I was due on 3/8 and something had told me that this baby was coming sooner. I had a drs appointment with my midwife on 3/6 and that morning at 1:00am I started to have contractions, these definitely were not Braxton-Hicks and the difference was very obvious to me. The first one woke me up and I had three follow about 15 minutes apart. I called the on-call who told me to keep timing them and to try an get some rest. So my boyfriend and I spent the night on the couch together, timing and trying to rest as much as possible.

The rest of the day contractions continued to space anywhere from 6-15 minutes apart and where a bit all over the place, but the intensity did increase. Nothing I couldn’t just breath through, really strong period cramps is what it felt like. My appointment time approached and I knew this was going to be the day. When I arrived at the drs I was 4cm dilated at 3:00pm. The midwife had us go right to the hospital and directly admitted me. I progressed quickly at that point and when the midwife checked me no more than an hour later I was 6cm, it was probably 4:30p. I used my breathing techniques through more contractions and my 9:00pm I was ready for the epidural. Heaven. Absolute heaven once I received the pain relief. I jumped to 10cm and tried pushing but the epidural was as a bit too strong and I couldn’t feel what I was doing. So after a bit they reduced the strength and we waited it out a bit. Then I could feel the pressure of contractions again, and the pushing began. I pushed for three hours and out came my beautiful baby boy at 2:14a on 3/7. One day early and prefect as can be.

Giving birth seemed a lot scarier than it turned out to be. I found remaining calm, going with the flow and breathing made all the difference in my experience.