I’m currently cuddling my 3 day old baby so I want to write this before he wakes up again.

I was originally supposed to be induced 41+4 since after having 2 membrane sweeps and active contractions for days I was not past a 3 dilated with no signs of labor. My doctor knew i wanted to be done ASAP since I’ve been sick my entire pregnancy and I had stopped working at 39 weeks. She watched the induction schedule and her nurse called me Monday at 41 weeks and asked if I wanted to move my induction up to the following day at 5 am.

I told my husband and he was a bit disappointed because he just bought a new pack of cigarettes and he had to quit and be showered by the time the baby came and he thought he had 3 more days to smoke.

Neither of us could sleep that night. We both stayed up until midnight. At 455 we got to the hospital and they turned us away because they were too full and said they would call back later to let us know to come in.

We got breakfast and went home to sleep for a few more hours. At 1030 the hospital called to let us know we could come in.

We got there and got set up in the room, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally at 1230 I got my intake bracelets and they were able to start pitocin. My doctor came in at 115 and checked me, she broke my water and did another membrane sweep. They changed my pads and told me I would be leaking for a while. Understatement of the century, I leaked so much fluid it soaked the pads, bed, and left a puddle on the floor. I called the nurse and went to the bathroom to sit on the toilet until the fluid stopped gushing as much.

I had totally planned on going all natural, epidurals freaked me out because I don’t do well not being able to get up and walk. I asked for iv medication since I wasn’t able to move anyway because I had wired monitors on. The nurse said that was fine but she needed to check me first. By this point I was dilated to a 4.5-5. As she was checking me I got another contraction and changed my mind and asked for the epidural. I signed consent for the epidural and the CRNA came up to administer at 3 pm.

This entire time I was getting front and back labor so I told him every time I was getting a contraction even though I’m not sure if he cared or not. The first one didn’t go in so he numbed me again and got the epidural in. My back labor had stopped thanks to the numbing injection. That one didn’t work except on my right leg, so I felt all my contractions again and my left leg wasn’t numb at all. Jim the CRNA came back up and set me up again and administered a third epidural. This one finally worked but due to the intense pain I had pretty much blacked out for two hours and it was now 5pm. All I remember is sitting up and my husband holding my hand and the nurse telling me to sit back because the monitors were getting my heart rate every time I sat up and it made it look like the baby was going into dcell. Well it turns out he was with every contraction so it wasn’t me sitting up. They turned off my pitocin to give him time o recover.

My doctor showed back up at 6pm and talked to me for a bit then checked me at 630 (she restarted my pitocin) and I was still a 4.5-5 since we had stopped the pitocin. He said I would probably not be having him until 5-6am the next morning since I wasn’t progressing quickly even with the pitocin.

My friend showed up at 745 to sit with me while my husband went to get dinner and check on our cat at home. My contractions had started coming back slowly over the last 2hours so I asked for an up on my epidural. My nurse checked me again and I was at a 9 which is why I was feeling contractions, I dilated too fast for the epidural to keep up. She topped my epidural and had me start practice pushing while stretching me to help me get to a 10. When she was able to easily see his head she called the doctor in who didn’t believe that I had dilated so quickly. I asked my friend to stay to take pictures since my husband would be distracted with me.

I ended up pushing for 46 minutes starting at 9pm. I had started to tear so she had me stop pushing and gave me an episiotomy because his head was too big (97 percentile).

Stats:

Owen Nicolas, 7 lbs 7 oz, 21 oz long, born at 9:46 pm. Labor was only 9 hours 15 minutes from start to finish.