Okay this story is a little late but I finally get to tell my first ever birth story! My husband and I waited two long years to finally conceive and the fact that I am now a mom is still the most amazing thing in the world to me. Here goes!

July 3 I went into my last Monday at work. I was scheduled to work to July 6 and not looking forward to it. I was 38 weeks and 3 days. Up to that point I had had some minor Braxton Hicks but not really any other indication I was anywhere near going into labor. That night after work I did my workout as usual, 40 minutes light jogging on the elliptical. Before bed I also had a big glass of raspberry leaf tea. That night, around 3:30am I woke up to leaking fluids- I got to the bathroom but as I was walking there I was dripping. I ended up changing my underwear and trying to go back to sleep, thinking I had wet the bed, but maybe ten minutes later I was leaking fluids again. I woke my husband up and told him, “either my water is breaking or I keep peeing myself.” I told him I felt silly calling the ob in the middle of the night though because although I had soaked through two pairs of underwear, it wasn’t the “gush” everyone described. However, After the second time, I had some pink tinge and also when wiping I lost part of my mucus plug. I finally decided to call my ob, who said my water is probably breaking but that I could wait a little while to come in to the hospital since I wasn’t having contractions.

My husband and I tried to get some more sleep, but we were both too excited. We finished packing and getting ready for the hospital at 6:40ish. When I was packing, my water started leaking more. I also had spots of pink in it. I went through three pairs of underwear total and roughly three pads. I also was having very consistent and mildly painful period like cramps. I felt the baby move plenty though and even called my L&D; at the hospital, who also told me I didn’t have to rush in if he was moving okay.

We left for the hospital at 8:15am and got to our room around 9. They checked me to see if I was dilated or my water was ruptured and it was only lightly broken so they had to do a fern test to check the fluid and make sure it was my water. They hooked me up to all my monitors and we sat around for about an hour waiting for them to come back with the results. Finally at around 10:20am they came into tell me my fern test was positive, and I asked “so we are staying?” And she said “yes you are not leaving here without a baby!” They inserted cervadil in me at 11:10am to get things moving along with my cervix (I was 1cm and 50% effaced).

Around 3:30pm my cervadil fell out when I went to the bathroom. They let me have an hour of no meds to relax and eat because I hadn’t eaten since 5am. I ate chicken tenders and Mac and cheese. Almost as soon as I finished eating (4:30ish), I had my first bad contraction. I stood up and had to bend over the pain was so bad, it made me nauseous and I went into the bathroom in case I threw up.

Over the next five hours labor was bad- I was having 40sec to one minute contractions every 2-5minutes. Pain was so bad I threw up three more times from it. I couldn’t talk to my husband at all.

At 8:00 I expressed to my nurse that I needed SOMETHING for the pain. She offered me a pain med that I can’t remember the name of- nuvadril or something like that- because I still wasn’t dilated enough to do an epidural. It helped me enough that I could lay in bed for an hour but by the end of the hour I was moaning through my contractions. They also gave my Zofran because I think at that point I had thrown up about four times from the pain of my contractions. I have never in my life been sick from pain like that!

I got my epidural at 9:30pm. The man was extremely nice and did a really good job. I felt almost immediate relief and it was soooo good. I was already at a 7 and the nurse informed me I would not be needing pitocin (which they had originally intended to start me on once my cervadil has done it’s work).

Chris and I dozed for the next several hours and I laid on alternating sides with a peanut ball between my legs to get my baby’s head down. Every time I had to flip sides, my husband had to lift my leg back over the ball because my legs were SO dead from the epidural, haha. I was also shivering from the epidural. They also had to give me more zofran because my nausea came back.

At 12:40am, I told my nurse to check me because I felt pressure down there even through my epidural. She looked and said I was fully dilated and ready to push! She called my Ob, and told me we had to wait for her to get here so half an hour. I touched up my makeup, haha. I was oddly calm. Once my ob got there we started pushing! My baby was wedged weird on my pelvis and apparently my pushes were just rocking him without pushing him forward a lot, so it took an hour and a half of pushing total. After what felt like forever, my ob said “one last push!” And then “ok stop pushing!” And my son came into the world. They put him on my chest and I just held him and sobbed for several minutes. So many years of desperately wanting a child, and I finally had him in my arms.. it was indescribable.

Miles Bruce was born July 4 at 2:54am, almost 24 hours after my water broke. He was 7 lbs 0oz, 20.5 inches. Being a mom is the most challenging but wonderful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. We are so incredibly in love with him. Okay here’s a bunch of pictures as a reward for getting through my super long story!