Sunday morning, I woke up very early for me. Wide awake at 7:00. My stomach was upset, and (TMI) I pooped probably 3 times before I even got a full face of make up on. We went to church that morning, and after the service, had our pastor pray over my husband and I for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. I was in a good place mentally. I felt at peace with the decision I made to have an ELECTIVE induction for my first baby, and headed home to make final adjustments to hospital bags and clean up our house one final time. On our way home we stopped and ate, and by the time we got home (literally not even 20 minutes), I couldn’t get to the bathroom fast enough. I couldn’t keep any food in me, and I was SO dehydrated even though I was sucking water and Powerade down. So I tried to lay down and take a nap, and fell asleep for about 30 minutes before being woken up by my back aching too bad to lay down.

At this point, 4:30 pm, I just couldn’t sit still, so I took my step son outside to ride his bike and I was sitting on our porch working on a paper I’m writing for school. At around 5, I started cramping pretty badly, but I had been “cramping” for going on 2 weeks at that point so I just drank more cold water, popped a Tylenol, tried to ignore it and finish up some work. We stayed outside for about 5 more minutes, before I rounded him up and headed inside and told my husband I had to sit down. By 7:00 I was crawling on my hands and knees in our living room, crying, trying to make the pain from the full blown contractions stop.

It started as “omg I feel like I need to shit out a watermelon what in the world” (basically the feeling when you’re incredibly constipated, and trying to poop for the first time in days) every 5-6 minutes. So I literally just stood in the bathroom, dropped my pants, and just sat spread eagle on the toilet because that helped to ease the pain, and was pretty much the only comfortable position at that point. 7:00 pm rolls around, and they start getting closer. I start timing them on the Ovia app, and they’re right at 4 minutes apart, and now instead of “ouch big poop” pain, it’s a sharp pain starting in my lower back and moving down into my tailbone, making it feel like my tailbone is being literally crushed with every single contraction. It felt like someone was smashing down onto my tailbone and breaking it, Every. Single. Time. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit, there was no position that even kind of helped to ease it.

My husband was dropping my step son off with his mom, and I texted him, “I don’t think I can do this. This hurts” at 8. Keep in mind, I’m a very “if I’m not dying, I’m not going to the hospital” kind of person. By 8:30, we were going 90 in a 65 with the high beams and caution lights on, on the way to the hospital praying we didn’t get pulled over.

When we got to the hospital at 9, and they rushed through the paperwork at the front desk of the OB ED (also used as our “triage”) and got me into a room within about 10 minutes of arrival. She checked me immediately, and I was at a 6.5-7. Honestly, I was still in denial and assumed I was just perceiving the pain as a lot worse than it really was, and it probably wasn’t actually labor. Basically my mindset summed up; “I’m getting induced tomorrow how can I be in labor. I didn’t get to self tan. I didn’t get to pain my nails. I wanted to make dinner! I had so much stuff to do before tomorrow morning.. what the hell”

Well, to labor and delivery we go! I’m wheeled into the room, and my nurse and a phlebotomist are already waiting on me. The nurse (Kelly) is asking me questions, and bless her heart for being so patient, between me basically foaming at the mouth and half way answering questions because I couldn’t get full sentences out between contractions at that point. The phlebotomist got my iv hooked up, got a bag of fluid pumping, and took some blood down to the lab immediately so I could get my epidural. Thankfully Kelly asked me right away (literally as I was getting wheeled in) if I wanted an epidural or not, and got all the paperwork signed and got the epi ordered ASAP. It took about 20 minutes from me getting into my labor suite to me getting the epi. We just had to wait on lab work to confirm my platelets were good to go, and once that was done, the anesthesiologists came in and started!

