Broken Waters: 2007

There's no joking around with Crispy Spicy Catfish Curry (Pla Duk Tod Krob Phat Phed). It's not on the menu at our favorite Thai hangout, Silom Plaza, but you can special request it. Thin slivers of catfish fried to perfection, bathed in an oily red curry paste of chilies, coriander, lemongrass, then topped with crispy translucent basil...hmmmmm!

Give these spicy morsels to a 38 week+ pregnant woman on a hot summer night and I guarantee it will make her water break. That's exactly what happened on the night of July 2nd while dining out with Cousin Mai (in town for her bachelorette weekend), sister C-dot, and Chris. What at first appeared as a "typical Michelle chilli moment", quickly cleared up to be the first sign of Baby Luna's imminent arrival.

10 pm, we arrived home, but contractions had not begun. Dr. Roger Yang confirmed that going to the hospital was not yet necessary. So, we posted up watching Saturday Night Live with Will Ferrell (mad props to BVS-F for the SNL hook-up). Every pre-laboring woman should watch the sketch with the mucafied, moustached, man-baby Will Ferrell demanding a smoke after emerging from his mother's womb. Thank you SNL!

At 1 AM, we hit the sack so that I could save energy for the unexpected.

By 5:20 AM, I got hit with what I thought was going to be the worse diarrhea in the history of mankind. I held onto my body pillow for dear life and questioned, "Is this a contraction, or is this Pla Duk Revenge? It took another round until I was convinced that contractions...feel like the shits!

Chessie, our birth assistant and friend, arrived on the scene shortly thereafter with every flavor of Odwalla fruit shakes and juices to make a Michoacana fruit popsicle shop envious. By 7:30 AM I was groaning like a beached walrus and the contractions were sporadic and irregular. Chessie kept me hydrated, massaged me, and encouraged me to change positions and by 8:30 AM I was already feeling the urge to bear down and push.

At this point, Chessie noticed some dark green fluids. And after a call to Dr. Iskander's office, everyone thought it best to make our way to the hospital. In hindsight, if it wasn't for the meconium (green slime-evidence of baby poop = bad for baby) I'd probably have had a home birth.

We arrived at the hospital by 9:30 AM and left the car running with the little homie valet attendant (much to be discussed about him later). Our nurse, Princess, performed a cervical exam to see how dialated I was. Wide-eyed, she turned to Chris, said I was completely dialated, and nervously administered a heplock IV for my dehydration and wheeled me into the delivery room.

We were all waiting for the Dr. to arrive... a neo-natal respiratory team, Princess, Chessie, Chris, myself, and unborn baby. With every contraction, I tried my best to take shallow breaths and not push. What seemed like days, was in fact a good 30 minutes, when Dr. Ray Iskander casually strolled in, sprayed some cool water on my perineum, while jokingly saying he was baptizing the baby, told me to push 3 times, and there she was...little Luna Lang Coyle, born 10:50 AM on Tuesday, July 3. Truly, the happiest day of our lives!

*Delivering a 50 million ton bomb to restart the sun is a nice segue into giving birth ;) kudos & congrats to costume designer Suttirat Larlarb