Baby is 6 days old today and I am pumping and thought I’d write my birth story out.

This was my second pregnancy- my first was in 2018 and I went overdue and was induced at 40 weeks plus 3 days. This time I was willing to wait longer for various reasons.

I started expressing colostrum at 38 weeks with lots of approval from my midwife who was hopeful it would help promote natural labor. I slowly dilated but had no signs of labor and baby stayed high up and I was only 50% effaced and stayed there for weeks. After discussion, we set an induction date for August 18th at 41 weeks exactly. At my check the day before I had had no ‘real’ contractions and baby was still high high, not engaged, 50% effaced. So it seemed pretty clear we were going to have to force her out. We were set to go into the hospital at 6 AM.

That night I woke up at 2 AM to a contraction. Because I was induced before I was doubting myself and doubting what I was feeling but after a couple of them I realized they were real. I debated waking my husband but I decided to let him sleep to prepare for the sleeplessness ahead. So I labored pretty silently on the floor and a little in the bed and then went outside and rocked in the rocking chair.

Hubby got up at 5 when we were told to call labor and delivery to confirm the induction. They said they had a spot so I didn’t discuss that I was already in labor- my contractions weren’t every 5 minutes yet or anything. So we head to the hospital.

Once they get me in, they check me and I’m 5 cms. I immediately start asking for the epidural despite being okay I was worried I would miss my window. They also started antibiotics because I’m GBS positive. Got epidural about ab hour in around 7 CMs dilated. It was a pretty crappy one compared to my first (the RN anesthetist was brand new) and it only took the edge off the pain rather than numbing me. I was going to make them come back and give me more but my midwife said I was 8-9 CMs and we were having a baby soon and I gave up on the epidural situation.

Baby was a lot less stressed by labor than my firstborn who was induced with pitocin. I labored on my left side in some weird stirrup thing but it was actually relatively comfortable.

At around 9:30 they said it was time to push. My midwife told me to take off my mask which seemed to piss off the nurse but nurse didn’t say anything. I was thrilled. At some point during the process the nurse snuck around me and put an oxygen mask on me but I didn’t care at that point.

Pushing when you can mostly feel everything is WAY different than pushing with a good epidural. It was kinda scary- I felt like my body was telling me the baby wasn’t gonna come out without hurting me, but I pushed anyway. A little over 10 minutes later, our daughter was born.

Apparently she had the chord around her neck and was a little blue, but I didn’t realize this till afterwards. All I knew was they placed her on my chest and several hands were literally attacking her with towels and she was howling. Somewhere in my mind I knew this was beneficial but in my delivery haze I said something trying to stop them. She pinked up pretty quickly thankfully and then everything was fine.

They let her stay with me and didn’t weigh her or do all the newborn stuff immediately, so we were SUPER surprised when they told us her weight. My husband and I both thought she was smaller than our first who was 7 lb 11 oz. Nope. Daughter #2 was 8 lb 9 oz. I have another first degree tear but recovery has been pretty easy.

Welcome to the world Elodie Anne!