Better late than never...long

So I’m only just about 8 months late posting my birth story, but by the time I get some peace and quiet, I’m usually just too tired to sit and type it all out.

On July 2nd, at 40weeks and 4 days I started noticing at around 11am that I was having mild period like cramps. I had already had my bloody show a couple days earlier, so I knew labour was coming at some point. I didn’t have any Braxton Hicks contractions at all throughout my pregnancy, so I didn’t quite know what to expect (this was my first pregnancy). At around 1:30pm they are still mild and not coming close enough to time, so I get my very hot and uncomfortable self into my bathing suit and head over to my moms to have one final swim before baby comes, figuring also that the swim may help with the contractions. I could still feel them while I floated in the pool, and after about an hour, I got out and went home. Didn’t want to make hubby nervous just in case it would take a while for things to progress, so I didn’t tell him I thought I might be having contractions. I get a shower, finish packing as much as I can, we have dinner, and after we finish dinner, I notice that they are getting a little more intense, so I tell my hubby, and download a contraction tracking app. They are about 12-18 mins apart at that point. By 8:30 they are still only 8-12 mins apart. At midnight I call labour and delivery, just to let them know what was going on and to see what my options were (I was GBS+ so I knew I would have to be put on antibiotics when I got there). She said that I should wait until they were 5mins apart lasting 1 min long for 1 hour, or until my water broke, or if my pain was too much. I told her that I would try to labour at home as long as possible. Sleep was not going to happen no matter how hard I tried, so I laboured as long as I could while hubby slept. Wanted him to get as much as possible. The contractions were getting more intense and closer together as the hours went by. I kept telling myself that if I could make it to the next hour, i would wake him up and we would go. When each hour would come, I would put it on to the next hour since I could still manage the pain. As 5 o’clock approached, i knew that was it. So up he got, we got packed, called the hospital to tell them we were coming, and headed in. After getting into a gown they checked me and I was already at 5cm. They admitted me and got me into a room. Took two nurses and 4 different painful attempts to get my iv in (my mom has the same issue with having hard to find veins, so I knew they may have a hard time). I was pretty nauseous, so they gave me my zofran (had been on it my entire pregnancy for my never ending morning sickness) and I had opted for the fentanyl pain meds. Time seemed to fly but and with the help of the fentanyl I was able to talk through my contractions with ease. My mom and dad had come at 8a.m. And my mother in law didn’t arrive until around 12. I was even able to call my grandma while I had contractions. My dr came in at 1, checked me and I was at 7cm. She decided to break my water, and noticed meconium so they got a team on standby for when baby was born. She checked me before she left again and I had went back down to a 5. She came back an hour later and I still hadn’t progressed, so she had them start me on petocin. The pain was getting more intense to the point where I knew I’d be wanting the epidural shortly, so I told the nurse to have the anesthesiologist come. He had to do the girl in the room next to me first, so they had me get up and use the bathroom while I waited and they wanted me to move around a bit to try to turn baby as she was facing up instead of down and it was giving me bad back labour. The pain got really bad after I got up and moved around to the point that I couldn’t talk at all and the contractions were 15 seconds from the end of one to the beginning of the next one. She checked me right before I got the epidural and I was at 8cm. By the time he had finished, and I was settled back down, with the catheter inserted, she checked me again and I was at 9cm. Since I hadn’t gotten any sleep in well over 24 hours, they told me I could get some sleep before pushing her out. That epidural was amazing and I am pretty sure I fell asleep before she had finished talking to me. According to my mom, the monitor that was tracking my daughters heart rate kept going off and the nurses would have to come back in and move the fetal monitor around to try to find her again. Her heart rate also kept dipping with the contractions, so after only half an hour of sleep, they woke me up and told me I needed to get her out ASAP. That’s when the room started getting busy. Nurses getting everything set up for the birth and the respiratory team getting their stuff set up. I told my mom she could stay in the room (wasn’t sure how I’d feel about having her in there when it would come time to give birth, so I told her it would be a last minute decision) and that she had to stay up by my head. That turned out to be the only place there was room for her to stand anyways with all the drs and nurses in there. So with my mom squeezed in behind the bed, and my hubby next to me, they started having me do practice pushes. I couldn’t stop shaking from the lack of sleep, and since I couldn’t feel anything, I had no idea when I was supposed to be pushing. So I kinda just guessed at it whenever I would feel the smallest hint of anything lol. After a couple mins of that, my dr came in and told me to stop pushing cause she could see her head. Once she was gowned up and ready, I started pushing again and within 12 pushes she was out. She quickly showed her to me and passed her off to the respiratory team. After she was checked and they confirmed she okay, they brought her over to me. It hadn’t really sunken in until the moment she was placed on my chest that I finally, after three and a half years of trying, that I was finally a mother. Hubby cried, mother cried, baby cried, it was great. No tears, just some minor scratching.

My sweetheart meconium covered Adeline Rae was born on July 3rd at 4:13 p.m. at 40weeks 5days. Weighing 6lbs9oz (same weight that i was when i was born) and 19 1/4 inches long.

Due to my gestational diabetes, and her being so small, we had to stay a couple extra days while they got her sugars up. We got to go home on the 5th. Recovery was so much easier than I thought it would be. Didn’t have much pain, as I took the pain meds at the beginning like they suggested, and didn’t really need them after I ran out of the ones they provided. The back pain that hit a couple weeks later and is still ongoing has been awful. Back spasms all the time are not pleasant. Breastfeeding has been going pretty good, so we are happy :)

Nearly 8 months later and couldn’t be more in love ❤️