Prepare yourself because this is a long one. Feel free to ask any questions.

7/6/16 I headed to my OB office at 9:30 in the morning. I was 40w3d. he did a membrane sweep and I bled immediately after. My contractions started immediately, but I had been experiencing them since 35w the same way. Only this time they were slightly more intense. Only slightly. About an hour later , on my way to my orthodontist to pick up a pack of rubber bands, I felt a really weird sensation. Kind of like the feeling you get when period blood pours out of you, but only for a second. I immediately checked the piece of toilet paper I shoved in my pants after my appointment , and noticed it was wet aside from the blood. I wasn't sure if it was my water, but luckily I followed my gut. We made our way home and once we got there I sat on my birthing ball a bit. My contractions were getting more intense but slowly, and I honestly wasn't timing them. My mom had made the call to go to the hospital just in case , worse thing that could happen was I'd get sent home.

Once they got me to a room they set me up to monitors and checked if my water had broken. It did. They then told me their plan to get me a room , start me on pitocin and break the rest of my water . One of the doctors mentioned she noticed something that could've been meconium but she was going to rule that it wasn't. Don't know how she made that decision.

I got to my room and they set up my IV. My contractions were still the same. Once they broke my water it was a different ball game. I sat on the birthing ball for a while, and every time I had a bad contraction , I'd lean forward and a gush of water would come out and it would ease the pain. I did that until I ran out of water.

I ended up not progressing and my contractions were back to back, so I got the epidural. I was terrified. I really really wanted a drug free labor , but it just wasn't possible for me. They had to stick me three times and hit a few nerves (that I still feel today) before I was good to go. The best part was I was immediately numb in my butt/vagina. I got an hour of rest before I started feeling my contractions full force again, only I was still numb. So they upped the dose , which made me lose control of my legs (which was SO irritating whenever I had to call someone over to move them for me) I then started getting fluid in my upper back from the epidural, and that was absolutely debilitating. I could not move an inch or I felt like screaming my head off for the next five minutes. And I have a very high pain tolerance. It killed me because they had to constantly check if I was dilating , and at one point they wanted me to switch sides to see if it'd speed things up, but it only caused the baby's heart rate to decrease. When it came to the moments before pushing I stopped the epidural so I could hopefully be able to lift my head.

Once I got to 10, the nurse told me I could start pushing when I felt the need to. Well, in the beginning I never really did. Just knew the height of my contraction and tried pushing. It got things going , and the contractions got more intense as she went down , and then things took a turn. I started passing out between contractions and her heart rate was decreasing , I was put on oxygen. I ended up tearing and got a 2nd degree episiotomy. With my last set of contractions , instead of the 3 , I pushed in a fourth and she came flying out (it seemed) my mom said there was the most amount of meconium she has ever seen. And she's witnessed a lot of births. She described it as a thick layer on her back and the rest hit the floor, her words being "like a grown man took a shit"

The doctor immediately cut her cord and handed her off to the NICU team where she was given oxygen and in the incubator for 35 minutes. It seemed like all in 5 minutes to me because I kept passing out. I just remember my doctor telling me congratulations, it went black, and then a nurse asked me if I wanted to hold my baby.

She was born at 3:19 AM 7/7/16 weighing 7lbs 7oz.

I held my baby skin to skin and I was honestly numb. I didn't know what to feel. Thinking about it now, I definitely think I felt my life changing forever. I knew I loved her I just didn't feel it the way I thought I would.

After visitors and as they were setting up our room for recovery they informed me she had a fracture in her right collar bone from delivery . I immediately felt this warm wave of guilt. I nodded my head as they were telling me how normal it was and how it happens all the time. "Just one of those things" . I didn't allow it to hit me emotionally because I wanted to seem understanding .

We got to our room and they had another doctor come in to check it out , she ordered an xray. It came back that it was indeed fractured, so she decided to wrap an ace bandage around her chest , tucking her arm in it and told us to keep it that way for 10-14 days. Her being a doctor we of course listened. I was worried about it being the same as binding her chest and the risk of pneumonia, but assumed she knew better than to ask.

They gave me the plan to stay thursday (since I techinically had gave birth that day) friday, and discharge saturday. The day went by fine, beside me noticing how yellow she was and she hadnt pooped. The nurse told me they checked and she was fine. I still hadnt peed and ended up needing to be catheterized twice (both times gave them 750ml) and leaving one in for about 6 hours. Lactation came and seen me and told me she had a tongue tie and that was the reason she wasnt latching properly and my nipples were cracked so bad. I started feeding her formula as she was becoming dehydrated and my milk wasnt doing so great. Photographer came in and did her thing, once she came back to show me the pictures i started bawling. I felt the overwhelming amount of love I was waiting for.

Next day, they checked her and "suddenly" she was at 14 and had to be put under the blue light for jaundice. Still hasn't pooped. Lactation came and gave me a pump, and with a lot of help I got things going to be able to give my baby breast milk. She was under the light for 16+ hours. Discharge day came . They told me I was discharged but my baby wasn't, but they would be able to keep me in my room unless it got busy. Luckily it didn't, but I had everything packed just in case. They gave her two rectal exams and a suppository. It didn't work.

Next day they came into my room and told me she was being transported to children's hospital so they could get a better look at her. They immediately told me she might need surgery. I tagged along in the ambulance and it was the first time I had been out of the hospital since being admitted. It was a very quiet ride.

We get there and they get all of our information , and basically tell us we will spend the day in there and wait until tomorrow to hear anything. My milk came in that day .

Next day they tell us "tomorrow we will start doing tests to rule out hirschsprung's disease." That can only be corrected with surgery. During the day I notice she would cry the blood curdling scream when she peed. I tested it by ripping her diaper off whenever shed cry that way, and without missing a beat shed immediately stop crying after she was done peeing. I mentioned it three times before they wanted to check it out (I got really , really angry with them) . she had to pee two more times just to keep missing a bag they taped around her vagina to hopefully catch some urine. Around 3 in the morning they decided to catheterize her for a sterile sample. It came back fine.

Later that morning they did a barium test. They stuck a tube in her rectum, allowing the barium to fill her colon so it'd be lit up during the x ray. Her colon looked perfect. Hours after the test , lactation came in to help me with my latch and she exploded all over the crib. We finished that day with her finally pooping and a good latch (with the help of a sheild that I am no longer using) and her also no longer crying in pain during a pee. We were discharged the next morning.

She had her follow up with her pediatrician two days later where her Ace bandage was taken off (doc we POed they did that) and she weighed 8lb 2oz. She is a healthy, pooping machine!