One Big First Baby: The Cesarean Birth of 10-Pound Angelo John! by Shel Franco

I arrived home from my 41-week exam wondering if I’d ever meet my son. I tried to digest what my doctor had said: 1 cm dilated, partially effaced, another try at stripping membranes. The phone rang. My husband entered the room and said, “We need to get to the hospital. The doctor is concerned about some numbers, namely your blood pressure. They want to induce now.”

I was in shock. With no time to prepare for the induction, my head was spinning. At the hospital I was given an IV, a fetal monitor was strapped on and a Pitocin drip started. It felt like an eternity before my doctor came in to check dilation and break my water. I was at 4 cm. I got a shot of pain relief and relaxed a bit. After an hour, still no progress.

I asked for an epidural not long after, and then fell asleep. I woke up an hour later, dilation was complete and the nurses prepared me to push. I was not feeling the urge to push. I could feel the contractions, but they were not painful. “No progress,” my doctor kept saying. After two hours, my son had not even begun to descend into the birth canal. My doctor said a Cesarean was imminent.

There was no pain. Instead, I felt like I was being unzipped. All of a sudden my stomach felt loose and there was tugging and pulling. Then the whole room gasped. Angelo John (AJ) weighed 10 pounds, 6 ounces! It was unreal. Throughout the next two days, I was visited by hospital staff from all floors, coming to see my beautiful 10-pound baby. 

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