《 STM Birth Story! 》Quick labor at 38 + 2 weeks, my MIRACLE baby!

The day I was admitted to the hospital I had a regular prenatal appointment. All went well and then my doctor hit me with "I'd be surprised if you didnt go into labor in 24 hours." I had gone from 2cm to 4cm in under a week!! She knew I had been having prodromal labor for quite some time and warned me not to blow off my next contractions- especially if I wanted an epidural. So literally a few hours after that appointment I lost even more of my mucus plug (had been losing it for weeks) and began having pretty good contractions. I was so worried about going in for false labor- as they werent as consistant as I'd like- but I was more worried about not getting my epidural so I decided it was better safe then sorry & went in around 8:30pm. Thank god I did because even though the on-call OBGYN confirmed my contractions werent consistant he checked me and determined I had already gone to 5 1/2cm dilated. He determined that I should be admitted and if he needed to nudge my labor along that he would. I was so relieved! They get me into an official room and started IV fluids and also started me on the smallest amount of pitocin to get my contractions where they needed to be (it didnt take much at all lol). After getting 2 bags of fluids and blood work results back they get my epidural going. Unfortunately it took two tries 😩 It was pretty painful but no where near as painful as you'd expect it to be- although I will admit im super sore now. After the epidural is administered I feel alot better and take about a 30 minute nap to prepare for whats ahead. My Dr.  then comes in and breaks my water because the epidural slowed my contractions back down. After that I just try to relax and let my body progress.

Since this was baby #2 and my pregnancies were pretty close together I expected labor to go fast- but damn did I underestimate it!

I start feeling baby transition fairly quickly, which was just pressure at first so I ignore it because It wasnt that bad, but then it REALLY started to hurt. Nurse checked me and I was at a 7 already. It seemed everywhere was numb except where I wanted it to be- my groin lol. I'm crying and kinda freaking out so my nurse tries sitting me up and moving me all around to try to get the epidural where it needed to go with gravity- which unfortunately didnt work. She then finally decided to call the anesthesiologist- but not before checking me again (litterally just 30 minutes later!!) and telling me I was at 9.5cm and probably would be pushing before he made it 😩 As everyone was getting everything set up to push he comes in and gives me a boost- which unfortunately doesn't really fix the problem of feeling everything in my groin (as I had to start pushing without really letting it kick in) but it did manage to calm me down a bit. The Dr delivering me was so much better than my last as he had me stop pushing at certain points to let myself stretch to prevent tearing- which really hurt obviously, but in the long run im so thankful. I pushed for only 15 minutes and the baby was out at 3:47am!! I only had a first degree tear which was SUCH a relief.

My baby was born with a knot in the umbilical cord which was thankfully loose enough to spare her life- but if I had waited any longer to deliver her who knows what could of happened. I'm so thankful everything happened when it did & how it did. Truely my miracle rainbow baby ❤

6lbs 6oz

20.5 inches