3 weeks old!

My due date was 9/5. My hubby and I took our maternity pictures when I was 37w3d on Wed 8/17. I had started having brown discharge the afternoon before. I figured it was my mucus plug - had doc appt scheduled for Thurs am so wasn't too worried. After the maternity pics, the discharge changed to pink then to watery red and was a lot more abundant than usual. Called my doc and he said it was most likely mucus plug. Had a doc appt in the morning so not too concerned about it. Went to bed at 10 p.m. Had very intense cramping. Got up at 10:40 to go check things out bc I felt very wet down there. As soon as I walked into the bathroom I dropped my shorts and my underwear/panty liner/shorts were soaked through as well as the fluid still leaking down my leg. Called my doc and he said head to the hospital. They checked me at arrival and I was 2 cm dilated. They verified that it was indeed my water that broke, then wheeled me to a room! Got an epidural shortly after (contractions suck!) Made it to 4 cm and then stalled. Started pitocin around 7 am. to get things moving along. Still dilating very slowly - about 1 cm every 2 hours. Nurses had me turn over every 30 min in different positions to encourage baby to move down. Finally at 6 pm I was 10 cm and started pushing. The nurses had me stop using the pain pump beforehand so that I would be able to feel when I was having a contraction so I could push. Still wasn't painful however - just slightly uncomfortable. Baby Adaline arrived at 6:49 p.m. - she was 6 lbs 9 oz and beautiful!

I am a FTM and stalked the boards for birth stories to try and prepare me. Overall I will say that I wasn't aware that the contractions I had were actually contractions because they were different from what everyone described. Felt like very intense period cramps. Everything I had read said that it was a tightening feeling in your stomach - not my case at all. Another thing is that the epidural was not bad at all - the cervical check I had when I got to the hospital was way worse than the epidural!

Any questions you have about my labor and delivery or postpartum, please ask!

Below is a shot from our maternity shoot, which I say sent me into labor! The other is baby Adaline at her newborn shoot at 7 days new. ❤