I say emotional as in I was very emotional. It all started on Labor Day (funny, ha) that weekend I just moved into my two bedroom apartment and got everything put away and even put my son's nursery together. Labor Day was the day I was going to relax with my SO since he had the day off from work. I was on the couch watching some YouTube videos and I got up to go pee but as soon as I stood up I quickly kneeled to the ground because I felt a gush of fluid and I really wasn't sure if it was pee or not because I did have to pee but it also didn't feel like it was pee. My SO came downstairs and I told him what was going on and I went to the bathroom to go smell myself to see if it was pee and sure enough it wasn't. I told my SO and we both started to freak out. This was all happening around 11 AM. I took off my underwear and pants and went upstairs to my bedroom to get new clothes on since I soaked the last pair and at that point I knew it was for sure my water because with every step I was dripping and I made it to my bathroom and just kind of stood in the bath tub because I would not stop leaking. Me and my SO don't have a car so I had to call up a friend to take me to the hospital and luckily for me they were only like a 5 minute car ride away. As I'm in the bathroom I'm telling my SO what to pack in our bags (we didn't have them ready because everything we were bringing were things we used on the regular; for example our deodorants, toothbrushes, chargers) the baby bag was packed though. I threw on some PJ pants, didn't even bother looking for underwear for most of clothes were dirty since our washing machine had a leak. My friend gets here and I'm dropping fluid everywhere. The only time I'm not is when I'm sitting. She takes me to the ER and I walk in with my legs pressed together because I'm still leaking fluid and the security guard saw this and he went into action. He swung the metal detector out the way extremely fast and got me a wheelchair. Thank God for the wheelchair too because the birthing center was quite a walk away and I would've hated leaking fluid all the way there. My sister was with me and my SO carrying our stuff. As they're checking me in they're checking our bags for anything "bad". I got checked in pretty quick just because the prenatal doctors I went to worked alongside the hospital which was nice because I knew all my doctor's throughout the whole birthing process. We get into the delivery room and I change into a gown and I remember every time I stood up fluid leaked out and I had to wear these giant diaper like pads. Everything was moving very slowly at this point. The doctor's were telling me I had a 24 hour countdown for the baby to be here because of risk of infection and that if I didn't start contracting on my own in the next few hours that they would have to induce me. I still wasn't contracting a few hours later so they started to give me a pill that softens your cervix so that you can be induced. I ended up getting two rounds of those and you can only get them every four hours. After the second round I started to contract on my own so I didn't need to be induced (yay). Those contractions hurt so bad. I thought that I would be able to handle them. My only goal was not to get an epidural (because the thought of something that numbs you going in your spine terrifies me). I didn't mind having to do any other pain relief. They put me on some kind of pain reliever that makes you loopy and they put it in you through the IV. All it did to me was make me loopy. It didn't even take the edge off the pain. So I decided I was going to try laughing gas next but I would have to wait two hours. My contractions were picking up so I ask to take a bath and that didn't help at all. In the end my contractions were just getting worse to the point I was freaking out and crying and I decided in the end to get the epidural because I knew I could not go on like this for hours. I tell them I want it and they tell me it's going to take an hour to get everything ready and broke down hearing that because I just wanted the pain to stop already. When the doctor came in to do the epidural I was in so much pain and it was so hard to sit still while being in that much pain. The nurse I had was super nice though and got me through it. Breathing while contracting really does help. Breath through your nose and out with your mouth and she told when I exhale to imagine the pain leaving my body. It took like an hour to find the "right" spot for them to put the epidural in except it wasn't the right spot, except it was in a way because they angled it more to my right side. So, I was completely numb on my right side but I still felt everything on my left. Oddly enough too because I forgot to mention this above but I was only contracting in my hips and no where else. Only feeling the pain on my left side felt worse then feeling it spread out. I was miserable. The doctor came back up when I told the nurse that I could feel everything on my left side and he told me that he felt like it was best for me to just stay like this since it took so long to get it in the first place. This was news I did not want to hear. Later they check me and tell me I'm only 3 or 4 cm and at this point I've been in labor for hours and when they told me that I just broke down and cried and just had a full on anxiety attack. I was really freaking out. The nurse went and got the doctor and they decided that I wasn't going to get anymore dilated unless I could relax and they knew the only way I could do that is if they tried again with the epidural. I feel like this time around it went faster and defiantly felt better. It made my contractions feel more like a less intense period cramp but again that feeling was on my left side but it wasn't as bad as before. Because I was feeling so much pain on my left side they believed my baby was pinching a nerve over there so they put a giant peanut like ball between my legs which felt weird because my legs felt very heavy because how numb they were. I ended up falling asleep for a few hour being woke up somewhere in the middle of that to have a catheter put in and a little after I woke up I got checked and they told me I was a ten. I was happy to hear that. My epidural at this point was starting to wear off on my left side (of course) and there was nothing they could do about it. Around an hour later they had me do practice pushes but nothing happened so we tried again in an hour. This time I was getting somewhere. I pushed for an hour and ten minutes. At one point my midwife wanted to give me induction medicine so I could contract harder to get things moving along faster. As she was gone trying to get that all figured out I actually started to crown. Which I for sure thought would hurt a lot but it was the least painful thing going on. They had me touch his head and they showed me in a mirror what was going on down there. I got to the point where his head was out but not his body and they were talking me I had to push except I was out of breath so I was breathing and I ended up somehow breathing him out. He came out sunny side up, weight 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 inches long. When he came out they placed him on my chest and looked over at my SO and he's in tears and I'm just in disbelief that this little baby came out of me and that how I could I love something this much already. My SO cut the cord and I delivered my placenta (which felt like a giant wet, gooey fish coming out) and after my placenta came out I felt a gush of blood and I literally thought I was drying. Eventually the doctor's told me it was normal (phew). I got to hold my son for an hour before they took his weight, height, and everything else which was really nice. He also already latched on during that time. Giving birth was super scary but I'm so happy to have my baby 💕

Welcome to the world Bellamy Augustine Vigil. He was born on September 5th (I was 38 weeks and 5 days) at 9:49 AM.