Okay so I figure it’s about time I share my birth story, it’s been a week tomorrow and we’re both doing great. And sorry for no cute baby pics. My SO and I agreed not to post photos of our son to any social media.

So I was due April 16th and had no signs of labour at that point. I had a doctors appointment that evening and my doctor did another membrane sweep (my third) and scheduled for me to be induced on the following Monday if William didn’t show before that. Well on Thursday the 19th I woke up at 6:30 am and having contractions. They were consistent every 10 minutes lasting a minute until 8:30am and then they just stopped for a while. It was a little frustrating. I went back to sleep and slept until about 10:30. I had a contraction around 11 and then nothing again. I had another at 12 and decided to start tracking my contractions to see if they got any more consistent. One of my best friends was also coming into town that day so I wanted to still go out with her but keep track in case my contractions got to be 5minutes apart or less so I could go into the hospital when necessary. My contractions bounced around a lot in consistency as you can see on my little tracking chart I made.

So around midnight I was exhausted and tried to go to bed and didn’t bother keeping track of my contractions further but I could not sleep at all. My contractions grew stronger longer and closer together and around 6am I woke up my SO because they were less than 5minutes apart. We walked to the hospital, we only live a few blocks away, and don’t drive, and I didn’t want to wait the 20+ minutes it would have taken for my parents to pick us up and drive us. We got admitted around 7 and I was 4 cm dilated. From here it was just hours of sitting through contractions. They did break my water, I’m not sure around what time. Sometime just before noon, I think, I was given laughing gas. I honestly don’t feel like it did anything for pain but it did help my mindset and allowed me to focus on breathing through contractions as they got worse. I had a warm bath sometime after that. As my contractions got worse they gave me fentanyl. I had 2 larger doses and one small. They gave me the small one first to see how I’d react to it and then gave me the full ones later as needed. Around 2, I think, I started involuntary pushing. They checked me and I was 9cm. I quickly dilated to 10 by 3ish and was in active labour. I was exhausted at this point. I hadn’t slept in well over 24 hours and I didn’t have enough energy to push anymore, I’m pretty sure it one point I just started bawling my eyes out hysterically and begged to have the baby cut out of me. We decided we would use the vacuum to assist me and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced but at 5:58pm William Gerald was born! As soon as I saw him all the pain and the sleeplessness didn’t matter anymore. I honestly looked at my SO and started crying happy tears “We made that!” It was an incredible moment. I have second degree tearing in two spots in first degree in two smaller spots. He was 7lbs 5oz and 20” long. They kept me in the hospital until Sunday at noon. William has been doing incredible since. He’s well behaved, doesn’t cry much, only wakes up once a night, his jaundice is already almost gone, and he’s already gained back his birth weight! I love my little man more than anything in the whole world and I am so lucky to have him. 💕 Wishing love to all the moms, mommies to be, and extra baby dust to everyone TTC right now.