So on the 21st I started getting pretty intense Braxton Hicks contractions. Not painful or consistent but definitely uncomfortable. Got pretty excited/ anxious because I thought I was definitely going to be woken up by real contractions that night. When my alarm went off the next morning and i noticed i wasn't having contractions any more i was pretty disappointed lol. Absolutely nothing happened as the day went on so I walked as much as I could to try to get things going again. I'd get BH while walking but they'd stop as soon as I'd stop 😒.

At about 9:50pm, as I was drying off from my shower, I had my first real contraction. Ouch I tell you what. I kept asking people how you know for sure what a contradiction felt like & I was told "trust me, you'll know." Damn, were there right.

The contractions got closer together but they never got to be constantly 5 minutes apart. They'd be 4 minutes apart, jump to 10 minutes apart, then 5 minutes. Finally, at 3 am, I woke up the fiance & told him i couldn't handle it any more & it was time to go to the hospital.

I was 4 cm by the time we got to the hospital & the contractions started being consistently 4 minutes apart. Thank god I got an epidural only an hour after getting there.

This is where shit got hairy for me. The "test dose" I got worked great. But when they gave me the full dose my blood pressure plummeted, along with baby's heart rate. So the nurse is trying to get me to roll over on my sides to get the baby's heart rate back up but I'm trying really hard to stay conscious & can barely move. FINALLY my blood pressure got back to normal & babys heart rate got back to normal.

Then the babys heart rate started dropping during every contraction, then would come back up. So my midwife told me to prepare for the possibility of an emergency c-section because the likelihood of me needing one was VERY high. Ya'll, I had such a hard time keeping the tears in. I did not even consider the possibility of needing a c-section while I was pregnant.

Well, when my OB showed up he decided that, as long as her heart rate returned to normal, we'd try doing a vaginal delivery. The OR was still on stand by tho, and they still had me sign a consent form. I started pushing & it seemed the further down baby got the less her heart rate would drop. 1 & a half of pushing & 1 episiotomy later and at 9:50 am on January 23rd

Madison was here!

7 lbs, 4 oz & 20 inches long.

She arrived at 39 weeks & 1 day after 12 hours of labor.