She's here! Epi birth, ftm.

Reading these every night in my last few weeks of pregnancy really brought me comfort,confidence, and prepared me for anything that could happen during labor..so I feel very compelled to add my story as well. I'm laying here with my daughter on my chest, husband playing games on the laptop exactly 24 hours after I gave birth. She was 2 days early.

At 7am 6/6/17 I was awoken by contractions, they were painful but I could talk and walk through them easily..just had to keel over through them. I started timing and they were an average of 8 minutes apart and 90 seconds long. Called my doctor, they said head to the hospital. So my husband and I get here, he's convinced I'm not in labor and that they are just braxton hicks..(he really wanted her to wait to come out until his family arrives Saturday haha). They checked me and I was 3cm, told me to walk around the hospital an hour and come back. While walking contractions got much more frequent, and much stronger where I had to go to the floor and wince to get through it. After an hour I am at 5cm! I was checked in and decided to try to go as long as I could without an epidural. 2 hours later they check me and I hadn't gone past a 5, doctor came in and broke my water. This is when things got serious, contractions were intolerable. I vomited, was lightheaded, and asked for an epidural. Getting the epidural I'd say was the worst part of my labor, I was having excruciating contractions during the procedure which they let me work through before continuing to get the epidural in place. But I still got extremely light headed and nauseus during this part...epidural kicked in in about 20minutes and I couldn't feel ANYTHING. They checked me and I was at 7cm. I could still move my legs, just tingly and warm. My husband was watching the monitor and my contractions were huge, and after feeling the contractions after my water was broken from 5-7cm I was in complete bliss being numb. My mom husband and I laughed, talked about her arrival, and it was just pleasant really. A few hours later and I was ready to push, this is honestly the part I was most nervous about..would I give up? Would I be able to do it? Well I pushed like I was making a bowel movement 3 times for 10 seconds every contraction and 30 minutes later she was out. That's apparently extremely good for a ftm, and shattered everything I had heard about epidural slowing pushing and labor. I didn't need pitocin or anything my body progressed on its own with the epidural, and i never pressed the button to get more medicine in my epidura, maybe I got lucky. My words of advice..do not wait to get the epidural, u think the contractions are tolerable but THEY GET WAY WORSE..instead of focusing on getting through the pain of each contraction I wish I would have gotten it sooner and been able to get rest and enjoy the experience sooner. Secondly, push like you are taking a poop, and lastly if everything goes normally it won't be as bad as you think..atleast it wasn't for me and I was extremely nervous and scared to deliver as a ftm. I welcomed my beautiful daughter Aurora at 9:43pm on 6/6 weighing 7 lbs and being 18.75 in.