Unmediated hospital birth-FTM

K.

Finally decided to write my birth story so I won't forget all the details. This is my first baby and like many first time moms I wanted to keep delivery as natural as possible. I had an easy, healthy pregnancy but my doctor doesn't let anyone go over 41 weeks so I was scheduled for an induction at 40+6. The day we scheduled my induction I was SO disappointed. I really wanted to labor at home and I knew a natural delivery would be less likely if I were induced. I was also told that I hadn't made any progress, still only 1 cm dilated with a high cervix, and that being induced at that point may not be as effective and could lead to a c section. I had 3 days to go into labor on my own and was basically given no hope that it could happen. I was so discouraged and resigned to getting induced as I had already been doing everything to get baby to come and had made no progress. The very next day I woke up with contractions..nothing new, I'd had false labor several times in the last couple weeks. I rolled over in bed and felt discharge. Again, didn't think much of it and went to sleep. A few hours later I got up and walked to the bathroom and again felt a little discharge trickle down my leg (the reason this didn't alarm me was that I had already been to l&d twice for what I thought was leaking fluid and it wasn't) When I looked down at my leg I saw that the discharge was pink! I was so excited, I ran back to the bedroom and woke up my husband. I was having moderate contractions, stronger than the false labor ones, but told my husband to go to work anyway since I wanted to be sure I was in labor before he took time off. I went back to sleep for a couple hours and when I got up again contractions had slowed down significantly but I continued having pink spotting. I took a bath that afternoon and afterwards contractions started again. By the time my husband got home they were pretty regular and uncomfortable, but definitely not unbearable. About 9 p.m. I took another bath and my husband lit some candles and put on some music to help me relax. Contractions were now about 4 minutes apart and quite strong. My husband knew it was time to head for the hospital, but I was still googling how to know if I were in active labor😂 I got out of the tub and started to get ready. I was convinced it was too early to go because I was worried about watering the plants, making my husband a sandwich in case he got hungry, and not knowing what to wear, obviously meant I wasn't in labor right?😂 We got to the hospital about midnight, and it was perfect timing because as soon as I got in the bathroom my water broke. I told the triage nurse and she did an amnisure and then checked dilation and my water gushed all over the bed. I was 5 cm dilated. I still wanted to go without pain medication, so I tried laboring in the jet tub. It was so nice and I really wanted to enjoy it but as soon as I got in the water contractions became unbearable. I told my husband that I couldn't do it and needed something for the pain (I didn't know then that this was transition) I decided to try nubain, but the nurse wanted to check me first because I was in so much pain. I was already 9 cm and she said it was too late for any meds, which was fine with me! After that contractions were so strong that my body automatically pushed and I had to try to stop it. Once I reached 10 cm contractions became much less intense and I was allowed to push. Pushing was exhausting, and took much longer than I expected, but my nurses were awesome and so encouraging when it felt like I wasnt making any progress. At the end the doctor wanted to cut me to "get the baby out faster" although I don't know why since baby was handling delivery perfectly. I told him "not yet" and soon baby was born and I only ended up with a small tear that needed some stitches but didn't even hurt during recovery. My son was born at 5:30 a.m. after 2.5 hours of pushing. The nurses commented on how fast my labor had progressed for a first baby and how calm I was (although I did scream once, when his head came out) They said I should be a surrogate for all my friends..um no thank you😂 sorry this turned out so long, but if you've read this far I hope you enjoyed it!