I absolutely loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant so thought I’d share mine 🤗

On 2/26, I went to my ob appointment and we scheduled my induction for that evening/next morning so that baby would be born on her due date. Went to the hospital that evening around 730pm to start the ripening process—earlier at my ob appt I was only 1.5cm and 70% effaced.

They hooked me up to the monitors to see where things were at and it turned out I had been having contractions after all but I couldn’t feel them. Around 10:30pm they inserted the Cervidil and I tried to get some rest. Unfortunately, with all of the monitors, it was so hard to get comfortable because every time I would move, the nurses had to come in and adjust the heart rate monitor. Around 1am, I really started to feel my contractions—all in my hips and back, which is no joke! I had planned to go all natural with no pain medications, but I also knew that inductions tend to be harder to do naturally since you cannot move around freely and labor is sped up—I had an open mind since I’m a FTM.

By 3am, my contractions were coming every 2 minutes. At 6 am, they checked me again while the Cervidil (this HURT!!! 😖) I was only at 3/4cm and still contracting every two minutes, fortunately they removed the Cervidil about twenty minutes later, but I knew I needed some relief. Around 7, I went ahead and asked for the epidural which got put in around 730. It was such instant relief and helped me get some much needed “rest” since I only had about an hour of sleep. At around 9am my dr came in and broke my water and started the pitocin. The nurse told me to call her if I felt any rectal pressure—just 15 minutes later, I was having that rectal pressure and I called her in—I was only at a 5. About ten more minutes pass and I seriously feel like I NEED to go, but knew it had only been ten minutes so I called the nurse back in to see if I just needed to use the bathroom. She checks me again and her face said it all—I was fully dilated only 25 minutes after the start of pitocin and my water breaking!!! Unfortunately, because I progressed so quickly, baby girl hadn’t moved down the birth canal and was still at a -2 station. They told me not to push, but let me sit up to try and let gravity help move her down. Not pushing when you feel like you NEED to is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever felt. Finally around 1030, my nurse came in and we started pushing to help move baby down, but I just kept waiting for my doctor to come back because I knew it wasn’t real until she was in there. She came back around 11:15 and we really amped up the pushes. I was so exhausted that they had my husband help give me some oxygen in between contractions, but because I had been pushing for so long, baby started having d-cells and her cord was around her neck. My doctor eventually had to get the vacuum and do an episiotomy, but baby girl made her debut at 12:03pm and she is absolutely perfect!

I’m so happy that I went in with an open mind and allowed myself to get some relief. One of the major reasons that I didn’t want the epidural was because I didn’t want to be completely numb for the delivery, and I am happy to say that I could still feel what was going on, but without the excruciating hip and back pain! I am so grateful for the amazing nursing staff and my incredible doctor who made sure I had an even better birth experience than I could have imagined 🤗