I’m so excited that I can share my birth story! Throughout my entire pregnancy, I would read these stories and get so excited/nervous to experience it all for myself. Sorry it’s kinda long, pictures are included at the bottom!

I had been having pretty frequent and sometimes painful contractions since 34 weeks. At 37 weeks I was 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced and at 38 weeks I was 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced. That’s when the contractions picked up but did not have a real pattern. On February 17, I started experiencing pretty painful contractions so I had a bath and started timing them. The bath didn’t help like it had in the past and for the next 2 hours the contractions picked up and became 4-5 mins apart, lasting 50-60 seconds so off to the hospital we went. They monitored me for an hour, had me walk around for an hour where the contractions started coming at 2-3 mins apart but I wasn’t making progress so they called it the start of labor and sent me home, expecting to see me back in 24-48 hours. This went on for 5 days until the 22. I woke up that night around 230 am with really painful period cramps. I tried going back to sleep but the pain was too much to sleep through. I fought with myself for 3 hours trying to figure out if it was the real thing or not. I finally woke my husband up and we left for the hospital. At this point, I was convinced I was going to be sent home again. When I got there, they hooked me up to the monitors and checked me, I was a “loose” 4, almost 5 cm. An hour later with contractions coming 3 mins apart, they checked me again and I was 5, almost 6 cm so they admitted me. This is where things really slowed down. My doctor came in and checked me at 930 and I was still only 5-6 cm so she broke my water. That’s when my contractions became unbearable so I got an epidural. I was rechecked at noon and was 6 cm. The contractions started becoming irregular and stayed that way for about 2 hours and in that time I made no progress. They figured out my son had turned and was sunny side up which was what caused things to slow down. So they started me on pitocin, put a peanut ball between my legs and came in and flipped me every 30 mins to try and turn him. My contractions never became regular again but they were really strong so no one was too concerned yet. At 530 I was rechecked and I was 7-8 cm so we continued with the pitocin, peanut ball and flipping. I was checked again at 730 and I was 9 cm. At 8pm, the nurse noticed his his heart rate dipping with each contraction and she said that could mean he’s ready, so I was rechecked and sure enough, I was 10 cm. My doctor was in the middle of a csection and my son was still kind of high up so we waited it out. At 845 I started to feel my contractions and a strong urge to push so my nurse came in to check and he was right there. She repaged my doctor who was still in surgery so she said we’ll do some practice pushing and if she needs to get another doctor in to deliver then she would. So, we started pushing at 9 pm. My doctor got there around 930 and his head was almost out. She took over and at 9:40 pm my son was born! (I was 39+1.) It was the most overwhelming, empowering and emotional experience I have ever had. We are so in love with this precious little man.