Hi everyone! It's been almost 5 months but I'm ready to share my birth story.

Firstly, our baby was a surprise gender birth, so I'll keep it a surprise for all of you until I get to the birth part! 😉

I was very determined to have a natural birth with little to no interventions. I didn't want any pain meds and was scared of needing a c section.

As my due date approached, we had to set an induction date just in case. We set it to August 4th (41 weeks 2 days) which was earlier than I wanted, but we live out of state and my aunt was only able to stay until August 8th to help, and I wanted to get use of that help.

By my due date I was doing everything I could to encourage baby to come out. I tried everything except castor oil! By 41 weeks I was desperately praying to go into labor naturally.

I was scheduled to go in for my induction at 12:30 AM (yes.. AM!!) and the night before, my husband and I tried to go to bed around 9pm to get a few hours of sleep. Right when I laid down I started having cramps and felt like I was going to have diarrhea. I thought "oh no.. that Indian food I had earlier..." but nothing was coming out. I soon realized the cramps were coming in waves every 6-7 minutes.. contractions!!! I was literally so overjoyed! They were really mild so I still tried to go to sleep but couldn't because I was too excited.

Midnight came and we left for the hospital for the induction and my contractions were still going. I was hoping to not end up having to be induced.

By the time they checked me, I was only 1cm dilated but my cervix was very "ripe". They gave me the miso pill and inserted a foley balloon to help me dilate. We tried to get some sleep again and a few hours later the balloon came out! I was dilated to a 4.

My contractions were strong enough that they weren't going to give me another miso pill and we decided to let me labor naturally and see where things go.

My husband and I watched a movie, ordered breakfast, and eventually started walking he halls. It honestly was very bearable still, although eventually I had to stop and breathe through the contractions.

Unfortunately, after several hours my contractions started spacing out and getting less intense. We agreed to start me on pitocin. I was hopeful that I would only need a little bit to get my body going again. I was scared though, because people say that pitocin contractions are really painful and people always seem to need pain relief

I was expecting to feel like I got his baby a bus, but the contractions came on again gradually. They were painful, but not as bad as I expected.

After several more hours, I was in considerable pain and cried. I wanted to get in the tub. They checked me and I was a 6 or 7! (I wish I could remember) so I got in the tub.

The water definitely took the edge off the contractions! I wish I got in sooner, soon after I started going through transition and things were getting way more intense. I started to feel a lot of pressure down there! I thought, is this what it feel like to want to push??

The tub was in a room down the hall and they don't want women to give birth in the tub, so I knew I would have to walk back to my room at some point and didn't want to do that too close to the pushing stage, so I chose to go back to my room.

By this point I was VERY loud and doing long, deep groan-screams. I had a contraction in the hallway and probably scared all the other women on the floor 😆😬

I got back to my room and still felt the intense pressure. For some reason this scared me more than the pain did and I started to freak out. I had an amazing nurse who knew exactly what to say to me though! For some reason, I didn't even think of pain meds as an option. I figured I was so close to the end that it would all be over soon.

WRONG! They checked me and I was 9.5cm but I was starting to push. The nurse MANUALLY dilated me with her finger DURING a contraction and.. WOW!! That was crazy painful!

But then I got the okay to start pushing and it end up taking TWO.. and a half.. HOURS. It was definitely the hardest part of it all. I was screaming and tried so many positions (since I was fully mobile), but my legs were shaking from fatigue so I had to lay down in the end. I was so so so tired. They kept telling me to give it all I had and I got so mad because I WAS! Every push took all of my energy. I felt like I couldn't do it anymore, yet somehow I did. Baby kept coming down and then slipping back up. I thought "well at least I probably won't tear since I'm going so slowly"

Eventually baby was crowning and I felt the head- it was so squishy! It still took a while of pushing to get the head and body all the way out. The ring of fire is so real! When I thought it couldn't possibly get more painful, it did!!

But then, at 9:27pm August 4th, baby was out! My husband yelled "It's a BOY!!" and then he was on my chest and crying and I was SO RELIEVED!!! My little boy! (I felt like he was a boy the whole pregnancy)

He felt so small and was so cute! He ended up being 8lbs 3oz though, which was surprising because everyone thought I looked small.

I still had to be stitched up 😭 because I still got a 2nd tear. I was so sad and really just wanted to rest my legs, but had to keep them up for what felt like forever.

I can't believe I did all of that with pitocin but no epidural or other pain meds! If you are worried about an induction and still having a "natural" birth, don't worry because you CAN do it!!

However if I'm honest, I'll probably get an epidural next time. 2.5 hours of pushing was just too much, and my experience felt a little traumatizing instead of beautiful. If I didn't have to push so long it would be different!

Here's some pics of my little boy, Foster ❤️