I’m TERRIFIED of needles, like petrified, so the last 35 weeks of my life have been haunted by the thought of the epidural needle. Im hurting so bad at this point, I don’t even care. Shove that needle in my spine, letssssss ggggoooooo. The doctor was talking me through the process, starts putting the placement sheet on my back, and gets me into a good position. I was sitting Indian style on my bed, hugging my husband, and I REALLY think that sitting with my legs crossed helped to ease my contractions just enough to be able to sit still. My anesthesiologist was awesome though.. he went step by step in between my contractions instead of how you usually hear of them basically telling you “YOU HAVE TO STAY STILL OR IM GONNA SCREW THIS ALL UP!!!” because well.. there is no staying still. Within 10 minutes of him finishing the procedure, I didn’t feel a single contraction from then on. By around 11 or so, I was laying in bed cracking up with my husband, feeling better than I had for the last 12 weeks of being pregnant! I knew I needed to rest, and the lights were all out, but I couldn’t sleep and neither could he (because duh.. I’m about to have a baby!). I was laying there trying to sleep, and I think he had JUST fallen asleep, when.. I started pooping. Uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop laughing. I literally couldn’t even tell if I was pooping or if I had gas. He thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world because he got woken up by, “BABY... I think I’m pooping”. He immediately jumped up and started cleaning me up! He cleaned all my poop and even cleaned up my blood mess I was laying in. Once I was all cleaned off, around 1:30 or so, I got relaxed enough and dozed off. I woke up at 5:30, right in time for my night nurse to check me one more time before shift change. When she came in, she had the doctor on standby to come break my water and start pitocin had I not progressed on my own. She checked me, and I had jumped from a 6.5 to a 9.5, and my water broke right as she was finishing up! At that point, she brought my new nurse in (Katie) and introduced us and gave her a quick run down of where we were before she left for the day. Kelly wedged me with the peanut ball before she left, because baby was at a 0 station and if we could get her lower, I’d be pushing less. I felt some pressure when I would get a contraction, but that was it. It wasn’t constant at this point. When Katie came back in about 30 minutes to check me again, I was at a 10 and baby had dropped just a little bit, so we decided to labor down for about another 45 minutes to try and get her lower. She flipped me to the other side and wedged me again, and said “call me back in when you feel like you are about to take the biggest poop ever, and you can’t hold it anymore”. When she flipped me to my right side, I pretty much IMMEDIATELY started feeling crazy pressure near my tailbone. After about 20 minutes the pressure was so strong and it was constant, so she came back in and checked me and baby was only at a +1 (which is still very low, we just wanted to see how low we could get her) but she said we were gonna go ahead and try to push and see if we could get anywhere.. Katie went ahead and started 2mg of pitocin to intensify the contractions so I could feel them better to push at the right time. We did three “practice pushes” and she was amazed at how well I was pushing and moving her with EVERY push, so we continued. I don’t think I mentally even realized I was about to birth a baby! My baby! A WHOLE BABY!! Within 15 minutes, she was calling the doctors to come in because “their laboring patient is almost crowning”. WHAT?!?!

The doctors come in and everyone gets in their spots, and Katie is coaching me through pushes and breathing. I was feeling immense pressure but when I was pushing it instantly went away.. I thought my eyes were going to bleed from how hard I was pushing! After about 25 minutes, she started crowning, and boy does the “ring of fire” not describe that perfectly. I didn’t really feel much other than pressure up until this point. With every push at this point, I could feel my skin stinging, but not where I figured it would be stinging. It felt like the sides of my vagina were going to rip open, not the perineum like expected.

POP. Her head is out.

POP. Shoulder.

POP. Shoulder.

GUSH. Baby is laying on my stomach and I hear her first cry.

I bawled. Not just little tears, I couldn’t stop crying. She was perfect.

They bathed her while they stitched me up (woooh! First degree tear on my inner labia and that’s it.) and then we did more skin to skin. She’s healthy, and I’m taken care of, so now we get to go to our mother and baby suite. When we got in our room, daddy and baby did skin to skin and it was the most magical thing EVER. I couldn’t love them more.

Now, almost 48 hours later and about to go home, I’m sitting in dreamy baby heaven and couldn’t be happier.