I was 12 days overdue on Thursday, 6/23, and went into my midwife's office for an NST and Membrane sweep. Everything was good, and they did the membrane sweep (hurt like a bitch) and scheduled me for an induction on Sunday afternoon if baby girl hadn't come by then. Had period-like cramping for a bit (3pm-4:30pm) that went away with some rest, so I decided we should go grocery shopping and get me walking around to try to induce labor.

Went to Walmart and walked around for 30 minutes looking at everything, and then went to dinner at Tin drum at 6 pm. That's when I noticed my cramping had come back. I cramped through the whole meal and decided, what the heck, let's time it. Went grocery shopping and as my husband and I timed them we realized they were coming at regular intervals (7-8 minutes apart). Got home and timed how long they lasted, and it was for about 30-40 seconds each. I got a bit excited thinking this might finally be it, but was sceptical because my pain wasn't as bad as I was expecting but kept timing. After a couple of hours of the cramping we finally decided that this was indeed labor. It continued through the night and they became closer and closer together. I was beginning to wear down and counting the minutes until my contractions were close enough to finally be admitted. At around 7 am it finally was time to go in.

Got admitted at 7:30 at 4 cm dialated and vomiting from the constant pain (still NOT quite as bad as I was expecting, but definitely not a cakewalk), and labored without assistance until 10:45 when I got Zofran, and an IV started because I was still throwing up every 30 minutes. Tried to relax the pain with hot water in the shower while waiting for them to prepare a birthing tub before being hooked up to the IV and realized that it wasn't helping so I asked for whatever non-epidural pain relief they could give me, which was phetinol. That worked for about an hour to dull down the pain and then it came back with a vengeance. I finally gave in and asked for an epidural after 16 hours of labor, being awake for 24 hours straight, and not getting any sleep the night before. Epidural hurt like a bitch to be put in because I'm really bad with needles but once it kicked in I FINALLY got some sleep and at 4 pm it was time to push.

After 3 long hours of pushing and 25 total hours of labor, Anastasia Dawn was finally born at 7:03 pm at a perfect, healthy 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. I had a first degree tear that required a couple stiches but other than that no complications.

I am a bit sad that I went against my original plan for an all natural birth, but I don't regret my decision to get an epidural because otherwise I would not have had the energy to push the baby out and possibly would have ended up getting a C-section.