Nova Valor - May 10th birth story!
A little back story- I have a 3 year old son who was a csection because of him being breech. It was a planned csection at 39.2 weeks. With this pregnancy, I desperately wanted a VBAC and was told I was a good candidate for it. 
Since about 37 to 38 weeks I was dilated to 3 CM and hovering at 80% effaced. I was told I wasn't allowed to go past 41 weeks since I was aiming for a VBAC. At 40 weeks, they scheduled for me to be induced on May 10th when I would be 41.2 weeks.
The morning of the 10th I woke up at 6:15 AM to start getting ready to head to the hospital (due to be there at 7:15-7:30) when I was hit with the hardest tightening feeling in my lower belly which I had never felt before. I decided to take a bath to get ready and see if it would help the pain go away. Not too long into the bath (with hot water), I felt that lower belly pain and an intense tightening in my hips/thighs. The hot water helped some but not a whole lot. I finished my bath and waited out for the contractions to space a bit before trying to get out of the tub. By this point, they're maybe about 5 minutes apart, and I'm having to lean on the bed on my toes to help alleviate the pain some. I threw on a dress since I couldn't fathom the idea of putting on pants. We headed to the hospital for my induction and I'm having a hard time talking through my contractions, and sitting still was very painful. The contractions were mostly in my lower back and thighs and in my front lower belly area.
When we got to the hospital, we went to sign in and be taken to our room. The receptionist was taken aback by me having contractions almost back to back, and called for the nurse to come get us and told her that I was in labor. We walked back to the room (I declined the wheelchair), got set up and they started monitoring me. My contractions were steadily 3 minutes apart! Because of my previous csection, I had to be continuously monitored and wasn't allowed to move around much, which surprisingly didn't worry me too much since moving made things even more painful. By 8 AM, I was fully monitored and laboring in my room. The original plan was for my doctor to come by and break my water and see if contractions picked up on their own before introducing pitocin, but since labor started that morning they let me labor on my own for a while.
Contractions were fairly painful but I was able to breathe through them pretty successfully. The 3 minutes between each contraction felt like an eternity of rest, which was greatly appreciated. At one point I got up to go use the bathroom and my contractions quickly went from 3 minutes apart, to 2 minutes, to 1 minute it felt like. I had to rest on the toilet for a while for them to pass until I felt comfortable getting back up to the bed. While on the toilet though, we're fairly certain my water broke since my peeing sounded more like a flooding gush rather than normal.
Come 10 AM, I finally felt like I couldn't quite hang anymore through the contractions and asked a nurse about an epidural. She administered more fluids to me and checked me before putting in the request for it, and I was at 6 CM! She was surprised as much as we were. By 10:30, an anesthesiologist was in the room and by 11 I had the epidural fully in and taking effect. The epidural was done really well too, I could still feel my legs even if they were tingly and move them and I could still feel the tightening and the urge/feeling to push just no pain. I was able to nap some (labor will wear you out faster than you can imagine once the pain is eased) and my husband napped some too.
My doctor came in around 11:30/12 to see about breaking my water. She checked me and I was at 10 CM! Everyone was pretty shocked. We let contractions keep doing their thing until I felt more of an urge to push (about 30 more minutes) and then I started doing practice pushes. We probably did practice pushes for about 20 minutes and then they set me up for actual pushing. About 30 minutes of full on pushing with each contraction (which are still 3 minutes apart) and our little girl Nova Valor was born! She was 8 pounds 11 ounces and 20" long, born at 1:49 PM. I had a couple of very minor tears which they sutured. The back labor was well worth it after seeing that little girl's face. Her head was also facing more into my right hip as well.
Her birth went from a planned VBAC induction became a very intervention free VBAC like I initially wanted, and I couldn't have done it without my amazing husband and the great support from my doctor and best friend who was there with us the whole time. :D
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