She’s here! (Full birth story)

Tl;dr version: Charlotte Emerson Avery Tilley was born at 8:32am on 1-7-20 via emergency c-section. She weighed 7lbs9oz and was 19 inches long. She’s perfect.

Long version: Due date was Jan 8th. At 9:30 am on Jan 6 I had my routine OB appt. I’d been asking to be induced a few days early for several reasons. I went overdue with my first two and never went into labor naturally so I had no reason to think I’d start labor prior to my due date. I’d been having a few contractions but nothing bad and honestly I thought it was mostly gas. Turns out I was 3cm dilated already! So my ob agreed to schedule an induction for that night at 8pm. She also did a membrane sweep. I continued having contractions for the next several hours but tried to rest while waiting for it to be time. I wanted to try and get myself to into labor but my kids’ godmother was coming to watch them and had a long drive, we didn’t want to take the kids to the hospital if it could be avoided so I laid down to keep them from progressing too fast. Fast forward to 7pm, she gets here, we feed the kids and say our goodbyes then head into the hospital to be induced. They check me and I’m already at 4cm now (after 11 hours with minimal contractions this is awesome) ! I ask if there’s anyway I can try going naturally now since I’m already basically in the early stages of labor but they basically forced me into following through with the pitocin because they’re so busy. At first I was fine. The contractions started getting regular but I was able to juat breathe through them pretty easily for a few hours. But at some point between 3 and 4 am I started getting “groany” and it quickly became very very intense. Active labor had begun. After 3 or 4 hours of intense contractions 2-3 minutes, they checked me and I was still only 4cm. I started getting discouraged and crying thinking I couldn’t do it if I was gonna be in pain like this for so long. I honestly knew better but it’s hard to think straight when your in that kind of pain. Plus the positions that helped me get through contractions were also the ones that they couldn’t monitor her heart rate at. So at about 5am I caved and got an epidural. IT DID NOT WORK. No relief whatsoever. I knew this would happen as it hadn’t worked with my first two but I was desperate. Well as soon as they got it in the contractions got even worse. They checked me I was 6cm. Oh shit. Things were about to go fast. I already knew that once I hit 6cm it would be quick. I started feeling my body pushing. They checked again, I was 7cm. Then 2 contractions later, 8cm. I was almost there! Suddenly there were a million doctors in the room rushing around and staring at the monitor. They were whispering amongst each other and then they said I had to have an emergency c section. What?? But I’m so close. Apparently baby isn’t doing well. They wouldn’t give me time to even make an informed decision. (After the fact I did research and honestly it wasn’t nearly as bad as they made it out to be. I still don’t see why I couldn’t have gone 10 more minutes considering it took that long to perform the c section anyway). I guarantee she would have been born within that time. My body was already pushing on its own and my last baby was born after only 2 purposeful pushes. Also did I mention my epidural hadn’t worked? So they have to put me completely under. (But not before literally stabbing me to make sure I’m not lying about being able to feel everything). Now my husband isn’t even allowed back in the OR. I’m terrified. This is my second emergency c section (my middle was a vbac) and I really wanted another vbac. I don’t want this at all. I’m crying. Then suddenly I’m under. They get her out at 8:32am, but I don’t wake up until nearly 11am. I was the last person to meet my own daughter. I’m definitely not happy with how my birth experience went this time. BUT despite having trouble recovering from all of that I’m so thrilled to have my daughter here.