I love telling our birth story because I had been so so scared. I read all of these different experiences (all terrifying to me) and I didn't want to go through with it. I never planned on having children so everything from vaginal tearing to adult diapers sounded absolutely repulsive. Now, having gone through it (with no tearing or adult diapers!), I have a deep respect for my body.

I went in to preterm labor at 31 weeks. I spent 4 days in the hospital on magnesium sulfate. I wasn't allowed to get out of bed except to go pee and then I needed help. I had to get a round of steroids just in case. I was miserable but tried to stay positive. I was sent home on 5 weeks of light bed rest. My mucus plug came out a few days after the bed rest period was over but my little one wouldn't come for another 3 weeks.

I wanted a natural birth but at my 37 week check up, my blood pressure had gone up. Several doctor's visits and tons of blood work, non-stress tests, ultrasounds, and a 24 hour urine collection, everything came back normal so I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension. I was scheduled to be induced one week before my delivery date. I was devastated! I didn't want pitocin and if the induction didn't work, I didn't want an emergency c-section. I started eating foods that they say could put you in to labor, I was making unnecessary trips up and down the stairs, and doing yoga twice a day.

The day before my scheduled induction, I cleaned the house from top to bottom. At the end of the day, I decided to treat myself to a nice bath and to polish my toenails. I was still in my bath towel when I started prepping my toes. I had to pee. When I stood up from the toilet, I heard a splash on to the floor. I thought it was more pee but it was clear and had no smell. I called the hospital and the midwife told me to come in (I had GBS so I wasn't allowed to labor at home because they needed to start penicillin). They ran tests to make sure my water had broken. It had. I was only 1 cm dilated at 10:30pm. The doctor said she wanted to start pitocin at 3am to move things along. I was hesitant but she assured me that since I was already in labor it wouldn't be the same as being induced with it.

They ended up starting the pitocin at 3:30am. I slept as well as I could with nurses in and out through the night. I finally started feeling my contractions at 9:30am. The nurse gave me a birthing ball which helped a little, but I felt like I needed to walk. We were in the hall maybe 5 minutes when blood started gushing down my leg. The pain was excruciating. I got back to the room and sat down on the birthing ball. Not knowing how long I had left, I didn't think I could manage the pain so I asked for dilautid. When that did nothing to help, the nurse called in the midwife. She checked my cervix and asked how 10 cm sounded to me. It was time to push! After half an hour of pushing, Asher Fox was born at 10:38am.

I passed an orange-sized blood clot when they got me up to use the bathroom before I was moved to recovery but that was the only traumatic event! Lol