they quickly weighed me in and got me hooked up on all the appropriate monitors. After careful monitoring they decided to admit at 4:00 p.m. Jason made all the other phone calls to Jason’s siblings, my siblings, and the child’s God parents. After an hour or so my tiny room was filled with family and friends anticipating the arrival our little bundle of joy. After a couple hours of no real progress, most everybody had left except for Jason and my mother, Kathy. Then all the excitement happened. It was around 12 midnight, and the midwife came in and checked my progress. Then out of the blue she tells me that it is time to push. Meanwhile my mother and Jason are falling asleep on the, what looks like an oversized window sill with padding. So as I am pushing I am also waking my mother and Jason up by screaming “IT’S TIME!!!!! I’M PUSHING.”

  The pain was unbelievable I had never felt anything like this. I was trying to concentrate, it was impossible. All I could think about was how much this hurt and that there was no way I was going to be able to do this for an hour. Then the midwife says “Ok, here comes another contraction, get ready to push.” Push, I couldn’t push I had barely caught my breath from the last push. So I took all I had left in me and pushed, and at 12:19 a.m. weighing in at 7 lbs. 8 oz. and 18 in. long, we welcomed Preston Thomas Aponte into our family.