I feel so beyond grateful and blessed to have had such a wonderful birth experience. April 21st I began to have some pretty bad ankle swelling and back pain, my blood pressure remained the same but I spent most of the day with my feet up & trying to relax as much as possible. The 22nd my feet were still just as swollen but I wanted to try to stay active throughout the day so I did a lot of walking around the house & my fiance and I went to get some frozen yogurt. The 22nd throughout the day I had diarrhea, I felt fine but my body was just not holding anything in. We went to my fiances basketball game, came home and I cleaned the house, did the last of our laundry, and just did some basic cleaning before getting in bed. As we were watching TV around 1am I got a sharp pain that I instantly had to pause and breathe through. From that contraction all the way until about 6am I labored on my own through the night while I let my fiance sleep. I figured this was going to be a long process , might as well let him sleep so one of us was well rested. Around 6am I texted my mom (who is the second person that was going to be with us during the whole delivery, and told her that I was contracting. None of my contractions were ever consistent the entire night but they were slowly getting closer together even if inconsistent. Around 7am my contractions started to be about 5min apart but still having some 7-9min spaces. I decided then would be a good time to get up, get our bags finished with the last toiletries and take a shower. I had just about everything packed up , just toothbrushes & some soap really.. and still my contractions were picking up so much that it took me an hour and a half to grab a few items & take a shower. By the time I got upstairs to get in the shower my contractions suddenly started coming consistently at 2.5min apart. Our hospital was about 30min away & my moms house is about 15min away from the hospital. I didn’t think I was far at all for 3 reasons. 3 days before this at our appointment, I was 0cm dilated & 0% effaced. My contractions were not consistent all night & lastly the contractions hurt but I have endometriosis and the pains from that were worse than the contractions I was feeling so I just assumed I wasn’t in active labor. My mom talked me into just going in & meeting her at the hospital to get checked just incase. The car ride was horrible!! Contractions in a car, in traffic are NOT fun. When we got in they checked me and I was at 4cm and 90% effaced. They admitted us and I instantly told them I wanted the epidural because my contractions had went up in pain scale quite a bit also baby girls heart rate was very fast (in 200’s) because I was so tense & not getting breaks in between contractions. We got to hospital around 9, got to our room around 10:30 got epidural around 11:30, I took a very small nap because I hadn’t slept all night. Woke up around 12:30-1 and I felt a lot of pressure down there.. the nurse came in to check me & I was at 9cm, fully effaced. Called my fiance who was downstairs eating lunch with him mom and told him .. you may want to come up soon. 30min later I asked them to check again & I was fully dilated and ready to go! They got the doctors in , set up , nurses were getting everything together. They were not rushing..so this took a little time, my fiance had come up and was soooo nervous!! He was pacing around the room completely thought he was going to passout. So they get us together and tell me to start pushing. 2 contractions I pushed, the third contraction her head came out on it’s own before I could even start pushing & I pushed 1 last time and her whole body came out. It took 9minutes from me starting to push to her being out. I had a very small, minor tear on my left inner labia. Which doctors were very pleased for a first time mama I only had such minor tearing. Miss Everly May was born at 2:44pm , weighing 7lbs 12oz , 20 inches long. She latched on about 20min after delivery and fed for about 45min. She’s been an amazing breastfeeder since. Barely cries at all, she’s super chill, but she does a lot of talking while she sleeps and loves to snuggle with her mama & daddy. Daddy is COMPLETELY wrapped around her little finger.. and I must say for a first time dad whose never held a newborn or changed a diaper he does beyond amazing and is very protective over her. We love her so much.. I never knew you could love someone you just met so much.