My birth story at 37+6!

Last night (Sept 4 2020) I knew something was gonna happen. I had gone grocery shopping and felt so much pressure, drank a TON of this nasty frothy pineapple drink (I cut up a whole pineapple and blended it up with 100% pineapple juice, nothing fancy just the kind in the can) and bounced on my yoga ball. I went to bed around 9:30 having some light contractions and told myself if it was the real deal it would wake me up.

Sure enough, I woke up at 12:56AM having a painful contraction. I timed it immediately because it actually hurt and continued timing only the painful ones until around 2AM they had stayed within 6mins apart and all pretty moderately painful (not really able to walk during them, had to stop and breathe and couldn’t hold a conversation). I woke up my fiance at that point and told him I thought we should go to the hospital.

At 2:20AM today (Sept 5 2020) my fiancé and I got to the hospital, got registered and they checked my cervix. I was 6cm dilated! They called my doctor and came back and told me it was baby day. My water was still intact but my contractions were pretty painful and just kept getting stronger, but when they checked me again at 4:30 I was still 6cm. At that point I told them I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural.

After I finished the bag of fluids I got my epidural around 5:40AM and let me tell you the man who did my epidural deserves an excellence award because it wasn’t painful to receive at all and he was so sweet and informative the entire time and answered all my questions. They were busy but he didn’t make it feel rushed or get annoyed with my slew of questions at all. Not to mention the fact I didn’t have to push the button for more the entire time I had it, it didn’t wear off at all and I didn’t have my baby until almost 12 hours later because I kind of stalled out at a 6 until 10:45AM when my doctor came and broke my water. After that things went by a lot faster.

At 12:50 i was 8cm, I stayed that way until 2:30 when I was 9 and a half, and by 3:15 I was ready to push!

I did a few practice pushes at 3:25 and by 4:07PM he was born!!! And I have got to mention that even though it was almost 12 hours after my epidural I didn’t feel anything other than intense pressure and an uncomfortable amount of stretching. So yes even with a perfect epidural pushing still is very uncomfortable but luckily I couldn’t feel it when I tore all the way to my bootyhole 😭😂 6 pounds 13 ounces and 19.5 inches long, he’s the most beautiful and perfect little baby I’ve ever seen but of course I’m biased! I love him so much.

Pushing was a lot harder than I imagined. I knew it would be hard with an epidural but mine had already lightened up to the point where I couldn’t really feel anything but I had complete control over my muscles and stuff. But yeah, for my other first time mommy friends the baby does not just come out easily 😫 I was pushing so hard I thought I was going to pop! He came out so fast that I tore all the way to my anal cavity but I couldn’t feel that, I didn’t even know I ripped until they started stitching me up. I’m really sore down there but not super bad yet (I’m sure it’ll be worse tomorrow).

I think for me the hardest part of my labor was waiting to dilate, not because of pain or discomfort but because it took so long and felt really discouraging but they told me that first labors are just like that most of the time. Anyway, here is my sweet rainbow baby boy! We have waited so long to meet him.