So, to cut a very, very long story a teeny bit shorter, my entire pregnancy was normal up until week 39. My midwife told me I was measuring behind and they wanted to induce me. So I got scheduled for induction at The hospital at 5pm on Wednesday, July 25th. All you need to know beforehand was that my midwife told me that my cervix was not favorable at all, so she expected I wouldn't even have my baby until Friday evening or night.

Okay, onto the real story. 

My mom was my ride to the hospital (my husband works until 8pm) and she took me there at 5pm on Wednesday for induction. The nurse got me in a gown and into bed and hooked up to an IV and fetal monitor.  For the record, I hate needles and was semi freaking out about the IV because the nurse tried to get it into my left hand and somehow pierced the vein wrong and had to do the IV in the side of my wrist in my right hand.  That sucked just because now both my hands hurt and I was really skeeved out by the stupid IV in the first place. 

The doctor (who I'd never met before but sorta reminded me of Bilbo Baggins) came in and got right down to business in checking my cervix and said I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced.  Sounded better than 0% effaced to me! 

So the doctor put cervidil in which looks like a tampon and my favorite part was that Bilbo Baggins told me "There's a string hanging down so we can pull it out once 12 hours are up...dont pull it out if you see it when you go to the bathroom."  I almost laughed.  Like duh.  I've used tampons before.  I know not to pull the string.  But thanks, Bilbo.

So, Cervidil now in place as of 6pm, I got settled in.  The nurses had prior told me that the cervidil would be left in to ripen my cervix and then it would come out at 6am, I could shower and clean myself up, and pitocin would be started at 6:30am.  I was slightly nervous about the pitocin.  I had decided several weeks ago that I wanted to do everything I could to avoid an epidural and I'd heard induction made that very very hard to do.  But I had an open mind.  Worst case scenario was a c-section, so if I ended up with an epidural, it wasn't the end of the world.

Around 7:30pm, I told my mom to go home.  John was getting off work at 8ish and he'd come straight over and two close friends of his were in town from out of state and wanted to come by the hospital to visit.  Personally, I thought that was a little funny because I would have felt super awkward visiting someone in the hospital about to go into labor.  I told John to tell them that "I am confined to the hospital bed and I'm in a hospital gown naked underneath that.  If they don't care, I guess I don't either." 

During the time in which I was alone at the hospital waiting for my husband John to get off work, the nurse, Fran, on night shift duty came in to check on me and I asked her what she expected to find when the cervidil came out in 12 hours.  She said, "Well, you're 50% effaced and 1 cm dilated.  I don't expect more dilation, but I'd think you'll be up to 80% effaced."  I was a little disappointed because that just didn't sound like much progress.  I had no idea what hell was lurking around the corner for me...

John got to the hospital around 8:15 and I was still feeling decent around that time.  His friends, Brad and Natalie got there around 9pm.  Right around then is when I started feeling contractions.  They were mild, but definitely bareable.  Brad and Natalie stayed until about 10 and, by then the contractions were getting quite uncomfortable.  I mentioned this to Fran when she came in again and she told me to go pee because a full bladder makes the contractions worse.  And she asked if I felt like they were really contractions or just felt like strong menstrual cramps.  I was unsure because they seemed to have a pattern like contractions, but I just wasn't sold either way. 

Anyway, I went pee and the contractions became easier to deal with. John was worried about leaving me for the night, scared id be in pain and that he wouldn't be there to help me.  I told him to just go home, that I'd be fine and he needed decent sleep since we decided he'd probably work a full day tomorrow since we weren't expecting a baby until Friday night. 

So he left around 11:30ish and I was putting on a brave face for him because the contractions were getting bad again and peeing didn't help.  Once he was gone, I cried partly because I was scared about this only being the beginning of a very long labor and partly because I was in a decent amount of pain. 

By that point in the night, I had decided that an epidural was probably in my future.  The hard part about admitting that to myself was that I seriously am not a wimp when it comes to pain and, before tonight, I really did think I could go through with an unmediated labor.  But already I was hurting a lot.  I had a long way to go.

