My second baby was born on Thursday, Nov 8th - four days past his due date. I loved reading everyone’s birth stories those last few weeks of pregnancy so thought I’d share.

Baby boy had dropped very low at 37 weeks- it suddenly became painful to walk. I powered through and continued working in the office until the Friday before my due date. I passed on my 38 week cervix check and at 39 weeks I was only at 1 cm. Fast forward to my 40 week appointment and I was still only at 1.5cm... so discouraging.

At this point I was two days late and had been experiencing on and off period cramp type pain for the last week. Later that night after my check, I experience some light spotting/bleeding which I attributed to my check. Then it continued the whole next day darker in color and made me wonder if it was still from the check or if it was my ‘show.’ I’d been losing my plug on and off for weeks now too.

Later that night, starting around 1 am, I was being woken up by those period type pain contractions and downloaded the app to time them. They were pretty painful and anywhere from 10-14 min apart. I called triage at the hospital and even though it was baby #2, she wanted me to wait until they were closer to 5 min apart. After that, the distance between contractions slowed but they still continued on and off between 10-30 min apart until noon the next day. Around noon, they were getting closer and significantly more painful. I called the midwife and they said to definitely head in. When I got checked at triage, I was only a 2.5 so they wanted me to walk around for an hour. I was near tears at this point with each contraction and in so much pain. We pushed through walking and when I returned, I was at a 5.

It took about an hour and a half after being admitted for me to get the epidural and it to kick in- worst pain of my life! Once it kicked in, i was so relaxed and could almost feel baby make his way down. Less than an hour later, I was at a 7 and then a 10. It was time to start pushing.

I pushed for 16 minutes before baby was here. I couldn’t believe how quickly he came after such a long, intense labor. It was amazing the progress I made once my body was able to relax.

Baby came out and latched right away. He was 8 pounds, 14 oz and almost 23” long. I still had a second degree tear but not nearly as much trauma to the area as my first. So amazing to have my baby boy here now. Worth every ache, pain and extra day of pregnancy! Good luck mamas- enjoy every minute 💕