It’s been a little over three weeks since my son came into the world, but I haven’t shared my birth story. It’s a difficult one, and sometimes when I share it out loud, I get very emotional and teary eyed.

I was 39 weeks and 4 days when my water broke at 2:30pm while I was with my mom grocery shopping for some last minute things. I went to the bathroom to see what was happening, and sure enough, my water broke! We quickly finished our trip, and went home to put away groceries at hyper speed (lol) pick up my father, and wait for my husband to come home from work so we could go to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at about 3:30pm and the doctor on call checked me (which holy crap!!!! Owwwww!!! They never tell you how bad it hurts!!!!) and I was not dilated at all and they couldn’t find any fluid. So, they gowned me up and said to walk around the unit for 30 minutes or until I felt another gush of fluid. It was not even 5 minutes of walking until more fluid starting gushing out. The doctor finally believed that my water had broken, even though he insisted that I had just peed my pants. I was finally admitted to L&D and was given a room with no windows- but private bathroom. They hooked me up to a NST monitor and monitored me the rest of the evening and I told my parents to go home since nothing was going to happen that night. My husband stayed with me and spent the night at the hospital.

The next day, they checked me and I hadn’t dilated, so they started me on pitocin. I started on 2units and every hour we went up 2 units. I made my way up to 20 units and was having constant contractions and was in a lot of pain. At this point I was still laboring without pain medications, and my husband was helping me labor through contractions with deep breathing and guided visualizations. At some point in the evening, the doctor on call came to check in on me and I was only 1cm dilated. They took me off the pitocin and let me rest. (Thank GOD!! Pitocin is awful!!) At 10pm that night they started me on citocain which was supposed to ripen my cervix and help me dilate. They administered this to me every two hours through the night and into the morning.

Day three started with continued rounds of pitocin. I had gotten up to 6 units of pitocin by the afternoon and was in so much pain from consistent contractions. I was hopeful that by enduring contractions and doing some squats that I had helped things move along. I had lost my mucous plug and had also started the “bloody show”.

At 3pm the doctor came in and checked me. I was only 4cm dilated, 50% effaced and -2. I had progressed, but definitely not the amount that I had hoped for. The doctor said that he recognized my birth plan to labor naturally, but if I wasn’t any further dilated by 9pm we would have to have a c-section, since after 24 hours of my water breaking, the risk of infection is super high, and it looked like I had a “steel cervix” that did not want to dilate.

Around 4 or 5 o’clock I was in so much pain I finally broke and asked for medications. They offered me Nitrous oxide which didn’t really do much for me, other than put me out of it and I’d wake up to extremely strong contractions. They then gave me Nubane through my IV, which helped as I waited for the epidural due to the amount of pain I was in. That medication really knocked me out of it and I remember “waking up” on all fours and clutching the hand rails of the bed riding out terrible contractions. I asked my husband if I was in labor and what was happening to me. He was so nervous he barely said “yes honey, you’re in labor”. At some point- maybe 7 or 8pm I finally got the epidural. I was finally relieved of the pain which was immense.

At about 9:30pm, when the doctor came again, I was still measuring the same and had not made any progress. He said that we would be going forward with the c-section. I was so nervous.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity for the anesthesiologist to come back and assess what I needed for the procedure since I had recently gotten the epidural. Of course, there were several hospital emergencies, so we had to wait for the on call anesthesiologist to literally come in to the hospital. My husband and I were gowned up and prepped for the c-section. I was terrified. My whole body was shaking, I was freezing, and I vomited straight up bile twice.

They wheeled me in and once I was ready and set, they let my husband in. He held my hand as the minutes went by. I was out of it, (I think the anesthesiologist added some anxiety medication to my IV) and was completely dissociated throughout the procedure. I think my brain needed to check out so it wouldn’t freak the f*ck out at what was happening!

Oliver Antonio came into the world at 11:02pm on 7/20/19 weighing 7lbs10oz and measuring 20 inches. I was so happy to finally have my sweet little bear by my side and to have my labor be over with! They brought him over to my cheek and whisked him away to do the Apgar- he scored a 9 and was quickly placed in my arms again. I held him the entire night and didn’t close my eyes to sleep. I was so thankful to have him healthy and safe and to also be alive and well myself! (I’m a drastic thinker, what can I say?)

I am relieved, but also still am processing everything that happened to me.

My birth plan was to go all natural, but my body had other plans. I am happy to have my son by my side, and am happy that I was able to be flexible with my birth plan so that I could adapt to the changes during my labor experience. But woooo-weee, was that a doozy!