Introducing Lori Darling aka "Lucky Lori"

On Wednesday May 18th, 2011, a day and a morning after Lori’s due date, I woke up having small contractions. The first was at 4:48am, each were 8 to 10 minutes apart. The apartment was quiet, I put water on the stove for coffee and sat down to watch the news and track the contractions. An hour passed so I thought it would be safe to say I was going into labor. At this time they still weren’t too bad, just obvious contractions. So I opened our room door to let Vic know. He had just gotten out of the shower and was getting ready for work. I still didn’t think they were hard enough so I casually told him that I’d been having contractions for about an hour and maybe he should stay home. He said he was going to get some gas in his truck then call me from the gas station to see how it was going. He left and a few minutes later, I called him. All this time I was still writing down my contractions which were becoming stronger each time. Before talking to me on the phone he was already on his way back home. He got home and I called my Doctors office. They just said, yep go ahead and come into triage and they will notify our Dr. I came out and told Vic and my Mom (by that time she was awake too) that we needed to get ready and go to triage, lucky for them I made them coffee already haha. Vic just said, ok go ahead and take a nice long shower and that he would call Nana Tula to pick up Vayda. Knowing how long labor typically can take, we wanted to take it easy and take our time.

Notice towards the end I was scribbling...I'm not sure why I was still writing the times lol.


Keep in mind, with Vayda my water broke first then I was in labor for about 10 hours. I felt my contractions up until I was about 4/5 cm and got the epidural, so my sense of how hard or close my contractions are at this point and how close I am to hard labor was not clear to us.

By this time I had taken a shower and had 7/8 contractions, just in the shower! I got out, Vayda was eating cereal all ready to go and her Nana Tula was here ready to take her as well (BTW when I came back out the smell of the coffee made me nauseous, if that’s not a sign I don’t know what is haha). I knew we had to speed it up by now. My contractions were hard enough that I had to stop what I was doing and take deep breaths. I knew they were hard but I defiantly didn’t think this was it. Vic left to put the car seat in Tula’s car and the second he left my water broke! Thankfully it was in the toilet but the second that happened my contractions were awful, screaming awful lol. My mom came in and held me then Vic did as well. It was time to get on the road!

Vic, my mom and I finally got out of the door and headed down to the truck. By this time the contractions were every other minute or so. Poor Vic had to lift me into the back seat of the truck, just the way I landed on my side was how I stayed, I could not sit on my butt. We were on our way and I kept telling Vic that I either needed to go to the bathroom or the baby was coming. It was raining and it was traffic hour, I knew the freeway was going to be awful. I had another bad contraction and screamed that I needed to go back home or he needed to find a bathroom. If he hadn’t made a move quick we were seconds from being on the freeway. He pulled over and saw an ambulance; he tried waving them down but missed them by a second. He jumped back in the truck and turned around back towards the house. I remember saying over and over that I wanted to go to the bathroom, from my point of view I saw the Starbucks sign, I was going to verbalize and say just go there but I couldn’t even talk by that time (I wanted a Starbucks baby I guess haha). By this time my mom was calling 911. In the back of my head I was worried it was just bad labor pains and I was going to be SO embarrassed if the ambulance came just for bad contractions, but I couldn’t even say that because I was in so much pain. We got to the apartment and I had tunnel vision, I just wanted to get back home, don’t ask me what my plan was but I just knew I was in pain. As I walked through the front gate I had another bad contraction, I screamed, Vic held me…and all of a sudden I screamed, “That’s her head! Oh my god her head is coming out!”. Vic threw off his jacket and laid it down, at the same time he and my mom laid me down and I heard the fire truck sirens. The moment I heard the sirens I knew for some reason it was going to be ok. My mom ran back to the gate to wave them in and Vic was ready to catch the baby. Her head was out and the firemen ran in with their blankets and pads and had me deliver the baby. With 2 pushes she was out! The fireman called the time of birth, 7:37am. All this took place by our apartment recycle bins and mail boxes, lol yup, not the most glamorous place to give birth. Thank goodness only one neighbor came out and she went down and out of the entrance behind where the action was. I was so relieved to have Lori come out but I didn’t hear her cry, subconsciously I think I knew not to look up. I just looked at Vic and kept saying I can’t hear her cry. He just said it’s ok, she’s ok. I saw his eyes water, then I heard that perfect little cry. Not till later did he tell me that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck four times. Poor Vic had to see them cut the cord and slowly unwrap the cord around her neck. He stayed so strong and told my mom to stay by the door to wave down the ambulance so she didn’t have to see that and kept me calm as well. Not too much later the paramedics ran in, swooped Lori and I up onto the stretcher and pushed us into the ambulance (she was laying on my chest in a big wool blanket). By that time I paused and asked if someone could take a picture haha. I had her on my chest and I guess I was feeling good. One of the firemen took out his phone, snapped a few shots and text them to Vic. From then on I was able to breathe again. They said her vitals were good as were mine and we were headed to the hospital. She even breastfed in the ambulance! Since all that passed we ended up just going to Sharp Chula Vista which is much closer than our Hospital (Sharp Mary Birch). I have to say we were a little disappointed that we weren’t at Mary Birch, but it ended up only being 24hours there so all was well.

This space is now dubbed "Lori Lane" or the "OR" ;)

Once we got to the hospital they cleaned both Lori and I up. Lori weighed in at 6lbs 3oz and 19 inches long and healthy as can be :). Vic’s Aunt (Vayda’s Nana Tula) and his Mom didn’t even get back home before they got the call from Vic that Lori was born. Apparently they both got emotional and were shocked in the car by what happened. Vayda in the backseat of the car told them both to “Calm down” haha silly girl. So they turned around, not even making it home first and came to the hospital. Most, if not all of the family got to come meet Lori in the Labor room, including my Dad who drove down from LA. By the time our room was ready I had already gone to the restroom by myself so I guess they figured I was ok to walk. So we all walked to the room, haha yup, I walked there! Even though I wanted the epidural SO bad since the first contraction after my water broke at home, I was shocked about how nice it was that I did not have to come off of the meds at the hospital. I felt great and was ready for visitors =P. Whenever a new visitor would come by in the hospital Vayda was too cute and would point to her little sister with both hands, introducing Lori as “my new baby, my baby is here”.


After the adventure and surprises there are a million "what ifs" we can say (i.e. what if we went on the freeway or if I had made it to the bathroom), God was def looking out for us and more importantly Lori. She is truly a blessing and Lucky Lori.

Vayda's new BFF

Since Lori was born she has been a perfect little baby. She is so calm and doesn’t mind the occasional poke from her big sister lol. How is Vayda doing? Well she is defiantly loving to her little sister, kisses and hugs are always there. She has acted out for attention and is defiantly testing Vic and I with what she can get away with. Hopefully that goes away sooner than later (pray for patience for us ;).

Thank you Vic & Mom for being there for me during that crazy, scary, exciting time and in the end, an adventure we will talk about forever. Mom, I enjoyed the time we shared waiting for Lori to arrive and the help you gave us, both before and after her arrival. Vic, you will never know how much I appreciate your love and support. You really are the best doula I could ask for lol. And now you can even say you’ve delivered one of our babies :). Thank you to everyone else as well, whether family or friends, you have all been there for our little family one way or another, thank you! We’re hanging on tight; I think this adventure is just getting started.