Hi ladies, I'm 6 weeks behind in posting my birth story but I wanted to share anyways bc I assume mine is a little different. So around 35 weeks I was told I had a calcified placenta. At 35 weeks my placenta looked like it would if I was 39 weeks so we started monitoring it to make sure it didn't stop working for the babes. At 37 weeks that thing was long overdue and old and I ended up going into labor naturally myself at 37+4. So Thursday at 7pm I was cramping in my back and told my husband I was pretty sure I had to poop! Around 11:30 I revised my initial assessment and told him I think I may be in back labor. So we called the doc and they told us to come in. Got to the hospital around midnight and I was 3-4 cm. the contractions were a joke. I don't know if this is a back labor thing but you can't time them and they weren't that bad at all. Seriously just felt like I had to poop really bad. They kept us since it was the middle of the night and we both thought I was def getting sent home. So we walked around for a few hours then the doc came in around 8am and I was 5cm and they were keeping me and we were having a baby! I would say around 1pm they came to break my water and THAT is when shit got real. The contractions blew after that. I think I only had 4 before I had an epidural. The epidural to me didn't hurt but I apparently have a strong threshold for pain I guess. Things were glorious after that. When it came time to push I had to stop the epi which wasn't fun but you're really pushing so hard and focused on that the pain seemed like an after thought. After my first push I assumed that was it and the baby would be here but my naive little self had a rude awakening hah! With that being said pushing is freaking hard. I know it's obvious but I've never worked so hard as I did to push that baby out. I burst basically all the blood vessels in my face and eyes. The next morning I woke up and my eyes were basically swollen shut. I was determined to get that boy out. So anyways... Pushed for about 40 mins and he was here! Overall the whole labor thing seemed not too shabby. Well now we factor in my old lady placenta. That's when things went wrong. My old lady placenta was so bad it wouldn't come out. Doctor had her whole hand in me trying to scoop it out but it was so gone it was just coming out in small chunks and strings. Absolutely the worst pain I've ever experienced. After about an hour I started passing out from the pain and they were using smelling salts to try to keep me awake. Maybe 20 more mins of that and it was begging them to stop. My husband said it was just a waterfall of blood coming out of me. So my placenta wasn't gonna come out and I had to go to the or so they could use an ultrasound and this like metal hook scoop thing to scrape it out. It suckkkkeeedddd. I had never heard of a calcified placenta so I jut waned to post my experience in case anyone else has to deal with that and has any questions maybe I can help with! With all this being said... Here's my 6 week old and I can tell you all the pain is absolutely worth it. The pain is short term but your love for your child is forever. Good luck ladies I wish you all healthy and happy babies!