I had a horrible hospital experience with my first (7 years ago), so I was determined to do it differently this time. I decided to go to a midwife at a local birthing center instead of an OB, and was planning for a completely natural birthing experience.

Unfortunately, my body had other plans. My blood pressure began creeping up at my 34 week appointment and continued to elevate. After my 37 week appointment, my midwife decided to start a 24 hour urine collection and consult with a high risk OB at one of the hospitals 45 minutes away.

She called me right after I peed into the jar the first time (which is really hard at 37 weeks pregnant) and told me they were going to admit me to the hospital and induce based on a diagnosis of gestational hypertension. I was devastated because I had so badly wanted a natural experience. I also remembered the effects of pitocin from my firstborn.

When we got to the hospital, they checked me and I was dilated 2, so they decided to insert a foley bulb and start a low dose of pitocin. Once the foley bulb came out, they were going to attempt to break my water. The foley bulb was way worse than contractions. It was like a constant pressure on my cervix that kept getting worse and worse until eventually it came out and I was dilated to 4. They decided to wait on breaking my water as baby was still sitting at a -2 to -3 station. We tried everything to get him to drop. I walked the halls and sat on a birthing ball. Eventually the pitocin was making the contractions too strong, I was exhausted as I had been up for more than 24 hours at that point, so I decided to get an epidural. Unlike with my firstborn, the epidural worked and I was able to doze off and on for a few hours.

Unfortunately, it seemed my labor wasn’t progressing and baby was t dropping. After 18 hours, I was still only at 5 cm. Finally, they decided to break my water even though baby hadn’t dropped. Within 2 hours of them breaking my water, I began to feel a pressure. At first I thought maybe my catheter was coming out since they had just repositioned my legs, but when the nurse checked she said nope it was baby’s head right there and I was completely dilated.

She decided to do some practice pushes. But midway through the first one, she told me to stop so she could get the doctors. Doctors care in set everything up so that I could start pushing for real. I pushed twice and they told me to stop so they could unwrap the cord from his neck. Then he slid the rest of the way out and they placed him on my chest. I got to enjoy a whole hour of skin to skin immediately after birth which was exactly what I wanted and he latched immediately and has been nursing like a pro ever since.

Lochlan Jude born 11/16/17, 7 lb 6 oz, 19.5 inches long