Finally writing my birth story (a little late) after reading so many while I was pregnant. Fair warning: it’s loooong. 😬

Monday, October 29th marked 39 weeks. I went to my doctor’s appointment that morning and was dilated to a 1.5/“stretchy” 2 & 50% effaced. My OB stripped my membranes and oh my god, that was painful. She told me that IF it worked, labor would start within 48-72 hours. I bled lightly that day and Tuesday but nothing monumental happened. On Wednesday, I started losing my mucus plug but still regular no contractions. By Thursday, Nov 1st, I had lost all of my mucus plug and was having pretty painful contractions but they still weren’t regular or timeable. My mom was staying with us so all that week we were walking and trying to get labor started. We went on a walk on Thursday the 1st and I was finally having contractions I could somewhat time, but they stopped when we got home from our walk. I decided I wanted to walk some more to try to start them up again so we went back outside and let our dogs run around while we basically walked in circles around my yard. It didn’t work and I went to bed that night bummed, thinking that I’d have to go to my 40 week appointment on Tuesday the 6th (I was originally due Nov 5th). My husband got home from work and in bed around 12:45am on Friday the 2nd. At around 1:20 that morning, I woke up to turn over in bed and felt a big gush. I immediately knew that my water had broken and I was trying to wake my husband up to tell him. I finally ended up having to basically punch him in the chest before he woke up and realized what was happening. He got me a towel and I waddled to the bathroom where more water gushed out. I had to poop so bad and while I was on the toilet, I started having contractions. I got cleaned up and into the car and was at the hospital around 2:30. They took me into triage, checked me, checked her position (she was transverse breech at 34w) and all was good. I got into my L&D room around 4/4:30am on Nov 2nd. I was having intense contractions and was in so much pain, crying and not able to talk through them. I labored until 6am and my contractions were right on top of one another so I got the epidural (originally wanted to go au natural). After that, I was feeling really good and was able to take a little nap. My contractions pretty much stopped after the epidural so they gave me pitocin to start them up again, increasing the dose every hour & a half. After I got the epidural, everything was pretty uneventful. I ate jello, popsicles and broth and hung out with my family while my husband napped since he only got about 45 minutes of sleep before my water broke. By 2:30pm, I was fully dilated but she wasn’t down far enough for me to push. The nurse told me that when I started feeling like I had to poop, to call her and we could do some practice pushes. At 3/3:15, I was feeling that pressure so I called the nurse in and started pushing. Once the nurse could see her head, she called the OB and I pushed for another 10 minutes with her. At 3:42pm on November 2nd, Hanley Noel was born. She was 7lbs, 15oz and 20in long. I didn’t tear thanks to my OB massaging and stretching me as I was pushing, but I did have a small abrasion that wouldn’t stop bleeding so she put one stitch in it. I labored for 14 hours and it was so much better than I imagined it being. All the pain was totally worth it to be able to finally hold her in my arms. My little girl will be 7 weeks on Friday. ❤️

Right after she was born:

One month old 😭: