Dear Jessica and the lovely, cool kula ladies,

I'm finally sending you greetings from Mommyville! Little Zachary Julian arrived three days early on December 22, 2004 (I guess he didn't want to take on the burden of being the new Messiah!) He weighed in at 8 lbs. and 20" long. Oh boy, big boy. Talk about being caught by surprise. His arrival was certainly not expected (I was sure he'd be late.) Thanks to your lovely classes, I was both physically and mentally flexible for the unexpected events.

After class on Tuesday Dec. 21, I went about my normal day. At around 8:30 pm our doula came over for a last meeting to finalize our birthing plans and work on pain management techniques with my husband Paul and myself. At around 9:30, I had really intense gas pain and excused myself to go to the bathroom. I saw a bit of bloody show but was told that was common for even up to 2 weeks before birth. All of us were sure that it was nothing more than gas but it kept coming back every three minutes.

Duh? I was in denial that I was having contractions because it didn't feel at all like what I was expecting. I finally called the doctor at 10:30pm and she confirmed that I was going to have a baby soon!

Long story short--I obviously skipped pre and early and went straight into active labor! We were sooo not ready and didn't get to the hospital until 1:15 am and I was 4 cm dilated. Our doula met us there at 2 am and the contractions came consistently every 3-4 minutes.

By 5:30 am, my upper thighs were so sore, I was nearly at 8 cm and I had a panic attack that I wouldn't be able to handle the bearing down pain (not knowing what it would be like) and asked for the epidural. Then everything slowed way down and I was completely numb when it came time to push.

Finally, my water broke around 11:45 am. At 12:30 pm my Doctor arrived and after some more unplanned events (internal monitoring, threat of cesarian, decision to use suction and episiotomy) our bouncing baby boy made his dramatic entrance into the world!!! Did I say long story short?! A big thank you to all of our fabulous kula. I miss you and wish you all a very Happy New Year and safe voyages ahead!

Love, Amy Tolsky