I can’t believe it’s finally my turn to write my birth story!

I went to my 39 week appointment at 39+1 like normal on 11/6, fat, miserable, ready to not be pregnant any more. That morning I had started bleeding, not heavy, like a light period. The doctor checked me and I was at 1 cm and 75% effaced, which was progress from the prior week where there was 0 dilation. We scheduled induction for that Friday 11/10 if my body didn’t go into labor on it’s own before. I was happy with the progress and happy with the plan because that meant that the end was near!!

I was determined to get baby out of me as soon as possible, so I went to the mall and walked for as long as I could, around an hour, finishing with a flight of stairs. That night my husband and I crawled into bed about midnight and were talking about the day and about our soon to be new roles as parents...and then the contractions started, about 6 mins apart, lasting around 30 seconds and I had 5 or 6 of them. Our son started having some really hard hiccups in my belly so my husband reached around to feel them and we were laughing that it was a heck of a time for him to get the hiccups! Next thing I know I hear and feel a pop, like a rubber band broke inside of me and I asked my husband if he heard that. He did and I tell him I think my water just broke as I hopped out of bed and ran to the toilet. I get there and just start laughing at what had just happened and the fact that I didn’t even make a mess 🤗 This all happened at 12:40 am.

We calmly start packing up the last bit of our stuff for the hospital and make sure things are in order for us to be gone for a few days. On our way to the hospital my contractions get stronger and closer together. I text our doula and let her know what’s going on and luckily she is already at the hospital with another patient. We get to the hospital and they confirm that my water did in fact break and I was admitted by 1:30 am and was dilated to 2 cm. Since my water broke they did not allow me to leave the bed once I got there and decided to start me on pitocin to get things moving quicker. Before they started the pitocin I asked for them to start my epidural so that I could skip all of the crazy pitocin contractions. This was actually recommended by my doula and I love her even more for suggesting it! Epidural was started around 4 am and the pitocin around 4:30 am. They did not check me again until 6:45 am and I was at 3 cm. The epidural was amazing!! I felt absolutely nothing and I tried to rest, but that was impossible due to my mind racing. I was checked again around 11 am, hoping to hear that I was at least 6 cm, I had reached almost 8 cm! Things were really moving quickly!!

I finally reached 10 cm at 1:30 pm and it was time to start pushing. My doctor did have to do an episiotomy because my son’s head was so big, but I am so glad she did. I felt no pain throughout the entire process, just crazy pressure when pushing and when the doctor cut me. I pushed for just over an hour and my littlest love arrived at 2:40 pm!! He weighed 8 lbs 9 ozs and was 21” long!

Welcome to the world Byron Jacob!! He is the light of our lives and is perfect in every way 💙