Here my birth story I wrote up to share with my prenatal yoga class. Thought I’d also share here :) good luck to all you mamas!

Hi all,

Writing my birth story within 24 hours of the birth of our beautiful daughter Alexandra on November 14.

My mom was 9 days over due with me so I had mentally prepared myself for going past my due date. (Even though some of us pregnant ladies say that, spoiler alert: we don’t really mean it.) My 40 week appointment rolled around and I was still 1cm dialated and ‘softening’- not a lot of progress from my last check at 38 weeks. Evidently I have a ‘sensitive cervix’ so the thought of stripping my membranes at that point was too much for me to even consider. I was a little disappointed considering the East Sac prenatal yoga class had chanted for my cervix the day prior- but i figured if labor started before the next class I’d call it a win. So of course I started to give labor a bit of a nudge —-hip circles on my yoga ball, walks, SO freaking much raspberry leaf tea, and continued to eat my six dates a day (I’ve decided I’m quite susceptible to online pregnancy articles and blogs). Oh- and of course, my poor husband hadn’t had me that interested in ‘making whoopie’ since we were trying to get pregnant exactly 9 months prior. A membrane sweep for 41 weeks (11/16) and I nduction was tentatively scheduled for 11/20. I was hoping she’d come before then, but started to just tell people I’d likely be induced thanksgiving week, just to stop the casual texts asking ‘what’s new?’ —— ‘not a baby! That’s what.’

Sunday November 12th I started feeling ‘crampy’ but it really didn’t lead to anything. I also had a emotional breakdown over the fact my husband didn’t ask if i wanted a snack when he went to the kitchen. I guess I should have seen it as a sign my hormones were out of wack, but then again, breakdowns over snacks is not super uncommon for pregnant ladies.

Monday November 13 around 630 I woke up to use the restroom and realized I had lost my mucus plug and I was in early labor. My contractions were around 30 minutes apart increasing in frequency throughout the day. Around midnight my contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart. I decided to let my husband sleep while I labored in the living room and shower. By 4:30 AM my contractions were a little less than 4 minutes apart and I couldn’t walk or talk through them. I woke up my husband and told him I wanted to head to Kaiser. After he had a shower, had coffee and made a sandwich for later (insert impatient annoyed pregnant emoji here). I was laboring hard and sure I was getting close to something.

We got to Kaiser at 530 am and got a primo parking spot. At triage they let me know my contractions are 3 minutes apart, but I’m only dilated to 4cm- but because I’m gbs positive they admit me. I’d read lots of birth stories, I figured I’d move quickly- how could I not? The contractions were close and I had eaten my weight in dates and raspberry leaf tea.

6 hours later and exhaustion was really hitting me hard. I knew I should walk around use gravity, do some squats to help labor progress but I can barely summon the energy to breathe through my contractions. I decided to get checked- I was thinking I must be be pretty far along since I’ve been having strong contractions every 3-4 minutes for 6 hours that’s got to mean something ... when I ask to get checked the nurse let me know that I’m really coping well naturally and that getting checked might discourage me. She informed me getting to 6 cm for first time moms is hard- (thanks for the ground breaking insight). I decided to get checked anyways- I may have been coping well, but I was just too tired to do it much longer. The midwife checks me and I’m at ..... four and a half centimeters.... I’d been working so hard and for such little progress. I wasn’t anti epidural or drugs, just wanted to get to 6 or so before since I read that it can slow labor, increase need for pitocin leading to additional intervention, etc, etc. Prior to going full epidural I decided to try the nitrous oxide and the tens machine- both were not super impactful and I still was really challenged by each contraction. I decided to go for the epidural around 1pm and was optimistic due to the nurses statement that because my contractions were so consistent and strong she was hopeful it wouldn’t slow down labor or require augmention.

The epidural gave me life. My legs were numb (like when you sleep on your arm all night and wake up and it’s really heavy). But I could still feel people touching them and lift them on my own (just without much control). I rested (altho didn’t get any sleep) until around 4 pm- at which point the nurse came in to check my progress. My contractions had slowed to 7-8 minutes apart - but I was now at a 6 (hurrah!) so I was given the option of continuing with my natural contractions, pitocin, or breaking my water. Because she was still pretty high up, and I knew we could always turn off the pitocin if the contractions became too much, I opted for a low dose of pitocin. Over the next hour my contractions kicked back up to 3 minutes apart and when the nurse went have me change positions we realized my water had broke! They turned off the pitocin and let the natural contractions finish up the job. Around 6 the midwife let me know we were ready to push! Up until this point the epidural had let me rest up, chat with my husband about what she’d look like, and now I had hope I’d get to eat! My last meal had been a bowl of cereal at 3:30 AM.

Around 6:30 pm we started pushing. It was harder than I thought it’d be. I had obviously googled how to do it, but it guess I never really considered how much work pushing a watermelon through a bagel sized hole would be. We pushed for almost 2 hours and baby took it like a champ. No issues with distress or heart rate dropping. At 8:24pm miss Alexandra Danielle Montero was born, immediately cried was placed on my chest and was alert and bright eyed. We’ve had a wonderful 24 hours with her and her Grandparents on both sides are gaga over thier first grandchild. We are working on breastfeeding and having success thanks to lots of help from the team at Kaiser Roseville.

Because I know you’re interested, we ended up with In and Out burgers at 10:30pm brought by the anxious grandparents once we had done our gold hour and had moved to our recovery room.

Sorry for the ridiculously long story. Happy to be able to share it 💕 best luck to all those mamas to be! My best advice would be to rest up leading up to and in early labor and just know whatever path you end up taking to get to baby will be unique to you and your little one- so don’t put to much stock in the online blogs or even experiences others had.

Courtney I