Day 3 of my DD’s life and it all seems so surreal still! I wanted to share my birth experience as I feel that because we are all so different, we find comfort, understanding and insight by reading others birth stories. Also a feeling of ‘bad assery’ 😃 at 40 + 6 I woke concerned as I hadn’t felt much movement. So I did a kick count and confirmed that I should head into L & D and have her monitored. Took my shower and started getting ready at which time, my water broke! A slow enough trickle that I was questioning if that’s what it was. Arrived at the hospital, was hooked up to the monitor and a couple vaginal swabs done to confirm if in fact my water had broke. Thankfully, our daughter was doing great (just being a stinker) and the swabs came back positive! We were admitted and setup in our room. Now we were just waiting for contractions to start. This all happened by 1pm. By 10pm, contractions finally began and they went straight to lets get this show on the road contractions. By 2am I was dilated to 7cm but unfortunately at this point, I had started puking non stop, had diarrhea, uncontrollable shivers and low grade fever. I asked for an epidural as I knew that I would not be able to safely handle contractions, keep my body progressing and fight off whatever infections was manifesting itself. Received the epidural (process was much smoother and not terrifying like I had been lead to believe) and by 6am was dilated to 9.5cm. This however is where things got scary, our daughters heart rate kept dropping, for no obvious reasons and no matter what position they tried putting me in. Finally by 7am I was fully at 10cm and it was time to push. 8:08 our dear LO arrived in this world! Minimal tear that was quickly sewn up and despite our daughter running a low grade fever, she was able to remain with us at all times! I’ll take 8 hours & 36 minutes for a total labor and delivery time (this was our first!) We are all home now and doing fantastic! Life is fuller and we couldn’t feel more love for her but we know it’s just the beginning. Welcome to this 🌎 Analyn Marshal Wherry!!