Delivery Story: Possible Trigger Warning⚠️

My sweet baby boy Madden Wilder made his appearance on May 19th at 3:14am.

My water broke on May 19th at 2am. Checked in to labor & delivery later that morning at 8am. Was at 3cm and 70% effaced. We had the choice of going home to see if labor would progress or kick starting things with pitocin, we chose to go home. Returned later in the evening at 7pm because my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart! I was at 6cm and 80% effaced! Because my water had been broke for going on 16 hours we started pitocin just to be safe and avoid going over the 24 hour mark and getting an infection!

Pitocin brought things to a whole new level. I was strong and toughed it out until 8cm, I was so against an epidural but knew that I needed it to relax so labor could progress. Once the epidural was placed I felt relief however for some reason I could still feel contractions & pressure (pain level was just at a 3-4) and I could still move my legs. We waited about an hour and it was time to push!

I pushed for about forty five minutes on my back. His head was crowning but we weren’t making the progress we wanted so my midwife grabbed a squat bar for me to put my legs on to really bare down. Within a few contractions his head was out! Things quickly got scary. My husbands face went from excited to seeing baby boys head to scared, my midwife jumped up and ripped the squat bar off, and my bed went from being upright to flat in seconds. His shoulder was stuck. It took 73 seconds for them to get him unstuck. He came out at 3:34am and was quickly ripped away from us to be sure there was nothing wrong. He pinked up quickly and was crying right away! I’ve never been more thankful in my entire life.

I’ve read about shoulder dystocia several times during pregnancy and it’s not always a good out come for baby and mama.

I can’t think about my labor & delivery without crying. Even though he’s here & we’re both happy and healthy I’m still terrified and in shock over the entire experience. Any other mamas experience shoulder dystocia and have any words of encouragement? I’m at the point of being terrified of having another baby.