On 01-26-18 around 11 am my water decided to break, but it was a slow leak. I wasn’t sure it was my water until I felt the first gush even though my water sack was being plugged by my sons head most of the time. We decided to call and let Labor & Delivery know we were headed on our way to them due to us thinking my water had broken.

We stayed there for about 4 hours monitoring the baby and I and doing all the checks and such, all the tests besides the last set came back inconclusive and so when the last set came back positive for all 3 tests they decided it was time to start inducing me. They gave us about four hours to go home and try to start labor naturally and gather our things so we did so, buying his car seat really quickly since we didn’t think I’d go into labor until later this week. We started packing a snack bag, making sure we had it all before leaving for the hospital.

We arrived at 7 pm, started my induction at around 8 pm due to the staff being so busy. We had thought since my body was already somewhat dilated at 2 cm & 80% thinned out I would’ve went a bit faster because I was also having contractions on my own, so they started me on pitocin without anything else except saline first.

My body wasn’t progressing as fast as we hoped after 10 or so hours so I got two rounds of a cervical softening medicine which helped immensely though caused me to feel back contractions pretty harshly.

By this time I was so exhausted and so much in pain that even though I wanted a natural birth, I finally broke down and asked for some IV medication. I was given a couple rounds of stadol which ended up really helping me sleep for a hour or so and helped take the edge off the contractions until they started getting closer together. I was pretty tired considering I hadn’t been able to sleep for a good while and so I took a couple naps in and out while I could and in between the contractions that were getting closer together at this point.

My Doula showed up around 3:30/4 am when my contractions really started picking up and helped me by rubbing my back, leg and giving me a wash cloth on my forehead. She also really helped me talk positively which helped immensely as well as the nurse who was in my room with me.

I did not allow myself to say anything negative because I felt this powerful urge to just talk to myself out loud and really encourage me to get him out. It was difficult to channel as I got closer to 8 cm but I had wonderful support backing me as I woke up DH at around 8 cm as he had gotten no sleep for about a day, which I was okay with because I wasn’t progressing very fast anyhow. He really helped supporting me as it got tougher and tougher to continue on.

Around five minutes or so after getting checked for the last time for dilation I felt the immense pressure and knew soon I would be pushing. After about another minute or so my body started pushing on its own and I couldn’t stop it anymore so I tried to push with every contraction I had. I had to stop for a minute or two and then allowed myself to stretch out and I felt the ring of fire I didn’t feel with my first baby, but I had a couple good pushes and he was out immediately after I got his head and shoulders out. I immediately started crying and held him in my arms looking to my DH and we exchanged smiles and words of love.

I labored for a good 48 hours from the time my water broke to his actual birth but active labor they’re counting as 4 hours & 15 minutes of pushing.

Ten minutes after Finnegan Jakob Spencer was born he began having some singing type breathing and while scoring a 8 on the apgar testing L&D; decided to send him up to the NICU about an hour away. DH and I cried continuously and I was checked and cleared for discharge considering I only needed two stitches and my body was doing extremely well. We went directly to the NICU where we got to be with him. It’s day 3 of him being there and he’s doing extremely better. He’s my little fighter 💚