Over due birth story! 41 + 3 foley bulb induction

My baby is a week old today and I’m finally feeling recovered enough to record his birth story!

For the last couple months I had a feeling I was going to go past my due date and have the baby in April (I was due March 24). I was carrying high until almost 41 weeks, and had no sign of labour. No mucus plug, nothing!

I got checked by my OB at 40 weeks 2 days and cervix was still closed, nothing happening. So he scheduled me for a foley balloon on 41 + 2 and induction at 41+ 3 if I didn’t go into active labour on my own at the point.

So I went in on April 2 for the foley balloon, it was unpleasant going in but not outright painful, and he had to try a couple times to put it in! I had bad cramping for the next 4-5 hours, I really didn’t enjoy the foley balloon but it did it’s job. I could feel it pulling with every step and I was really uncomfortable the whole day, but nothing unbearable! They recommended I take Tylenol and gravol while I was at home to help me rest and sleep before labour.

I started having contractions around 4 pm, but I could easily breath through them and they weren’t very long. The balloon came out on it’s own at 10:15 pm on April 2 and it was such a relief!! I instantly felt so much better without the constant pressure and cramping. I went to bed and fell asleep until 1 am or so when the contractions started getting stronger. I was able to deal with them pretty well, just took deep breaths and timed them. They were about 40 seconds long and anywhere from 10-17 minutes apart. I was able to sleep a bit in between contractions but definitely not a restful night!

The next morning I was supposed to return to the hospital to get my cervix checked and see if they had enough nurses to officially start inducing me with oxytocin. I knew within a few minutes of getting there that they would be sending me home, the triage room on the labour and delivery floor was busy and they were taking two women out to get them to their rooms to deliver. Sure enough, they checked my cervix and I was at 3 cm. They monitored the baby for just over an hour and said my contractions were still far enough apart and they sent me home. I was number 2 on the list to be called and they said to be ready to come back for my induction at any time.

So hubby and I went home, I was getting pretty uncomfortable at this point. It had been 24 hours of discomfort and pain at this point and I was getting tired and worn out. By about 3 pm my contractions were anywhere from 7-9 minutes apart and getting more painful consistently. I was starting to get really anxious about labour and suddenly starting panicking about not getting to the hospital in time to get an epidural. I knew by this point I needed the epidural to deliver, I was so tired and the pain was getting really bad.

I took a bath and that really helped. I was able to sleep for almost 2 hours on the couch, just waking up every time I had a contraction but easily falling back asleep when it was done.

The contractions kept getting closer and closer together and the pain was getting close to unbearable by 9 pm. By 9:30 by contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, incredibly painful and lasted almost a minute. so we decided to head to the hospital since it’s a half an hour drive from our house. The whole time I was terrified that they were going to send me home, I knew that I couldn’t handle the pain for much longer and was on the edge of a panic attack thinking about being sent home to continue to do this on my own.

They checked my cervix again and said I was only at 3 cm!! I immediately broke down and started having a panic attack thinking they were going to send me home. I started having a hard time breathing and the nurse had to help me calm down and breath deeply. She was so nice and said she was going to talk to the OB on call, since I clearly wouldn’t react well to being sent home.

She told the doctor that she didn’t think it would be good for me or baby to be sent home since I was so anxious and panicky. At this point it was 11 pm and I had been having contractions for about 30 hours. I was so desperate for some rest and relief from the unbearable contractions that were now every 3 minutes.

So they admitted me and gave me morphine and gravol to take the edge off. She said if it was false labour it would slow it down and they could send me home. But if it wasn’t false labour it wouldn’t take the pain away, it would just take the edge off. I just laughed and said there was no way this was false labour. Sure enough, the contractions kept getting stronger and more painful, but I was able to rest a bit more and felt great in between contractions. When they saw labour wasn’t slowing down they sent the nurse that would stay with me the whole labour until delivery was complete. This was around 12:30.

I asked for an epidural, which was a lot longer of a process then I thought!! It took about 15 minutes, I had 4-5 contractions while they were putting it in and the nurse was amazing at helping me breathe through them, which was wonderful because my hubby and mom had to leave the room while I got the epidural. I’m super ticklish and kept jumping when she pressed anything against my spine. She had to freeze me a lot and do a couple tries, once it was in they explained that I could re-dose myself with the remote they gave me! I laid on my side and within 10 minutes the pain from the contractions got a lot better and after half an hour there was no pain!! I’ve never felt more relief in my life, I could still feel the pressure and tension from the contractions but was able to sleep through them and I got about 3 hours sleep while labour progressed! The epidural was an absolute god send!!

I got to 7 cm within 3 hours, and they started giving me the smallest dose of oxytocin to help move things along. They broke my water at 8 cm, and after that the pressure in my cervix was so intense!!! But still no pain, yay epidural! Any time I started feeling pain come back I just hit the button and it went away!

By 5:45 am the pressure was overwhelming and they said it was time to start pushing!! I started at 5:50 am and it actually felt really good to push and do something during the contractions. They said I was doing great at pushing and a couple more nurses and the resident OB came in to deliver. The senior OB in charge had two women pushing at the same time and was running back and forth between our rooms to supervise the residents. It was pretty funny lol.

I only pushed for about half an hour! The pain and pressure was intense once the baby’s head came out and the body was so huge to push out!! But the relief was instant when baby came out, they put the baby on my chest and I immediately was in shock that I was holding my child! My hubby and I immediately burst into tears and my mom got it all on video, it’s something I will never forget!

We didn’t find out the gender when I was pregnant, but I had a strong feeling it was a boy the whole time I was pregnant! We both wanted a boy first but would have been thrilled either way obviously!

When I looked down and saw a penis I couldn’t believe it! My dream of having a boy came true!!

I thought he looked big, and thought he would be since he was 10 days over!

But his weight was 8 pounds 4 oz, not nearly as big as I thought!

The long labour and pain was totally worth it, welcome to the world Benjamin Mark!

!