Honestly labor was totally not what I thought it would be. Not really better or worse, just different.

We got there 11/2 at 7:30am to be induced. By the time I was in the bed, hooked up to my iv with antibiotics and the pitocin it was 9am. I almost fainted getting the iv (bad childhood experience) And if you've never had penicillin given through an iv let me just tell you, it's like holding your arm over an open flame. Then I start hearing a woman in the next room screaming bloody murder and the nurse assured me that it wasn't "typical" and everything would be okay. She checked my cervix and I was 2cm 80% effaced, so no change since my doctors appointment a week earlier. She talked me through what to expect for the day and mentioned it would probably be a long one because FTMs usually spend 1-3 hours pushing. She basically told me to expect delivery to actually happen the next day.

When the contractions began I was laughing at them because I'm like damn, that's it? It just feels like I have to poop? You know, because everyone who told me they had pitocin said they started out immediately hard and painful. Then around 1pm the doctor broke my water. It was like the feeling of peeing myself in a warm hot tub so that part was oddly pleasant. I lost my chance to labor in the tub which made me a little sad but I carried on.

About 30 mins after my water broke came the really hard contractions. So hard I almost threw up. I couldn't speak and my mouth filled up with saliva so I started panicking. My poor husband thought I was choking. I'm not sure how I managed to keep it down, I guess since I hadn't eaten since about 6am?

I was eating jello and popsicles like a mad woman after that to distract from the pain. I vaguely remember watching "Frozen" in the background and even started laughing when "Let It Go" started to play. My nurse tried to set up a lavender essential oil diffuser in the room but couldn't get it started.

By about 4pm I had tried bouncing on a ball, laying down, standing, walking and nothing was making me feel better so I asked for iv drugs. They only made me feel foggy in the head but the pain kept going. I honestly didn't even know for sure when they had been administered. I asked the nurse how long it would last and she said about another 30 minutes. I knew right then I was in trouble. I spent another 10 minutes thinking about whether or not I could continue through the pain, and I realized that I wouldn't be able to relax enough to let my body get past 4cm because I had been stuck there for a while already. So before they "wore off" I asked the nurse for an epidural.

I felt so defeated. At this point I was shaking uncontrollably and sweating profusely. My husband said it was the scariest moment of the whole labor.

My timing was great though because the anesthesiologist was actually scheduled to be in a C-section within the hour that followed, so any longer and I probably would have missed him.

The process of getting the epidural sucked. The doctor was super tall so they lifted my bed like 4 feet into the air. Then he told me to arch my back "like a shrimp" which annoyed the piss out of me because, hello! Giant baby belly here. My husband sat in front if me in a chair and tried to hold my legs and keep me calm but the shaking wasn't getting any better. He said I was flushed and my lips were purple. I did my best to sit still and I felt the needle go into my spine.

The next thing I felt was seeing, scorching pain throughout all of the veins in my right leg. I immediately begged him to take it out because I knew it wasn't right. Then I hear him say, "oh yeah, it looks like we are too far to the right." Like no shit. I almost told him to get the Hell out of the room I was so upset. The whole reason I wanted to labor without the epidural to begin with was because of all the possible complications. Then another contraction hit and I didn't care anymore. He tried again and got everything hooked up, and I swear the relief was almost instant. The anger I had went away and that man was now an angel.

Still shaking and cold, I was able to sleep on and off for the next 3-4 hours under 4 blankets and two sets of sheets. Halfway through that they stopped the pitocin because the pattern of my contractions was abnormal and they worried the baby wasn't handling the drugs well. They inserted an internal monitor into my cervix to watch my contractions because they were so odd they weren't sure the external monitor was working properly.

When I started to wake it was because I was feeling hard pressure in my lower body, I thought maybe the epidural was wearing off so I asked the nurse about it. She checked and said I was nearly at 10cm and 100%, I had a little bit to go though because baby was at -1 station. My response was, "Wow, really? All I had to do was sleep?" 😂 The humor went away pretty quick though because I started feeling what I can only describe as the left side of my hip bone breaking. Nothing helped the pain. The nurse told me I could press the epidural button (wait, there's a button?!) but it would be better if I don't because then I could feel the contraction and know when to push. She gave me permission to give small pushes to help cope with the pain. Around this time I got another bag of penicillin so there goes my arm again. Meanwhile I should mention the entire time since being under the epidural they made me wear a BP cuff which went off about every 30 minutes. My arm is still bruised from it 6 days later.

The doctor wanted me to "labor down" for another hour before really pushing to see if the baby would go any lower. Around 11pm she came in the room and the baby hadn't moved down any more but I was begging to push. They had me do one big push and I guess it didn't look like much because the doctor said "Good job, I'll be back later" and left the room. The nurse said we would keep going to try to move baby and after the next push I hear her say to my husband, "Oh wow, Chris! See that? There's her head!" I'm told I can have one more push but I had to promise the nurse I would stop when she said to stop, so we did (it was REALLY hard to stop). She starts calling for the doctor and she rushes back into the room with about 5 other nurses and next thing I know I'm pushing with all of my might, feeling everything, shitting all over the table and not caring, hoping each push is the last. I only pushed for about 26 minutes and at 11:34pm my sweet baby was out.

I'd like to say the pain stopped there but I tore in three places so next came the stitches. One of the tears was very close to my urethra so they numbed me with another drug. I was pretty over getting all these drugs by now but I'm glad I was numbed because I still felt it and OUCH. I did my best to focus on the squirmy baby on my chest though and we got through it.

Looking back at the experience, I had prepared for it to be worse, a lot worse. I read a lot of induction horror stories before I went in so I was relieved at how it turned out. Nothing really went according to plan but them again, I had a healthy baby girl so at the end of the day I would have gone through whatever it took to get her here. My advice on induction: just because you know what day you're going to go into labor doesn't mean you get to control anything else. So keep an open mind and listen to your body.

Clementine June born 11/2 11:34pm

7lbs 1.6oz and 19" long