**LONG**

My son is 1 month old today so I figure it's time to share his birth story.

I was set to be induced on Agust 13, it was technically elective but I'm only 5'1 and I was so big by then that I couldn't go up and down stairs, I hadn't slept in a week easily, and my back and knees cracked and popped any time I was walking for more than 10 minutes. I was due on the 15th so we weren't kicking him out early or anything. He had been engaged since 36 weeks and I had been 1cm dilated since then as well.

When we got into the labor and delivery room they gave me cervadil to get things going, I was supposed to start a pitocin drip 12 hours later. I was also GBS positive so they started me on an antibiotic drip. Unfortunately I'm allergic to all the good stuff like penicillin (all amoxicillins actually) and sulfa, so they gave me one I'd never heard of. Within 10 minutes of the nurse leaving my hands and scalp started to itch. I'm well versed in my reactions to antibiotics so I immediately knew I was having a reaction. We pressed the call button and in the 5 minutes (felt like an eternity) that it took her to get in, my face started to swell shut, but not my throat. They decided it was too late and since I wasn't going into shock they just turned the drip down a bit and gave me some benadryl and an ambien. I slept from 10-5 before the contractions pulled me out of the ambien fog. I begged for the epidural (originally wasn't going to have one but I signed the papers just in case) and it took the new resident SIX TRIES to get it in properly. Thankfully the anesthesiologist actually took over to place it correctly because my wife was about to intervene. By that point I had gone from a 1 to a 3, and the epidural let me fall back asleep.

Around 7 am I woke up and HAD to push. The dr checked me and I had gone from a 3 to a 9 in 2 hours, 100% effaced, but they told me not to push until it felt like i needed too 100% of the time, and not just when I had a contraction. I kept telling them I couldn't keep from pushing but they kept saying I could wait. By that point I barely know what's happening but with every contraction an alarm goes off. They're all huddled around the fetal monitor when my dr tells us his heart rate is dropping with every contraction. After a month of being perfectly positioned he decided to bend his neck so the back of his head was against my cervix. Dr said that if he wasn't twisted she'd let me keep going, but that one was or another we were going to end with a c-section. The only difference was going to be risking his life to be stubborn and try and wait (I'm paraphrasing here, she didn't say that exactly). Of course we said yes.

It all happened so fast all I remember is shaking and them injecting something else into my epidural so I couldn't feel anything at all. They had already started by the time they brought my wife in and I just remember the pulling. Within 10 minutes we heard him absolutely ROAR as he came out. They dosed me with some more morphine and next thing I remember is being in the recovery room 2 hours later begging for water. We have pictures but I don't remember them at all. My wife was still pale as a ghost after seeing all the blood but she was holding our little guy against my chest so he could have skin to skin even while I was delirious.

Now, 1 month later I still don't have any memories of the time right after his birth. I just started zoloft for PPD and my wife is working on getting treated for post natal depression as well. Our son is great, he's growing like a weed and we love him, but this shit is really hard.

Happy 1 month of life Elian. We're trying our best and I know you still don't know what's going on, but you know you're safe with us. We love you squiggle boy.