I will tell my birth story as best as I remember! So much of it is a blur and I’m not sure why?! Maybe too much excitement and adrenaline ❤️

Monday 12/17/18 - 38 week dr appt. having slight Braxton Hicks. Dr says baby is looking good. Not dilated, not effaced.

Tuesday 12/18/18 - Braxton Hicks are stronger and about 7 mins apart, consistently. I call my dr office and they say to go in. (At this point I didn’t know they considered every visit that they send you home an emergency room visit 🙄). They monitor me for 2 hours, no cervical change, still a zero. We walked, no change. Sent home at 7pm.

Wednesday 12/19/18 - it’s actually midnight/1am, so I guess technically Thursday morning. I wake up to pee and my mucus plug plops out. Gross brown color tinged with blood so I immediately wake up my boyfriend. Let’s go to the hospital!

Contractions are getting painful. What I thought was a 9 out of 10. HAHAHAH let’s laugh together...

I’m dilated to a 1! That’s it. I’m so bummed. They check to see if my water broke, nope. The contractions are so painful. How am I gonna deal if they send me home? I was miserable. They monitored us for 2 hours. No cervical change so they want to send me home. I asked how the hell im supposed to just go home and “take a warm bath, and take a Tylenol” for these contractions. So my dr orders a morphine shot. Didn’t erase the pain completely but helped and helped me sleep. We get home at like 6am.

Thursday 12/20/18 - I’m kind of out of it all day from the morphine shot. The contractions are even worse now and I’m extremely uncomfortable. But I’m frustrated and defeated since I wasn’t dilating! I didn’t want to go to the hospital a 3rd time for them just to send me home. Thursday evening they are bad. Looking back, a 7 on a 10 scale. We go to bed, or at least I try. I’m awake all night moaning and groaning from contractions. I figured I’d call my dr office in the morning to see what they thought.

Friday 12/21/18 - It’s 7am and I’m groaning so loud. My boyfriend says get in the car, we are going to the hospital. I reluctantly agree, thinking they’ll just send me home and tell me to take Tylenol.

We get there and I can’t even talk to the receptionist. I feel like I could collapse. And of course it feels like they’re taking their sweet time. This is the 3rd time I’ve been here this week I know you have my info!! Finally they get us to a triage room. I’m in agony. I get changed and wait just wishing I was dead lol. Dramatic but it was the worst freaking pain. Nurse comes and checks: dilated to a 4 with a bulging bag- says I ain’t going anywhere! YES!! I tell her please get me the epidural NOW. Like now please!!! We transfer to two rooms down into a delivery suite. Hooks me up to the IV (the worst part of the entire thing), gets fluids in me, has me sign papers, takes blood, and the anesthesiologist shows up. He kicked butt with that epidural, got it in quick and it worked wonders. I had heard so many horror stories about only one side taking, etc but he did great. As he left the room I told him he was my favorite person in earth!! Lol

It’s about 9am at this point. The rest of the day is slightly uneventful - I’m progressing great, they broke my water (baby passed meconium in the womb so I was stressed about that) pitocin is going, baby is reacting great to labor. I’m having my family and boyfriends family randomly dropping by, all while I’m happy as can be! My boyfriend was amazed how my whole demeanor changed with the epidural! I told him there’s just no words to explain the excruciating pain of contractions and why literally could not function.

4:30pm and the nurse says let’s start pushing!

Pushed with her till about 6:30. My doctor had left for vacation that day of course! They call the on call dr and he heads over. Well on his way he’s called to an emergency c section!! So the laborist at the hospital comes in. Fine by me, I just have urges to push! Someone needs to catch this baby!! Within seconds there are so many nurses, the NICU team came in to assess the baby since the meconium, and they turn on the flood lights lol.

7:07pm Saylem Ruth entered the world. 7lbs 1 oz, 19.5” long. I cried!! I was so disconnected from her during my pregnancy so I was worried I wouldn’t love her the way I should, but when I seen her there was absolutely no question. She goes over and is examined and is cleared, she didn’t aspirate any meconium!! We are relieved. They hand her over to us and we are on cloud 9. I didn’t even tear, just a little road rash as he called it.

This is where it gets very blurry!! Family comes in, gifts given, we feed Saylem, and pretty soon it’s 10pm and we are ready for bed. We go home Sunday 12/23 morning.

I had no idea the amount of love I could have for someone. It is so true, you feel a very strong different love when you have your own child. She is my everything and I cannot imagine life without her. 💕