Wilhelm L. Dambitis - 10/14/18 @ 8:30am ❤️

After reading birth story after birth story I'm finally happy to tell mine.

About two months ago I was starting to be monitored for my blood pressure. Every doctors appointment that I went to they saw a steady incline. They made the decision to induce me.

Friday October 12th we went to my regular doctors appointment. We received my induction date for Monday October 15th. We were really excited. They then began to take my blood pressure when my diastolic kept registering 104. The doctor wasn't comfortable with me waiting anymore so she called over to the hospital where I was to be induced that day!

We get over to the hospital and they give me an option of cervidil or the balloon. The balloon didn't sound very comfortable to me so I chose the cervidil, boy did I choose wrong. I was only 1cm dilated and after 12 hours, 7-8 contractions on top of each other with no break in between they decided to take it out and only to find I was 1.5cm dilated. I was pretty upset, especially after all those contractions.

By now it's Saturday and I'm still waiting in antepartum to dilate to 3cm. A new doctor came in and she wanted to see if I had progressed. (I still wanted to avoid that balloon!) well she sure as hell went to check me and decided to manually stretch me as well. Let's just say I found out how freaking sensitive my cervix is. It was so painful. She had to do it twice! The second time I knew what was coming so I made sure to take lots of deep breaths haha finally I had dilated to 3cm so they moved me over to labour and delivery.

Over in labour and delivery they inserted my I.V. And was trying really hard to get my sons heart beat. Little guy was just so in there they had a hell of a time. As they were trying to still get it my water finally broke all on its own and holy moly what a feeling. All the pain I was having at the moment went away, adrenalin kicked in, I couldn't stop laughing cause It was my moment of "oh shit, this is really happening" 😂

The nurse was happy my water broke because now they could monitor his heart by placing the monitor on his head. The doctor that manually stretched me came in to do it. It's a long thin stick so I thought, I'm 3cm dilated this won't hurt. Shit was I wrong. She put both hands in there! I started freaking out cause it hurt so bad. I kept telling her to please stop. All that pain made me gush an insane amount of my waters which made my son drop down more but man I soaked the bed, all over the floor. I even freaked out the nurse who by this time was angry at me for freaking out and shoved the laughing gas in my face. Which worked pretty darn well for me haha they had to tell me to stop cause I just kept going.

Then was the epidural. I really thought I could do it drug free but I was going on almost 3 days with intense uncomfortableness and contractions. It was the cats ass. It's not that bad ladies! It stings for a second but once that cool fluid goes into your back it's heaven. It took away all my pain and I was able to sleep and conserve my energy. Until my sons heart rate kept dropping. The nurse would move me back and forth to help him remain comfortable in there. We finally found a position so I went back to sleep. Eventually I woke up because I started to feel pain. I thought "oh no, my body is already adjusting to the epidural dose, this is not good!" So I got the nurse to get the anesthesiologist to come back to give me a "top up" only for her to find that my line actually got separated! She was so pissed. My whole back and bed was soaked. She finally fixed me up and I pressed that button like mad to make the pain go away.

Finally Sunday came, the pressure got stronger and stronger. They wanted me to wait until 6:30 am for the doctor to come and I told them no, that I felt I had to push. So came the moment, two nurses came in, they turned on the lights got me to push while laying on my back with my feet rested on foot stools, sat me up and gave me the bar which helped tremendously! Finally the doctor came in and came the final moments.

In my head for some reason I stupidly thought I wouldn't feel anything. I was wrong haha. I'm sure the epidural takes away the majority of the pain but I could still feel immense pressure, uncomfortableness, the burning and the doctor help to stretch me. It got so much that I didn't even realize the pain when the doctor had to cut me, TWICE. I didn't care at that point. I just wanted him out.

The one thing I focused on the whole time was remembering the moment he came out. I heard from lots of women that you don't remember that moment. And I'm so glad I focused on that cause that's what I replay in my head every time. He came out, they laid him on my chest and we locked eyes right away. I couldn't stop bawling my boyfriend was even crying. It was such a special moment for us. He was born at exactly 8:30 am weighing 6lbs 12oz at 37 weeks 2 days.

Then the nurses took him away. As the doctor was taking out the placenta and stitching me up I could hear the nurses say they didn't like his colour, they didn't like his sound, they would pick up his arms and they just kept flopping down. I became so scared, kept looking at my boyfriend for reassurance only to find confusion on his as well. His poor head was also coned and bruised by my pelvis. They gave him Tylenol for the pain and then they took his blood sugars which came back as 0.9 which was dangerously low.

They took him to NICU and my boyfriend followed. I followed soon after. The days that followed after were so stressful. You don't ever want to see your little baby hooked up to an I.V. And wires. I missed out on that first breast feeding bond because they had to give him the bottle (of course I'm not mad, my baby needs to eat!) but we're slowly getting him latched. He just doesn't like working for it.

After a few stressful days we finally got to take Wilhelm home Wednesday October 17th. We had to go back to the doctors 3 days in a row for his jaundice but now we finally have him all to ourselves and he's just so perfect!

If you're at the end of this, thank you so much for reading my story. Don't be scared if you don't know what to expect. I didn't either and yeah there sure is pain but it's incredible how it all instantly goes away as soon as they're on your chest. It's so completely worth it❤️