I'm so excited to finally share my story 🤩 I've read stories for months and I've been so excited to share mine.

It all started 12/31/18, two days before that I had been having a lot of back pain and I couldn't sleep but a few hours at a time until the pain in my back and lower abdomen. For weeks I have been losing mucus plug and I was 3cm 80% effaced on 12/24 but I knew I could stay there for weeks. On 12/31 my boyfriend and I went to town to get some groceries and something to eat and I was still having back pain and pain in my stomach but I just figured it was because I was 4 days over due at that point. My boyfriend finally convinced me to call my midwife, and when I did she told me to come to the hospital to monitor the baby since he hadn't moved since midnight the night before, she wasn't concerned about my pain.

We get there and she monitors the baby for two hours and hes fine and doing his thing, she checks me and tells me I'm 4cm and 90% effaced and she wanted to keep me another hour to see if I progress any. I walked around the hospital for about an hour we go back to the room and she checks me again and I'm a 5-6cm 90% effaced.

My midwife says shes keeping me and we will be having a baby. I changed into the gown and made some phone calls and cried. They take me to my room in L&D and hook me up and get everything started. Around 11pm my midwife comes in to check me and I'm 6.5cm and she breaks my water. It sounded and felt like a water balloon breaking in your hand and the feeling was so weird. Well, after she broke my water that's when things get serious real fast.

I started to have back labor and was in a lot of pain I wanted to go as natural as possible so I decided to get in the tub and at first it was the best feeling and it took most of the pain away, I even managed to give my boyfriend a kiss at midnight as the ball dropped.

The contractions were so close and lasted so long they just ran into each other. I got out of the tub and went back to bed. I finally caved and got some IV pain meds they helped with regular contractions and gave me maybe 5 minutes of relief before all the pain came back full force, I got another dose, then the last dose didnt even touch the back labor that started. All I could do was cry and make the weirdest sounds. I was having only back labor for hours, I was crying so hard every time they would start and nurses kept trying to talk to me and I was getting annoyed.

I had to pee and while peeing back labor started and all I could do was cry and lean into my SO.

Finally I caved and decided to get an epidural I was 8cm and 100% effaced. The doctor came in and he was amazing. He waited for the back contractions to stop before sticking me. I didnt even feel him stick me due to the pain I was in. Finally after it kicked in i got some relief and could actually talk again and stop crying. The way I was laying made my right side numb real fast and real numb, but the pain in my left hip and tailbone was still making me have to stop and work through contractions, so once they got me moved i was numb, but my tail bone wasn't and wouldn't go numb. So I was feeling all the pressure and pain on just my tailbone. Then things started to take a turn for the worst, he wasn't dropping like he was supposed to and that had been an issue then all of a sudden he dropped and when he did his heart started to slow down so the nurses ran in and put oxygen on me and started moving me around but they couldn't get it to come back up and my mom later told me that they were getting resdy to send me to surgery. Finally his heart came back up. Around 7am I was ready to push. In between every push in had to be on oxygen for both myself and him. My mom was by my head helping me as my boyfriend and a nurse had my legs. During one push fluid (idk if it was pee or amniotic) shot at my midwife. After 45 minutes of pushing and 7 hours of labor my sweet boy was finally born. His cord was short so they placed him on my lower stomach as we waited for his cord to stop pulsing. Then my SO cut the cord, and we started skin to skin, he latched so good the first time but, unfortunately my nipples are to big for his mouth so currently breastfeeding has stopped and I'm waiting for a pump that as actually works so I can try to do pump to bottle for him. I tore my right labia, I'm not sure to what agree since they never told me but I did end up with stitches.

Koda Cynthus Hogan born January 1, 2019 7lbs 9oz 19.5 inches.