6lbs 12oz, 19 3/4"

I'm so excited to finally put my birth story on here! I have been reading almost every story that has been posted for the past month or so!!

It started February 2nd (last Thursday) I was 36wks exactly that day. Around 2pm at work I thought I was having a ton of Braxton hicks contractions. I thought it was odd that they were coming really regularly so I started timing them. During the 2 hours that I timed them they came every 3-5 min and lasted for 1 minute each. I wasn't experiencing any real pain at all so I didn't really think I could possibly be in labor. I ended up calling my dr office later that evening when they were still continuing. The on call dr said that if I was having them that frequently but wasn't experiencing much pain then I didn't need to go to the hospital. 

As the night carried on the pain never got worse than a mild period cramp. I ended up going to bed like normal. I woke up a few times to pee and noticed I still had contractions but brushed them off. At 2 am I woke up and thought I had to go to the bathroom again but as I was getting out of bed there was a MASSIVE rush of water. It took me a second to register what was going on. I couldn't get the water to stop at all. I waddled to the bathroom and sat on the toilet til it slowed down to a trickle. After that I grabbed a towel and told my boo that my water broke and we needed to go to the hospital. Contractions started coming, they were uncomfortable but not that painful or regular.

When we got to the labor and delivery unit they confirmed my water broke and that my baby was doing fine. I was admitted and excited that within a max of 24 hours I'd be holding my little girl. 

Well my contractions weren't getting intense, I was only dilated to a 2 and 60% effaced. They started me on pitocin and things picked up quickly my contractions started coming every 4-5 min and they HURT. I was allowed to have an epidural but waited as long as I possibly could. Things got really intense, my pitocin was almost at a max dose and I was in a ton of pain! But my babys heartrate started decreasing with each contraction, and my cervix was barely changing. After 6 hours or so I was only 3cm dilated. I decided to get the epidural. The variables with the baby's heart rate and my contractions kept happening so the dr had them stop the pitocin. I didn't continue contracting on my own after that though. After a few hours without any progress whatsoever they restarted the pitocin. The contractions came back strong and frequent but my blood pressure kept dropping dangerously low. I had to have multiple shots of ephedrine to bring it up. Then the baby's heartrate kept decelerating. They tried everything they could think of to stop it from happening. Eventually after 22 hours of being in labor without any significant changes to my cervix (only reached 5cm, 100% effaced and baby at station 1) the dr decided that I needed to have a c section because the labor was putting way too much stress on the baby and I. 

Things went super fast after that, I was taken back almost immediately for the procedure. Everything went picture perfect from that point on. Aubrielle was born extremely healthy at 11:59pm on February 3. 

There was fear around the possibility of her lungs not being fully developed because she came early and I had gestational diabetes. To everyone's surprise she didn't have a single problem breathing. She got a 9/10 on her apgar test and wasn't treated as a premie. It was amazing seeing my little girl doing so well. 

We still have no idea what caused my water to break and didn't allow me to give birth naturally. But she's perfectly healthy so it doesn't matter too much. 

She's so perfect, I can't believe I'm a mommy. Recovering from the c section has sucked, but she's so worth it!!