Long post warning....

4 days postpartum and reflecting on my labor and delivery..... it was something out of a movie.

Let me just start by saying, our little girl made a very grand entrance and needed to be the center of attention 😂

FTM: On Thursday, 1/10, at 2:48 AM, I was woken up out of a dead sleep with the sharpest contraction and what I thought was myself peeing in bed 😂. I quickly stood up and ran to the bathroom realizing my water broke!!! Before this contraction and my water breaking, I was feeling almost nothing in terms of labor and was sure I was going to go late (convinced myself I work be 10 days late😂).

After observing the time, color, amount of water, I wrote it all down and tried to lay back down to get more sleep knowing that it was going to be the day. 2 minutes after laying back down, another really sharp contraction comes and it was way too uncomfortable to being laying so I walked around and went to the bathroom trying to see if there was any regularity to the contractions. I was noticing a trend and they were really painful so I woke up my husband at 3:15 AM to begin timing them. Sure enough, my contractions were coming every 2 minutes, lasting 30-45 seconds. We learned in our birthing class, 3-1-1, contractions should be 3 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute for an hour before heading to the hospital so my husband and I wanted to keep tracking them for the hour to see. I jumped in the shower, wasn't helping the really intense contractions I was having but it was warm so I stayed in there, breathing as best I could through them. I wanted to try a bath next, same as the shower, warm but didn't relieve much pain. After about 20 minutes of that, I was done and got out.

It's 3:45 AM now and I kept having really painful contractions that I couldn't walk or talk through and now I was having this overwhelming feeling to go to the bathroom (TMI) so I sat on the toilet and that felt good. By 4 AM, I noticed that I was bleeding more than what I thought was normal so I had my husband call my midwife's office and ask. They had him call the hospital and the nurse asked him a bunch of questions, asked to talk to me which wasn't happening because of the pain, and said the midwife will call back after the delivery she was in was done. The midwife calls back at 4:35 AM and gets the same story and is hesitant about us coming in just yet since it had only been a little over and hour and a half at that point since I felt the first contraction (and we all know because labor is a long process). However, because contractions were 2 minutes apart for an hour and I had the bleeding, she asked us to come into the hospital. This whole pregnancy, I was mentally preparing myself to labor at home as long as possible because it makes everything easier in the end so I couldn't believe we were actually going in this early into labor.

At this point, it's 4:45 AM and I felt like I couldn't stand anymore so I laid in my bed with my hips open as this was the only position that offered a tiny bit of relief. I then notice contractions were starting to last for over a minute and with every contraction I had this overwhelming feeling to push. I couldn't stop my body from pushing so i went with it while my husband was getting everything in the car. Once he did that, he helped me down our stairs and I had to lay again because my contractions were so intense. I lay on my couch in the same position I was in my bed and started feeling that overwhelming need to push again. So I did and then I felt pressure and knew something was different.

It's 4:55 AM and I decided to feel downstairs (TMI) and low and behold, I felt hair and our baby's head 🤪😯 so I call for my husband and said baby is crowning. He looks and says oh you are and tried to rush into the car. I looked at him and said, we aren't making it, call 911. He did, the dispatcher was helpingbhim to prepare to deliver the head and within 3 minutes a police officer is there. The officer immediately goes into action and helps my husband with the delivery. The fire department arrives 2 minutes later and then the paramedics 2 minutes after that.

Our little girl made her arrival, on our couch, delivered by a police officer and my husband at 5:03 AM on 1/10. My husband was completely calm through the whole thing and I didn't have the chance to be nervous because of the pain and focusing on breathing & getting through each part of labor. Labor was exactly 2 hour and 15 minutes and we arrived at the hospital by ambulance with baby in arms. We were the talk of the L&D floor during our stay 😂. Mom, Dad and baby are happy and healthy and have one heck of a story to tell.

My recovery has been really quick and easy and I credit that to my all natural labor and delivery which I wanted but wasn't completely wed to given that I'd never been in labor or felt that type of pain so I didn't know what to expect. If I felt like I needed an epidural, I was ok with that. In this case, baby girl wasn't waiting and I had no time for that 😬

I can't believe we did it and can tell the story on the other side.