My May baby turned into an April baby

I’m three weeks late, but I’m finally getting a chance to tell my birth story.

I was due May 1st, but baby boy decided to make his appearance on April 17th!

I had been getting Braxton Hicks contractions for the past week every day in the evenings. I just thought it was normal. I have 2 other boys so this wasn’t my first rodeo. On the morning of, I experienced contractions in the morning (which never happened before). These contractions woke me up at 6:30 am. I just brushed it off because I thought maybe it was BH again so I went back to sleep. Then they woke me up again...still brushed it off. When it happened the third time, I decided to start timing them. They were about 7-8 minutes apart and lasted about 30 seconds. So it wasn’t a big deal, but I told my husband anyway. Luckily, he hadn’t gone to school that day (he is active duty in the Navy and his job is to go to Medical School, pretty rad, I know lol). So we decided to call our L&D department and let them know what was going on. They advised me to come in after having breakfast. Because it was my third baby, they suggested that labor would be quick. So we did that. Ate breakfast, got out kids ready to go and we headed out to the hospital.

I was in triage for about an hour at 1 cm dilated. They waited for me to dilate a little longer before they determined that I was in labor and admitted me at 11:30ish am. I was trying to hold out on pain meds and go natural but after reaching 3 cm, I gave in and requested the epidural. Everything was fine until I reached 7 cm and the epidural was no longer effective! The anesthesiologists was in the OR working on a csection so he couldn’t get pulled out to readjust my epidural so I had to proceed with laboring in pain without the meds! It was the most painful thing I had ever felt! My husband felt so helpless and was trying his best to make me feel better. I think I was in pain for about an hour before the doc checked told me it was time to push. I was terrified! I had a vaginal birth with my first baby, but I was medicated out of my ass so I couldn’t feel a thing. And I had a Csection with my second so I didn’t feel anything either. But I could feel everything with this baby! I was so scared and in so much pain. My husband was trying to encourage me but I think he knew how terrifying this whole experience was for me. I was about to feel this human come out of me!

Well, I started pushing and everyone told me I was doing great but I couldn’t feel anything which was a great surprise! I remember asking them, “are you sure I’m doing this right? I don’t feel anything!” Needless to say, I pushed for about 7 minutes and he was out! The doctors were wonderfully surprised because I had pushed him out in such a short amount of time. And as soon as he was out, all of the laboring pain magically disappeared. The doctors immediately placed him on my chest for skin-to-skin contact. It was such a beautiful feeling!

Shaun R Williams III

Me and baby one day after birth.

With daddy one day after birth.