My Birthing Story: Nicole Hernandez-de los Angeles

Nicole Hernandez-de los Angeles, 31 years old
Model and consultant designer
Wife to Jaime, mom to Alonzo, 1 year old

SP: Tell us your birthing story.
Nicole: When I was pregnant, I never really had a problem sleeping, but on one particular night, out of my entire pregnancy, I didn’t know why, but I slept sitting down, propped up on pillows. At 6:30 am, I thought I was dreaming that I either swam or peed on the bed, so I jolted forward, surprised, and my husband woke up, too. Immediately, by instinct, I jumped out of the bed, walked to the bathroom, went into the toilet, and then my water burst.

When my husband saw me, he panicked. He was the one who was nervous. I told him, “Just relax, call the driver to come to work early.” The night before, our dog Pablo slept with us on the bed and I guess he got startled, too, so he started getting angst-y and needed to go out to poo. So what my husband Jay did was make Pablo poo on a piece of newspaper, but he missed catching it, so he ended up cleaning the dog’s poo. He was so harassed. All this time I was in the bathroom, relaxed, waiting for my water to gush out.

When all the water had come out, I stood up so calmly and took a leisurely shower. At this moment my husband enters the bathroom saying “What are you doing??!” so I got out of the shower and blow-dried my hair. I didn’t have any contractions -- or maybe I just didn’t feel it because my tolerance for pain is high. I did my skin regimen, put on some blush, lined my brows, because my husband might want to take videos or photos of me. I wanted to be prepared (laughs). It may sound vain, but hey, it was 6:30 in the morning, the driver wasn’t there yet, and I wasn’t gonna give birth on the spot, so I relaxed. Doing all this was very therapeutic for me. I was excited and nervous, so I knew I had to keep myself busy with something, which, in this case, was to put on make-up. There was no point in stressing out.

When we got to Asian Hospital, they were offering a wheelchair, but I said no, I’ll just walk. At this point I was only 1 cm dilated, so I asked my doctor (who is also my Tita) if I could still eat. I ate a heavy breakfast at 8 am, and at 10 am they did a scan. Then they had to induce me already because my bag was ruptured and I was more prone to infection. That’s when I felt the contraction.