Hi everyone!

During the last couple weeks of my pregnancy, all I did was read birth stories to try to prepare myself! So I thought I’d share mine :)

On Saturday, 2/23 we were scheduled for induction at 8 am. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before, okay maybe 2 hours total, because I was so excited to finally meet my little man! So everything goes smoothly, they start monitoring me, and are discussing cytotec and how all that works, then they would do pitocin, etc. well, before they insert the first cytotec, I have a teeny contraction, and the baby’s heart rate dropped just a little, so they decided against cytotec, and went straight for pitocin because it’s way more controllable if they needed to stop it. Little mans heart rate was staying pretty stagnant in the 140s, so they gave me some apple juice and discussed if he couldn’t handle the contractions we may have to go the c-section route. Good news! He handled the contractions quite well! I started progressing, and by the time I was 3 cm they told me I could get my epidural whenever I’d like. The pain wasn’t bad at all at this point, just felt like period cramps- but they would have to put a whole bag of fluid through my iv which would take an hour, and order the epidural from the anesthesiologist, so I decided let’s wait a half hour then start the bag!

So we wait a half hour, and start the bag up. The anesthesiologist comes in, explains the epidural process, and away we go! I was so nervous I was shaking, but had the sweetest nurse ever to talk me through everything. The whole epidural process including all the tape and everything probably took 20 minutes. And it was not bad at all as far as the pain of getting it! As soon as it was complete I started to feel some serious relief. I also had a button if I wanted to push it if I did start to feel pain, it would increase the epidural drugs. I only had to push it one time the whole time!

The ob came in and told me she was going to check me and break my water, and at this point I was 5 cm. I gotta say, getting your water broken is the weirdest feeling- it sounded like someone popped a balloon inside of me- essentially that is what she did!

Everyone started making bets on when baby would come around 6 pm, one of the nurses said 9:15 pm- the rest of us went with her guess and stayed around there. OB keeps checking me, and I keep progressing, so she has me do a couple of different things to try to move things along more, like a peanut ball between my legs and changing positions- mind you my legs are totally dead at this point- and these tiny strong nurses are just moving me all over! By 8:15, we notice things are moving along faster, and by 8:30 I notice I can kinda tell when contractions are- just a light tightening sensation and a tiny tiny bit of cramping in my left hip area- and by 8:44 we start pushing! 8:49 pm out came my sweet baby boy! No pain, only pressure, it was an amazing experience!

The nurses joked because in the middle of one of the pushes I asked my husband if he was okay because I heard him take a big breath! Lol.

Sweet baby Michael was born at 8:49 pm, 7.8 lbs, 20 inches long. Perfection to me. ❤️

We did skin to skin for an hour or so, but he never really let out a loud cry, and was kinda “grunting”. My

husband and two best friends were there, and did a lot of the holding- they kept me on pitocin for a while to get my uterus to contract back- which was supposed to be for 6 hours- but after 3 hours my best friend went to the nurse because it had me crying in pain. She told me she could stop the pitocin and just mark it as refused rest of bag, and assured me since my bleeding was fine, my body would do the rest. 15 minutes after turning it off I finally felt some relief.

The nurses decided around midnight they were going to take him for his bath to try and stimulate him. Shortly after they take him, she comes back around 12:45 and tells me they’re going to call the pediatrician to come in because they are concerned with him not crying/wondering about his lung development. Doctor comes and talks to us around 2:15, and let’s us know that he’s going to be transported to the NICU at the children’s hospital near us. I turn into a ball of tears seeing him in that oxygen tank, and knowing he’s going to be taken from me- but know this is what needs to happen.

My sweet nurses called my doctor and she says she will discharge me since there were no issues, we would be able to leave in an hour or so- around 5 am so we could head to be with our boy in the NICU.

We decide to take a little nap while we wait because neither of us have slept at all. We end up sleeping until about 8 after we get updated about how he’s doing, and knowing he’s in the best care possible.

When we got to the nicu he was out of the oxygen tank and doing well. He continues to get better and better, the grunting is gone, I’ve heard him let out a nice big cry when the nurse took out his IV about an hour ago, and he’s been eating and burping better each time! His color is better (he was a little purple, but now he’s very pink) and I’m currently laying in his room in the nicu watching him sleep soundly ❤️.

Feeling so in love, and so blessed. I hope everyone gets a delivery as easy as mine, and a sweet, healthy baby. ❤️