It’s taken me months to get around to finally posting my birth story, but here goes nothing!

The beginning of my pregnancy was easy: no morning sickness, just some nausea and extreme fatigue. I loved the second trimester, I felt great and sexy and had fun prepping for baby. Then the third trimester came and things got rough. I was high risk to begin with, and thought getting to the third trimester meant I was in the clear and just had to continue giving myself lovenox shots daily. But then I started feeling terrible. I was nauseous all the time, had horrible Braxton hicks, and developed extreme itching. I felt like bugs were crawling all over me all the time. I couldn’t sleep and would lie awake scratching. Each morning I would stare in horror at the bloody scratch marks I had inflicted on myself the night before.

Worried about the itching, my doctor sent me for bike acid level testing. It confirmed I had developed cholestasis. The levels weren’t bad enough to warrant immediate induction, so I started medication and got retested a few weeks later. At thus point, I was 38 weeks. My levels had stayed stagnant - good because the condition hadn’t worsened, bad because it hadn’t resolved and my baby was at risk of stillbirth. I was only 1 cm dilated, had been for weeks, and was not showing any signs of going into labor soon. Thus, to be safe, my doctor decided I should be induced Monday.

I went to the hospital at 1pm Monday afternoon and started cervadil immediately. At 9pm my doctor broke my water assuming I would give birth the next day as I was making good progress. Then the progress stalled and I was stuck at 4 cm. Pictocin was started early Tuesday morning. I managed labor for almost 24 hours without an epidural (as was my plan) but couldn’t stand the pain anymore by Tuesday night. The nurses advised I get an epidural as I was only 5 cm dilated and likely in for a longgg haul.

As soon as I got my epidural, I started feeling sick and faint. My blood pressure had dropped dangerously low (70-something/40-something 😳) and my baby’s heart rate was dropping. The nurses continuously pumped more and more meds through my IV to raise my blood pressure and all was fine. A few hours later, I started feeling excruciating pain on my right side. My nurse refilled my epidural pump numerous times to no avail. Finally, an anesthesiologist came. He said I likely had a “pocket” wherein - for whatever reason - the epidural didn’t take on my right side. He refused to re-do the epidural, insisting the same effect would occur. Instead, he increased the dosage drastically to no avail.

All night, I writhed in pain. Meanwhile, the doctors kept increasing the pictocin because I still wasn’t dilating further. I screamed and cried for hours - the pain was unimaginable. The next day, I begged for a c-section. The doctor refused as I’ve already had abdominal surgery for Crohn’s disease and likely would again in the future. She said performing a c-section in that scenario would drastically increase the risk of complication in future abdominal surgery. I cried. I felt defeated. There was no end in sight.

Thankfully, an amazing nurse was looking out for me. She had worked Monday, was off Tuesday, and came back early for her shift Wednesday to be with me. She swapped patients with her colleagues to be by my side the entire time. (My husband and in laws stayed the entire time too, but we were all exhausted and terrified. The nurse reminded me a lot of my mom and having her really made me feel safe.)

The nurse was appalled the anesthesiologist had refused to reset my epidural and arranged for a different anesthesiologist to come see me. This new anesthesiologist was also shocked I had been forced to deal with the faulty epidural, took it out, and put in a new one. I was so grateful. Unfortunately though, by this point, I was too deep in the throws of hard labor to be free of pain. However, the pain became more throbbing rather than stabbing, good enough I guess. 🤷‍♀️

That afternoon, I started feeling the need to push. My doctor demanded I didn’t and instructed me on every method to avoid doing so. I was again stuck, now at 9 cm, and the baby’s head was clearly instructed by a cervical lip.

At 3:45, I was finally allowed to start pushing. The baby’s head was halfway out after only 45 minutes and we all expected he would be born within the next couple pushes. NOPE. He was stuck there for HOURS. After almost 4 hours of pushing, my son was finally born 😍 (Shockingly, I only had a 2nd degree tear). But, of course, the placenta wasn’t coming out. The doctor had to manually remove it. This was horribly painful as well, though it really shouldn’t have been. I screamed and begged her to stop, but obviously she couldn’t. Turns out I had developed an infection from my water being broken for almost 48 hours. 😫

Though the ordeal was terrifying, my son is healthy and perfect, and I was ultimately fine. The moment they put that little baby in my chest, he grabbed my finger and looked up at me with his big blue eyes, I knew it was all well worth it.

Luca was born on October 31, 2018 🎃 at 7:38 pm

He was 8lb 1oz and 20.5 inches long

Now, Luca is almost 4 months and is the happiest, sweetest little guy around.

Edit: I don’t know why my pics are all messed up and I don’t know how to fix them 😔