Sebastian Arcadia Fleming-Garcia

Christmas morning 4:35 am we weren't running to the Christmas Tree to see what Santa brought. Susan was sitting in bed thinking "was that my water that just broke?" Well we thought it was and Susan had a few contractions. I was kind of hoping for a Christmas baby for the only reason that the week prior my friend Chris kept calling and telling me celebrity birthdays for the day. And I was going to call him and ask "who's birthday is on the 25th?" ...But nothing happened that day. She had a few contractions in the night but spaced out. So we went to bed that night. We woke up on the 26th and a few contractions. We had an appointment with the nurse midwife that we went into. By the time we got to the appointment the contractions were more frequent. The nurse mid wife said that the water was actually not broken. So they sent us home. When we got home the contractions started heating up. They were coming closer and closer together. By about 5pm I was sure that we were going in that night. about six o'clock Susan's father was timing her contractions. I asked him what the interval has been? He told something to the effect 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes and 4minutes. "WE ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW!!" was my response. Our Doula was on the way and met us at the house and we left for the hospital. The Doula was the best money ever spent! She was so good with calming Susan and directing everyone to help her out. When we got set up in our birth room the contractions started really getting harder. We got her in the shower and that seemed to help, for a little while. We were playing Samba music for Susan and she was dancing Samba in the shower. Sebastian has already started to learn how to dance. It was hard to get her out of the shower but we did and got her on the bed. She was having a hard labor at this point. I was on my tippy toes and bent over pushing the palm of my hands into the small of her back pushing with all of my strength. She kept yelling push me harder push me harder! Well it turns out that she was having a posterior labor. Which is the hardest most painful labor you can have. (Still no drugs or epidural) At this point we had the Doula Noreen both of Susan's parents pushing on the small of her back (while learning a lot of neat new Spanish words) Transition was coming on fast. She was at 6 cent. when we started to fill up the birthing tub. We got her in the tub and she started to relax a little and labored in there for a while. Her water finally broke in the water, however there was merconium present. Which means the baby had a bowl movement. So for safety reasons we has to pull Susan from the tub. Which was not easy to do. At this point it was 10 cent. ! What noises came out of her. It was very frightening for me. She completely left her body and turned into a pushing machine. She kept saying how painful it was and I tried to console her by saying "I know I know." and her response... YOU TRY TO SHOVE A WATER MELLON OUT OF YOUR @#&!!! Apparently I didn't know. She had been doing hard pushing for an hour and a half. It got to the point were the mid-wife wanted to do an episiotomy. So I asked her if the baby was OK and if there was any danger to mom. She said not at this point. I replied please do not cut her then if it is not necessary. So she held off. two more pushes and the baby still has not come out. She wanted to cut her again. Susan said if you have to do it. I asked again. Is there any danger present. So she held off. two more pushes went by and she said if it is not out in this push I will insist on the episiotomy. That push came and gone. No baby. I said nothing, however she did not make the cut. And wow! Susan dug in and one, two, three breaths out came baby! The head came out and he was looking around not making noise. I will have to admit that part was creepy. Finally he came out I looked down and yelled IT'S Sebastian!!! They put him on her chest and swept him over to the pediatrician. What an amazing event. I cannot imagine our ancestors who did this every year for 10-13 years. He was 7lb 12oz 19 3/4 "