At 39 week checkup I asked for a membrane stretch and sweep to be performed, I was found to be 1 cm and still pretty thick. Unfortunately the stretch and sweep did nothing but give me false hope for labor to begin, which wasn't the case.

Come to 40weeks and 3 days and I have another checkup. It's a different midwife from the same obgyn and she checks and sweeps me and to my surprise I'm a solid 3, 80% effaced and thinning out perfectly. She claims that I won't make it to the weekend (my appointment being Wednesday). I return home and start bouncing on the yoga ball, doing themilescurcuit.com and wait for my husband to get home from work. Starting around 530pm I start to feel contractions! They were awesome and reminded me I was close to meeting my baby!!

Around 830 pm I start to time them! They're 3-6 minutes apart and last about 1 minute. Since I'm trying to go natural we make our way in when it was closer to 3 minutes apart around 1am. I'm a solid 6 by the time I get put into the system and checked. The pain level was considered 1-10, 5 being cry and 10 being dying. I rated it at a 4.

I labored on the yoga ball, walking the hallways, taking a nice jetted bath a few times. Around 430 I ask for IV pain medication since I've been up for close to 21 hours laboring with only reaching a 6/7 on cervical dilation and unable to sleep through them. They gave me Stovall which completely numbed me from waist down and allowed me to rest for a good 1.5 hours. Around 6am the contractions were coming back and stronger.

After another hour of laboring without pain medication I am a full 7 at a station 0 and have to move around to get baby to pull down and get to thinning out my cervix. Around 7/8am I asked for more Stovall as the contractions were intense and pain was becoming unbearable. That wore off with 30 minutes and was no longer effective, apparently it's a 1 hit wonder

At around 11am I was given the option for epidural as my contractions were every 3 minutes and over their registering scale of 100 something per contraction. I took the epidural since my pain was nearing an 8 and I had been stuck at 8 cm since my morning check.

The epidural was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. I got another 2 hours of sleep and around 1pm woke up to massive hip pain. My epidural had quit working! & no amount of epidural inserted was making a difference (like it had moved out of the block it needed to be in and placed in fatty tissue or something). From 1pm to 3pm I labored without any pain medication, with contractions coming every 2 minutes or so, each one harder than the last. They checked me again around 330 and I was still an 8 and baby would not come down anymore. So from 11-330 I had made no progress and was registering a solid 10/10 on the pain scale with back to back contractions. My body wanted me to push but I wasn't a 10 so it just hurt and put so much pressure on my downstairs. At 4pm I decided to have a requested emergency csection since it was a last minute decision and I had been stalled in labor with no medication, it was considered emergency.

I received a spinal block at 430 and had my babygirl out by 450pm. We named her Aubrey Madison and she was 7 pounds 11 ounces and 21 inches long!

Upon getting her out we realized her head was never going to properly fit into the birthing canal due to positioning and how she was stuck. She had the worst little cone head! She was unable to move any lower and I was unable to get her disengaged and realigned with the pain I was in.

I am so happy that after 20 hours of active labor I was able to give birth to my little girl, regardless of how she got brought it. I seriously put up such a fight and thank my husband for supporting me 100% with every decision I made and for staying up with me and never leaving my side, even when I wanted to give up on myself he reminded me of the outcome. I'll never be more grateful for the midwives who took care of me during their rotation on and off shifts, or the OB who delivered my child via csereian in the most positive and uplifting way you could have.

I'm sorry this is so long and thanks for yall who stuck it out to get to the bottom. Always go in with an idea of your birth, but be prepared to have it go in opposite directions if need be (not always a bad thing by the way). Good luck to the rest of you mommas. 💓💓💓