The nurse didn't believe I was crowning!!

So I have absolutely loved reading all of the other mothers' accounts of their children being born, and I am beyond thrilled that my time has come to write my own! My "birth story" was definitely not what I expected...

It started off two days prior to my little girl's bday... I had been having intense Braxton Hicks contractions during the night to where I couldn't sleep through them. Although painful, they were not coming at a consistent time so hubby and I passed on going to the hospital since we knew we would just be sent home. Both nights I was having them they would taper off by morning. So the third night comes and it's about 7:30pm on the 29th. After eating dinner I can start to feel tightening in my abdomen and back, but nothing painful. They started to progress quite a bit an hour later and were getting to where I needed to stop to get through them. I kept thinking to myself, "great- another night of painful false contractions". Timing them was impossible because they were all over the place. Some contractions were back to back, while others would be 10 min apart. I told my SO that I wanted to just go to L&D; so they could at least give me something for the pain so I could sleep. We get dressed and drop my older son off with my mom(it's about 10pm) and we head to the hospital. At that point my contractions were 8-10 min apart and barely noticeable, so I was so tempted to tell my SO to just turn around and drive home. I'M SO GLAD WE DIDN'T.

I get to the hospital at about 10:30pm and they take me through triage. Two days prior I was dilated to 2cm and 90% effaced. The doc in triage checks me and I'm now 4cm dilated and 100% effaced with bulging bag! I actually get to stay! I was shocked! But the most shocking part of the night comes later...

We move to our delivery suite and get hooked up to an iv. Meanwhile, the nurses are asking me the basic protocol questions and then come to "epidural?" and I answer back "definitely!" I was thinking of waiting to get the epidural because the contractions, although becoming pretty frequent, were tolerable. But I just told them I was ready anyway because I knew it could take a while for the anesthesiologist to get to me.

It's about 11:25pm and I'm so relaxed and excited at this point. Excited that I'm about to have a baby the next day and relaxed because I made it in time for an epidural, or so I thought... the anesthesiologist shows up and tells SO to wait in the hallway for about 20min(many of them will do this so be prepared). My SO makes a joke about how when he comes back I'm going to have a huge grin on my face and pain free. That couldn't have been farther from the truth.

It's 11:30pm, and my contractions are starting to enter a whole other league of pain. I could no longer talk through them, and they seemed to be stacked on top of each other. Doc is prepping my back for epidural and sweet nurse is talking to me to distract me. It's so hard to keep still at this point. 10 min later and the epidural is finished. All I have to do is lay down and wait for the actual medication from it to kick in and take effect. It's 11:50 now, and nurse and I are talking about funny pregnancy symptoms(she was pregnant too!), but I can still feel everything. Toes are tingling slightly, but that's about it. I start to get "lightning crotch" like I've never experienced before(ladies, you know what that is if you're 30 plus weeks. It's when Zeus shoots you with a lightning bolt in your vagina when you move). Usually, it's a quick jolt, but not this time. It was so intense and it wouldn't go away. Then, I really felt like I needed to poop. Like, the pressure was absolutely insane. Yes, it feels like you need to take the biggest poop of your life. Lol.

I didn't know what I was feeling, and I tried to tell the nurse that I was feeling a lot of pressure and sharp pains down there. As I'm telling her this, in comes my SO. He asks "what's wrong?"😂 because I wasn't smiling and giggles. I didn't even realize till he told me afterwards that I was gripping the handles on the side of the bed! Anyway, the nurse just said, "well, what you're feeling is a strong contraction right now." I kept thinking how that wasn't right. I didn't know what, but something wasn't right. And then I started to push. I COULD NOT HELP IT. Omg... when you get that feeling you just cannot do anything to stop it! The nurse looked confused and said "we'll let me check you just in case. Oh my god! You're crowning! Wait! Don't push! Let me get doc!" I told her I couldn't stop or wait. I had to push because my body was making me! It's far too painful to not push. Within 30 seconds there were about 9 nurses in my room all huddled around me and I can hear some of them saying to "get Dr. Strong! Hurry!" Nope. That didn't happen. Baby shot out in about two pushes. Meanwhile, I'm having a mini panic attack because I went from having casual conversation with the nurse to full blown giving birth in less than 20 min. and of course before the epidural could even kick in! So I felt EVERYTHING. The feeling of crowning is just unreal. They throw an oxygen mask on my face and tell me that I needed to "get this baby out fast because she's having trouble breathing", so I push as hard as I can. SO's face at this point is as white as the walls 😂 poor guy. He felt helpless and scared for our baby because he was listening to the nurses panicking. Baby girl shoots out like a canon ball at 12:13am and the have to immediately take her to the heating bed to try and get response from her as she wasn't crying. 2 min later and I hear that beautiful cry. Apparently she had swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid and it caused her to stress out! They brought her back over to me for skin to skin.

What an experience. If I would have waited to go to the hospital like I wanted to, I would have been telling a birth story about giving birth in the car! Although I didn't want a drug free birth, it was actually really awesome to be able to walk around immediately after. Recovery was so smooth compared to my first birth with my son(epidural and induction).

Thanks for reading my story! Good luck to the rest of you ladies!

EDIT** thank you to everyone's sweet comments! As a new mommy it's really lifting my spirits! Good luck to everyone else in their journey! Here's a recent pic on her 3 day bday😂💝