Oliver was born on 7/18/18 at 39weeks4days (my first baby was born at 41weeks2days so I was SHOCKED when this guy came on his own!)

Monday i was checked for the first time and was 3cm and baby was still very high up, which was exactly what I was stuck at with my first son for weeks so i was convinced i was in for another induction 🙄 however as soon as i got home i started having heavy discharge and light spotting (normal for after a check so i didn’t think much of it) until i started having contractions- they slowly but surely got more painful and closer together throughout the night until they were about 10 minutes apart- and then they stalled and went down to still painful AF but once an hour. I was once again convinced labor wasn’t really going to happen.

Then around midday they started getting closer together again and I labored all night with contractions 15-10 minutes apart. Finally at 4am they were 5 minutes apart and I literally couldn’t take the pain any more so off to the hospital i went, still convinced somehow they were going to send me back home- but when i got there at 5:30am i was 5cm and baby was totally engaged! I was admitted, walked around and labored for about an hour before getting an epidural and almost passing out (apparently a normal side effect of getting an epidural 🙄) and the dr broke my water. Based on my last labor (over 24 hours) I assumed i was in for the long haul at this point. I also didn’t understand how the epidural worked last time and it stopped working and I went through the actual birth all natural for 45 minutes so I was totally preparing for that pain again.

At 11:30am the dr came back and said he had a surgery in a half hour and wanted to see what was going on before going in. Turns out I was just about 10cm and he passingly said let’s see how quick we can do this- joke was on him because little man came in three pushes! Totally different in every way from my first birth!!

We are adjusting to being a family of four and made it through our first week- congrats to everyone who has given birth and good luck to everyone still waiting- i know that feeling well!!