Birth Story

Fun fact...

I had no idea I was in labor the day I gave birth.

I was having contractions the night before every 2-7 minutes. At my hospital, they say not to come in unless they are ALL 5 minutes apart and last at least 60 seconds each. Since some of them were 2 minutes and some were 30 seconds, we decided to go to bed. After all, I had an MFM appointment to check my fluid levels one more time before induction on Monday.

I was able to sleep through the night no problem and when I woke up on Friday, I still was having contractions. Since we had the appointment set for 9am and my doctor's office doesn't open until then, I decided to just go to the appointment and let them know. My mother-in-law told us to make sure to take our hospital bags and I told her that I was NOT having a baby that day! I couldn't understand why she was so insistent, but I made sure that we grabbed them anyways.

By the time we got to the hospital my contractions were pretty regular. They were uncomfortable, definitely, but I could still talk and walk through them so I certainly couldn't have been in labor, right? I mean, the nurses at the hospital in town told me that when I was in "true labor" I would definitely know it, feel tightening in my stomach, and not be able to walk or talk through the contractions. None of this applied to me so I was sure it was just my body doing it's thing and would stop after a while like it had been.

When we got to the appointment, I mentioned to the nurse that I was having pretty regular contractions and they were uncomfortable. She hooked me up to the monitor and verified that they were happening every 4 minutes and that the baby looked great. We checked my fluid levels and they were good too. The MFM came by, looked at my NST and AFI and asked if I wanted to be checked for progress. I told him that I would appreciate that so he checked and told me that I was already dilated 5 cm and was still 100% effaced! They had me go over to labor and delivery to be admitted to see what they were going to do.

By the time we were admitted around 11-11:30am the back labor had started to kick in. I was pretty uncomfortable, but it wasn't unbearable either. Some nurses came in to do my vitals and ask a ton of questions and the anesthesiologist came in to place my IV and told me that he was going to call my OB to get me an epidural ASAP.

 Once the doctor came in, we asked if there was any possibility that we would be sent home and the answer was a resounding no! My husband was so excited that he threw his hands in the air and said, "YES!"

They got the OK to do the epidural and I no longer felt the contractions. My OB was on his way so we were waiting on him to come check me out.

When my OB arrived, he checked me and said that I was 7cm and that he was going to break my water. It took a few tries, but he finally did. By 4pm I was fully dilated and they said I could start pushing whenever I wanted. They had just given me more pain medication and I couldn't feel any pressure so I said I wanted to wait so I could tell when and how to push.

At 4:30pm I started pushing. The baby's head was still a little high so I had to push a while to get it more engaged. I pushed for a total of 2 hours and 10 minutes and our little boy arrived!

Since he was early at 36 weeks 5 days, they had the NICU team standing by to check him out. I was able to hold him briefly after they looked over him and so was my husband, but they had to take him to the nursery to make sure that he was breathing OK. I let my in-laws in the room while he was being checked out so they could see him since it would be a while before he was brought back to us.

About 2 hours later they brought our little man back to us and said he was healthy and we could keep him with us!