After 2 long (looking back it seems very short) months later I am writing my birth story, from what I can recall anyways.

Let’s start with a little bit of a back story. My life since childhood has consisted mainly of wishing to be a mom, so when my boyfriend & I were finally stable enough to afford it & stable enough in our relationship, we decided it was time to try. To my surprise, I got pregnant the first month! However it ended in a miscarriage very early on & I was devastated. So we tried again.. & again.. & again. Tracking cycles, using ovulation tests, preseed, robitussin, all the at home fertility boosting remedies we could find we tried. 11 months after our miscarriage on New Years I decided I should test “just in case” since I did plan on drinking that night & it was positive!! Wanooooo. Miscarriage can mess with your mind & while I was happy I was having absolutely no pregnancy symptoms even later on in pregnancy, I was also very scary & found myself crying & wishing I would just have morning sickness. As time went on it finally settled in me that everything was fine & I could finally look forward to my future with my baby, whatever it might be. We were told we were having a girl, what I had always dreamt of having!! I was in complete denial & did not believe it until she was born!! My pregnancy was not easy, like mosts. I had bleeding & was told my placenta was too low to my cervix which did gradually fix itself over time but was scary in the moment. 9 months went by way too slow & when it finally came I was not ready for what I was about to experience....

September 2nd & the days leading up to it.. like I said... pregnancy went by way too slow & at 38 weeks I was ready for my baby to come out! So like most impatient mothers I started trying to naturally induce labor. Which means TONS of walking & bouncing on a ball. Which in turn did not work. So I went swimming. Also didn’t work. So I had sex, didn’t work. So as a last resort, September 2nd, I decided to try castor oil, yes I knew the risks, so I took it in small doses. 6 hours after taking the first dose, I was feeling nothing. So I took a tad more & that must have kicked it all in because minutes later, I was on the toilet (tmi). However, I only had diarrhea twice the entire night, so it wasn’t too horrible. It eventually settled down & I was having What I figure were Braxton hicks, so I again bounce on the ball. Eventually even that went away so I decided it wasn’t going to work & I laid down. Soon after, I realized I was not feeling her move, my sister & I tried every thing to get her to move & she was not budging. So we decided to go into the hospital around 3-4 in the morning, talk about exhausted. Of course as soon as I get there & am getting walked to my room; she kicks me super hard, I was so embarrassed. The nurse kept me anyway for an hour just to monitor her & she was “doing perfect”. While I was there I did start having some pretty painful contractions & the nurse asked if I wanted to take some pain medicine but I kindly declined & went to my sisters house & went to bed. I was woken up at 7 in the morning by INTENSE contractions & knew it was it!! I was so excited! My sister however was still sleeping & my attempts to wake her up were not working so I waited for her to wake up on her own. In the meantime I took a bath to see if it would make the contractions go away but it didn’t. Nothing makes real contractions go away, duhhh🙄 she finally woke up at around 11 & we immediately headed to the hospital where I was told I was 2 cm & would be admitted. Labor was VERY easy for me considering my period cramps are very intense, it felt very similar & before I knew it the doctor was in there breaking my water. I was around 5 cm when I finally asked for some pain meds in my iv along w something for nausea since I do not do well with medication. Not too long after I got my epidural which also was very easy for me. It was all very bearable except for the catheter. That’s when things turned south The catheter was so very painful for me & I could not figure out why, time started to drag then I felt that horrid pressure in your butt everyone tells you about. I was doing everything I could to try not to push but it is pretty inevitable. After having to tell the nurses 3 times that I think they should check me I was finally able to start pushing & oh lord was that AWFUL. I pushed for 30 minutes & it was pretty evident I would not be able to do it without some help so I was cut & at that time to my knowledge that was all the damage that occurred down there. Minutes later she was out, 6 pounds 6 ounces born at 6:53 on September 3rd. She is absolutely beautiful & the light of my life, I’d do it all over again for my little mini😍