Finally sharing our birth story!

⚠️LONG POST⚠️

My sweet boy will be a month old tomorrow, so I figured it’s finally time to share our story!

Thursday, May 9, we went into, what we hoped was, our final appointment before our sweet boy arrived. Ever since I was 35/36 weeks I had always measured at 1, 1 1/2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. I went in and was checked, still at 1, 1 1/2 cm and 50%. . . The nurse practitioner that I saw (my doctor was on vacation) said that I was a “stretchy 1” and that I would be “easy to induce”. I was induced with my first, so I just assumed I would be induced with this one too, even though I had hoped I could go on my own. They scheduled my induction for that Monday, congratulated us, and sent us on our way. We were so excited!

My sister, her husband and 4 little girls live in GA. They usually try to come in every couple of months, so they made plans to come in on the weekend of my due date, May 11, because my sister had been praying that I would have the baby whenever she was there. (She wanted to be able to be there for me and the baby since my mom passed away 7 months ago).

That Friday night they made it in and of course, we sat up pretty late just catching up and visiting. We got in bed around 11:00 that night. Around 12, I had woke up and was having some discomfort, but nothing too bad, I just thought it was from where I had overdone it cleaning the house that day. I was able to fall back asleep. At 3, I woke up, went to the bathroom and realized I was still hurting, but maybe a little more this time. I told my husband that I was hurting pretty bad and he said, “you never know, this baby might not wait until Monday to come”. I just brushed it off as from where I had cleaned so much that day.

I tried to lay back down, but soon realized that I was just too uncomfortable to sleep. My husband asked if I had tried timing the pains and I told him that I hadn’t, so he downloaded an app and started timing them for me. They started out kind of random, but quickly went to 7 minutes apart. He called the hospital, they said they usually like to wait until the contractions are a steady 3-5 minutes apart, but it takes us an hour to get to the closest delivering hospital. I told my husband I didn’t want to go in until I had to because I had never been away from my son, who is 2, for long.

I decided to go ahead and get a bath just in case it was the real deal. (I didn’t know what “real” contractions felt like because I never experienced them with my first). After, I got out the pains had started increasing and were coming more frequently at about 4-5 minutes, then to 3-4, then to 2-3, but it was hardly consistent because I would always throw a random 8 minute in between the 2-3 minute contractions.

We decided we would go ahead and head up to the hospital. The pains were coming heavy and strong whenever we got there. I was still able to walk into the hospital, walk around, and change into my gown.

They got me checked into L&D pretty quickly and soon the doctor came in.

After she checked me, I thought I heard her say, “she’s at a 9 and we have a bulging bag”. (My water had never broke, there hadn’t been any blood or anything)!

I was almost in denial that I was actually dilated ‘that’ far, but I heard her say it again so I looked at my husband. His eyes were wide and he was looking at me, mouthing “YOU’RE AT A 9”! We were so shocked!

I was given the option to go ahead and finish it out naturally or get the epidural. . .

The epidural did numb me from my waist down, but it didn’t stop me from feeling the contractions. They were coming so fast and strong that I almost went out of my head. I could hear my family talking but I couldn’t open my eyes to see them. Between contractions I was finally able to ask (more like beg) my husband to please ask the nurse to check me again, because I was told there would be no relief until the baby was out of me.

When the nurse came in my husband asked her to check me. She did, I was finally fully dilated. She had me to start pushing and with one push they were able to see the top of baby’s head! The nurse ran to get the doctor and with about 4 more pushes, our sweet boy made his arrival!

Isaiah James was born on his due date, May 11, 2019 at 11:19 AM (EST). He weighed 7lb 3oz and was 19 1/2” long!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful boy.

The day he was born.

And our little guy yesterday, the day he was dedicated. I can’t believe he will be a month old tomorrow!

So sorry for the long post, but if you’ve made it this far – thank you! 💙