On 3/20 I woke up at 3am with mild regular contractions about every 7 minutes. I was convinced I would go into labor but around 8am they became less regular and I decided they must have been Braxton Hicks or promodal labor.

When I got home I was searching on Pinterest for cookie recipes and came across "labor cookies". I thought I'd give it a try and at the very least I'd have some yummy cookies.

Instructions said to eat at least 5 cookies, wait a few days and you'll go into labor. I ate 10 and an hour later my water broke.

We were expecting about 4-6inches of snow in DC that night so we headed to the hospital right away.

Before I left the house contractions we're about every 10 minutes. By the time we walked up to L&D around 10pm, they were every 5 minutes. By the time we got passed triage and into a L&D room, they were 3 minutes. About 1 hrs later, the contractions came on every minute and lasted 90 seconds.

I thought at the beginning of labor that I could do it completely without pain meds. But by the time they were coming every minute, I just couldn't get enough of a break in between and was in excruciating pain. I labored like this for 6 hours before asking for the epidural. From check in to epidural I went from less than 1cm to 4cm.

Once I got the epidural, things calmed down a bit and I was a finally able to get a little rest. Progressed to 9.5cm, fully efaced, and station 1 by 9am. Unfortunately I then regressed a bit opening up to 10cm but baby retracted to -1 station. Around 3pm, we finally got the go ahead to start pushing. About 2 hours later our beautiful baby boy was here.

I had to get 4 stitches to my upper labia but my perenium stayed in tact. Dr. said that was actually better and I would heal faster than if I had a perennial tear.

I had a doula and am so greatfull for her. It was the best decision we made. She was extremely helpful in managing pain before the epidural but also helping me get into various positions after to make sure progress didn't stall. I would definitely hire a doula again and she was really helpful for my husband too. We were totally lost before she got to the hospital.

All in all, birth was the most difficult thing I have ever done, but has also been super rewarding. So happy to finally meet our little one!