Clean Me Up Already...
Originally uploaded by erickpineda527.

Apparently, while I dozed off Dr. Dukes gave El some Pitocin to further encourage the final stages of labor and by 12:30 it was game time. Dr. Dukes started her off with some light pushing to get her going, but it took nearly three hours to finally get somewhere
interesting - the crowning of Isa's head. All I could see was some hair from her little head. Because if the epidural, though, El had a hard time feeling Isa moving down and visualizing what she had to do to get the job done so a mirror was brought in. This helped eventually and once she saw the top of Isa's head she was a woman on a mission. A half hour of focused pushing and Isa slid out - conehead and all.

Like I said earlier, I didn't know what to expect and thought I'd hang by El's upper torso for moral support. This all changed as Dr. Dukes encouraged me to see the crowning of Isa's head. There was no weird smells. There was no gore and blood everywhere. All I saw was my little girl trying to get out and that was encouragement enough to keep me cheerleading for El to keep going.