Birth story!

Just thought I would share in case anyone cares to read it! I was due on May 19th but little miss decided to come on her own on May 11th at 38 weeks and 6 days. On May 10th I started walking around my neighborhood with my toddler and stayed pretty active outdoors the whole day. My husband came home from national guard training so I was ready to do anything to bring on labor including sex but we never even got to that part. I drank some pineapple juice at around 7pm because I felt some random contractions and had lost my mucous plug that morning. Well my contractions were still a bit irregular but pretty painful, hence why I wanted nothing to do with sex at that point 😂 anyways, my contractions continued to be around 5-8 minutes apart lasting about a minute and they kept me up past midnight, at which point I felt like we should head to the hospital. I called my mom so she could come to my house so I wouldn’t have to wake my toddler. I quickly packed my hospital bag (yes I know I’m a slacker) and then we made the 45 minute drive to the hospital. When we arrived they started monitoring me and called my OB doctor who said to monitor me for an hour to see if it was real or false labor and whether to admit me or not. I had been dilated to 2 cm at my last appointment and was dilated the same when they initially checked me. After the hour was up my nurse told me that I really didn’t make any progress because my contractions stayed at 5-6 minutes apart and I wasn’t dilating so she told me that “the heat probably got to me” and I was instructed to chug a lot of water because I might have been dehydrated and to take two Benadryl to help me sleep. And just like that I was sent back home with excruciating pain. The nurse even told me that “I’ll know when it’s the real deal....” (thanks lady I was in horrible pain and this wasn’t my first rodeo but who am I know if I’m in labor or not 🙄). We made the 45 minute drive back home at 5 am. I laid down in bed and could not rest. I was in horrible pain EVERY 5 MINUTES due to contractions to the point that I wanted to cry each time ‘y husband could no longer see me suffer and called the hospital and they told him we could call the OB doctors office when it opened which was 8 am. They asked a few questions and told me that I should head back to the hospital and that it sounded like May 11th was a great day to have a baby. This lifted my spirits a little. We then made the 45 minute drive back again and I could barely make it to the front door of the hospital due to the painful contractions. I stood in the lobby waiting out another contraction while they got me a wheelchair. I finally was taken to the same room I had left a few hours earlier and hooked up to monitors again. The nurse checked me and said I was dilated to a 3 technically but I was actually a stretchy 5-6 cm dilated. She said the doctor on staff was the hardest to get admitted with so she said that she would have another nurse check me as back up so they could convince my doctor I needed to be admitted. Finally they came back with the best news yet - I was going to be admitted and I was going to have my baby girl that day! Finally they asked if I wanted an epidural and I was ecstatic! YES WHEN CAN I HAVE IT!? The CRNA said she could be in my room in 15 minutes and I was even happier! She she could tell I was in serious pain with the contractions because I held so still with everything she did regarding the epidural. Finally they broke my water a few hours later when I was dilated to an 8. Just under a few hours later I felt some pressure and reported it to the nurse who rechecked me and told me I was ready. She wanted me to do a practice push and then told me to stop immediately because my baby girl was about to be here. She rushed out to get the doctor and within minutes I was ready to push! I LITERALLY PUSHED TWICE and my beautiful 6 lb 10 oz, 19.5 in baby girl was born!!!