So I'm admitted Thursday evening to be induced due to high blood pressure close to 38 weeks. I had my "final meal" around 4 pm that Thursday. I reminisced on that meal for the reminder of my hospital stay lol. That same evening the chipper doctor comes in to check my cervix and see what we're working with. Now I'd had no previous cervix checks before, so I didn't know what I was in for.....DEAR LORDT. When that petite little spawn of Satan stuck her fingers halfway up my throat I swear I saw Jesus himself. My husband kept me from flinging myself off the bed and out the 3 story window. I felt light headed and dizzy for a good 30 minutes after the first check, and I questioned why on earth I ever slept with my husband. 

So they discover I'm only dilated a 1, so they insert the cervidel into my cervix to speed up the process. Painful, but I knew what to expect this go around. Cervidel - 0 Me - 1. I slept with it in overnight and awakened to find I hadn't dilated even a smidgen. Beginning to feel like Rachel Greene here. 

It's Friday now, and next up to try and get the party started down there was the infamous folley bulb. Now I may have thought the cervix checks would be the death of me, but NAH BRAH. This medieval contraption left me begging for mercy. It was a fast acting bulb, so took no more than a hour the nurse said. Inserting the balloon thing into my cervix seemed to take forever and hurt like hell, but once it was inside me it hurt even worse! It was like the worst period pains of my life times 1,000. No breaks, no let ups. Just straight pain. They have an IV bag tied to the end of the bulb that is hanging out of me and onto the edge of the bed. When it's done dilating me, it's supposed to fall out. What the eff is that. My husband was mortified. I was too busy writhing in pain on my death bed. It's only 2 min in and I'm begging for relief. Screw the au natural birth id longed for. This was unbearable. Nurse went to retrieve some drugs for my IV, but by the time she returned the bulb had done its job and fallen out. This thing was only in me for 5 min tops, and it was hands down the worst part of my birthing experience. It took me from a 1 to a 4 in under 5 minutes. 

After the Folley Bulb torture device, I started having contractions on my own that were about 2 min apart. So doc held off on the Pitocin. After a couple of hours of off and on contractions, they decided to start the Pitocin anyway since I wasn't progressing. It honestly wasn't bad for me at all......those damn cervix checks though 😆 I was up playing cards until the last dose of Pitocin was administered. Then the pain kicked in. Luckily it was around 1 am on Saturday morning, so all of my family had gone home for the night. I awakened the hubs to rub my back because the pain was so intense. With each contraction, it felt like Baby was going to fall out of my butt. The pressure down there was

immensely painful. At this point I'd been in active labor for hours and hadn't eaten in 2 days. I'm exhausted and want nothing more than to sleep, which was so not possible with these butt wrenching contractions. I decide on the epidural simply because my body was so done. I needed the rest if I was ever gonna push this baby out. It took almost an hour for the epidural person to arrive, so in the mean time the nurse gave me some IV drugs that made me feel drunker than Snookie the first night in Jersey Shore. It was AWESOME. 

Epidural lady arrives, yes! I'm so pumped about this needle y'all. I'm trying my best to be still as she's sticking in it, but the contractions don't make it easy. She gets the thing in the first try, but ALAS! The catheter is apparently in a blood vessel, which is a no go. Damnit to hell. So she tries again in a diff spot.

Another numbing shot before the big needle. This incompetent woman proceeds to try 4 MORE TIMES TO GET THE EPIDURAL IN.

Nothing. She finally calls in the other dr who puts it in successfully on the first try. So yes, it took 5 tries to get that bad boy in me. My back is still bruised. I don't even remember the rest of that night as I drifted off to a much needed sleep. 

It's now about 7 am on Saturday morning, and I'm awake and starving. I sneak a few crackers my mom had brought and proceeded to throw them up a few min later as the contractions got worse. By 10:30 am I'm feeling the overwhelming urge to push. I was still mostly numb from the epidural, but still had some feeling down there. Dr wanted me to not add an any doses to my epi so I could feel enough to push - sigh. Well at this point I swear baby's head is bearing down into my hip bone. I swear I'm about to rip in half. Apparently there's an emergency on the floor and there's no one to deliver me at the moment. So here I am, ready to push, and can't. WHAT. THE. HECK. 30 minutes later and I'm still dying, I tell my hubby to go get the nurse because I'm about to push this baby out with or without their assistance. She comes in and wants to check my cervix, sticks her hand in there and says "Oh! His head is right there. It's time to push!" Well no sh!t Sherlock. The labor and delivery team arrive shortly after, and after about 10-15 min of pushing, our bundle was born. The hardest part of pushing was trying to breathe in between pushes. But it wasn't bad at all thanks to the epidural! 

So that's my birth story. As soon as I popped that baby out, I immediately asked the nurses when I could eat. Hubs already had a chicken biscuit on standby, and he proceeded to feed it to me as i held our new little one. Kodak moment for sure 👍🏼