Honestly, by 1:30am, the night gets foggy in my head.  I started being unable to keep my mouth shut during the contractions which brought Fran back in and she gave me pain medication through my IV.  Whatever it was, made me feel completely drunk which was a weird feeling after 9 months of not drinking anything. 

Everything kept escalating pretty quickly from there.  By 3:00ish, I was literally screaming through my contractions and I had horrible back labor.  Each contraction felt like I was being sliced in half at the waist against my back.  It was bad, so bad.  Fran checked me at least twice.  I don't remember the first time, but the second time she told me that I was 100% effaced and 2 cm dilated.  We were getting somewhere, but I honestly wasn't excited and didn't care about anything but making the pain stop. 

The interesting thing about my contractions was that they were kind of sporadic.  I'd have two or three really bad ones back to back and then I'd have a 2-4 minute break.  During those breaks, I remember having fairly normal conversations with Fran lol.  Not sure exactly what we talked about, but I know I talked to her.  Looking back, that's kind of funny to me.

Then the anesthesiologist was called for me and it took at least 20 minutes for him to get to me and maybe another 15 minutes to get everything set up and administer the epidural to my back.  I went through two intense contractions while he did the epidural and that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life because I had to stay super still.  Easier said than done, but I did it. 

Once the epidural was in, I thought the pain was supposed to go away instantly.  So I was upset when the contractions kept coming and I could feel every freaking thing.  After a few minutes or so, it kicked in and I was feeling a million times better.  Fran told me that the epidural would help with the pain, but I'd still feel pressure so I was supposed to let her know when I needed to push. 

Not long after the epidural was done (about 5:30am), Fran asked if I wanted to call my husband.  I was super confused and said, "Why?  Is something happening?" 

She kind of chuckled and said, "Let me check you quick to see, but you're progressing very fast."  She checked me and said I was at 7 cm.  I seriously could not believe it.  Jenn had told me that I wouldn't have a baby in my arms until probably Friday night and here we were Thursday morning about to have a baby!! 

So I called my husband at 5:48am.   He was very groggy when he answered and I told him what was happening and said to get to the hospital asap.  Thankfully, we live about 7 minutes away so I knew he'd be fast. 

Then I called my mom.  I decided I wanted her in the delivery room at the last minute and she answered the phone immediately and was surprised to hear how close we were to delivery. 

John arrived at the hospital about 6:10 and my mom got there about 20 minutes later. 

The baby started having some heart rate problems so Fran had me labor on my left side, then right side, and on hands and knees with butt in the air to try to stabilize his or her heartbeat (the baby was a surprise gender).  I was feeling a million times better with the epidural, so I was fine doing whatever anyone wanted me to do.

At 7:15, I was 10 cm and ready to push.  Let me start by saying that pushing was absolutely exhausting.  Especially after having a hellish night with no rest.  Bilbo Baggins was back and wanted to use the vacuum to assist in getting the baby out and I said that was fine. 

I don't remember any of this next part, but my husband said that the doctor kept talking about having an emergency c-section.  At one point, he said that if we couldn't get the baby out within two pushes, we'd do the c-section.  He asked the nurse how many pushes we'd done and she said two and he said we'd try one more time.  Exactly then was when I pushed the baby's head out.  The second push after that came the shoulders and rest of the body.  The doctor looked at John and said, "You want to call it?"  And John was all dazed and confused for a second and then looked at me and said, "Its a boy.  A boy!  We have a boy!"  I started crying because I was so happy and John cried and my mom was a mess.  This entire pregnancy, John and I thought it was a girl, so we were incredibly surprised!

So at 7:43am July 26th 2018, Emmett Chase was born weighing 5 pounds 2 ounces and was 19 and 3/4 inches long.  Going through labor was by far the hardest, most painful thing I've ever had to do, but it was all so worth it to have my little boy in my arms.  If you are still reading this, I applaud you be9cause I like a lot of detail so I know this was super long!