My birth story ❤️

MMA • Mama to little Leighton 💖

When I was pregnant one of my favorite things to do was read other birth stories. I’m so excited to be able to share mine, although it may be a little lackluster compared to some others (which was A-OK with me!). It might be long because I’m wordy, but I want to be able to look back and remember it all too!

My due date was 4/1/18 and my entire pregnancy was fairly uneventful except for a short stint in the hospital due to a kidney infection. I failed my one hour glucose test but passed the three hour. Due to this, the doctor felt I was going to have a larger than average baby.

At my 36 week checkup, I got my first cervix check. The good news, I was already 2cm and 50% effaced. The bad news, my doctor said, “Your pelvis is so small, which may be difficult for a bigger baby”. So of course from then on I was fretting about going through hours of labor and then having to get an emergency c-section. I knew I didn’t want the worst of both worlds. Give me one or the other please! Lol.

So last check before due date, I was still 2cm but “closer to a 3” and 50%. She asked if I wanted my membranes stripped and I said no (I really wanted an April baby because I know sooo many people born in March). After my appt, I had some spotting but nothing crazy and I was pretty crampy but other than that, I was still very pregnant!

So my due date rolls around and again, I’m still crampy, but no contractions. Hubby and I always get groceries together on Sundays so that’s what we did that afternoon around 4:30pm. As we are walking around the store I notice that my cramps start to strengthen and they’re now coming and going. The contractions have officially started! I download a contraction timer in the middle of Walmart. 😂 we get home, unload groceries and I decide to take a shower so that if I do go into labor I have time to dry my hair. Welp. The shower kicked things into high gear. My contractions were 3-4 mins apart, lasting 30-40 seconds. The pain was manageable, but I knew the hospital told us to come in if contractions were less than 5 minutes apart, so that’s what we did.

We get checked in and she checks me, I’m a solid 3cm and 75% effaced. They start monitoring my contractions for about 40 minutes. She comes back and says they’re “irregular”. Literally only one of them there was 7 minutes in between instead of 4 🙄. But whatever. She tells me I can stay for another 30 minutes or go home. By this point, it’s 11pm on Easter night and I’m just tired and ready for sleep so we decide to go home and try to get some sleep.

Literally as I’m signing the discharge papers I have a contraction that’s about 3x worse than the ones I was having previously. But, I’m stubborn, so we left. We live about 25 minutes away from the hospital. The whole way home I’m like dang babe, these are not comfortable. So we get home and I get ready for bed. By this point, the contractions are so bad that I’m literally moaning through them. Hubs says we need to go back and I tell him I’m not going back until my water breaks because they’re just going to send me home. 😂 dang that stubbornness. Well finally he gets tired of hearing me in obvious pain so he gets me some clothes and starts getting me dressed and we get back in the car.

By the time we get back to the hospital, I. Am. Dying. I had to sit down twice before we even got to triage. Luckily, they didn’t make me check in again so that saved some time.

So of course I have the same nurse that sent me home before and let me tell you, she was SHOCKED when she checked me I was 6cm. Like yea lady, I told you! Lol. So they quickly get me to a labor room and start getting the iv ready. That part went so quickly, praise the lord! They asked in triage if I wanted an epidural and I was like LORD YES. STAT.

Y’all. Getting the epidural was literally the longest wait of my life. I was checked again after I got my IV and I was at 7cm. Almost an hour goes by and I’m driving the nurse nuts because I keep asking where the heck this guy is. So finally about 50 minutes later he shows up and starts asking me all sorts of questions and I’m like, can we get to it? 😂 so he does. You guys. I made a new best friend in that man and he doesn’t even know it.

So by now I am cool as a cucumber. I stay at 7cm for awhile. Maybe like 2 hours? I’m not sure, I finally fell asleep in there somewhere. I wake up to a little more pressure and that urge to poop that i hear so many people talk about. I call the nurse in to check me and I’m 9cm 😱 I was not prepared for my labor to go this quickly but she says we are ready to push. This lady..was THE BEST. I don’t think I could’ve gotten more blessed with my delivery team.

The rest is pretty uneventful. I pushed for around an hour. It took some practice to get the pushes right. It’s hard to put all of that focus into one part of your body! But finally, at 10:34am on April 2nd, one day after my due date, my sweet baby girl was born!

The best part though.. my totally unemotional husband was CRYING when I looked at him. Y’all. All the feels. It was such a special moment and it’s only been a week but our bond is SO much stronger from that experience. ❤️

I know it was long, but if you made it this far, here is a picture of my sweet girl!