My beautiful son was born May 31, but I never sat down to write out my birth story. This afternoon I have been reminiscing about it and thought I would share. It's a long one, so I do apologize if I ramble on a bit.

I was due 5/25 and at my 39 week checkup my OB stated that my cervix was not making any changes yet in preparation for the birth, so he recommended cervical softening. I had told him that I wanted a natural birth so I was shocked when he recommended intervention at 39 weeks. I asked my questions, etc and he promised that the cervical ripening medication would not induce labor, but help to set the stage for labor to progress easier on its own. The procedure was scheduled for 39w5d.

I went up to L&D where they placed the cytotec intravaginally and then monitored me for 4 hours to ensure labor wasn't imminent before sending me home. It was comforting knowing that we were trying to ensure that I would have the delivery that I wanted, but while I was there I could hear other moms delivering, and could hear their babies crying, their families cheering.... It was really hard to leave there without my baby! Doc said we would repeat this procedure every 2-3 days until labor started on its own, so I had it done at 39w5d, 40w1d, 40w3d and was scheduled again for 40w5d as I still wasn't having any cervical changes.

After the appt on 40w3d, my hubby and I decided to take things into our own hands.... We had sex, walked around the mall for 4 hours, went home and did squats together and even tried some nipple stimulation with the pump. We were really impatient! Finally on the morning of 5/31 (40w5d, I was scheduled to have another cytotec placed at 11 am) I woke up at 730 am to go pee and as I was crawling back into bed my water broke! I waited at home until my appt at 11 am and when I got there, they checked me and I was dilated only to 1 and still not having any contractions. I thought they were going to send me back home to wait, but they took a vaginal culture to check that my water had broken and it had! (I was pretty positive, but being a FTM can make you doubt yourself sometimes). They hooked me up to pitocin at noon and I labored without any other intervention as my contractions started. By 1 pm, I was having contractions every 2 minutes, lasting 90 seconds each. They were in my back and I tried a million positions to cope with them, but only getting 30 seconds relief in between each one really took its toll on me.

I continued to labor this way until 5 pm when the nurse checked me and I was still only dilated to 2 cm. I was very disappointed that I was progressing so slowly! By this time my parents had arrived and I was commisserating with my mom whose delivery story is much like mine was starting out. She eventually had me via c-section after not progressing past 4 cm over 3 days of labor....

I decided at that time that keeping my spirits and strength up was more important than my original birth plan. I got my epidural at 5:20 pm and was able to enjoy a few hours of playing cards with my parents and husband, entertaining a few visitors, etc. I didn't feel a single contraction from that moment on. I took a nap at 8 pm and woke at 945 and called my hubby in from the other room where he was with my parents and told him I needed to go to the bathroom. He called the nurse and she checked me and I was dilated to 10 already so it was time to push!

I did 4 practice pushes with her before my doc arrived. 3 more pushes and sweet Cash David Jones was born at 10:03 pm weighing 8 lbs 2 oz, 21.5 in long.

After he was born, the nurse noticed my epidural catheter was on the ground. She says she has no idea when it fell out, probably during my nap she said. Oh well! I didn't have any pain, so I wasn't concerned. I did have a 2nd degree tear which had to be repaired but overall I am so happy with my birth story! 😊

I had stressed quite a bit prior to the cytotec treatments because everything online says that they are no longer recommended, and in fact my doctor is the only doctor left at our birth center that still uses this treatment. In the long run, I'm so glad that I trusted my doctor and followed his recommendation. He truly had my best wishes in mind. And next time, I think I'll try to do it without the epidural. I really believe it was the pitocin that made my contractions unbearable so if I don't need the pitocin next time I will try to do it without the epidural as well, but I don't feel any shame in the fact that I needed the drugs!