I did not want to be induced. My plan was to try and go without pain meds, but knowing I may need interventions and was completely okay with that. I had hypertension in the past, before pregnancy due to weight gain. I lost the weight and my BP stabilized. The doctors still monitored me throughout my pregnancy just in case and considered me high risk. Although my blood pressure was always normal, they still decided to induce at 39 weeks. I asked a lot of questions and got all the information and decided I needed to go with what my doctors were recommending, because I wanted me and baby to be safe. In the end, I’m glad I got the epi and got induced since my little guy was on the bigger side.

I got to the hospital at 3:30 on June 11th 1cm and 50% effaced and showing mild contractions on the monitor, but feeing nothing. They decided to do a foley bulb and then start the pitocin once I reached 4 cm. They inserted it at 5:00 not painful but I had more than normal Cervical bleeding, so they did a double balloon to cut off the bleeding. At 11:00 Pm the nurse came in and said the doctors wanted to start pitocin early. I was a nervous wreck because of the horror stories about pitocin. Honestly it wasn’t bad. I would say my contractions ramped up to a 2/10 and that was right before the bulb fell out at 1:00 am (4cm dilated!) the rest of the night was calm and even though I was still on pitocin my contractions didn’t hurt at all.

At 7:30 AM the doctors checked and I was still 4 cm 70%effaced.

They upped the pitocin every 30 minutes until I was at 20. Doctors said no matter what they were breaking my water at noon.

Once they broke my water the contractions began continuously and more painful. Tried to hold off on epidural and used fentanyl, but it only worked 10-15 minutes. Made it until 7cm at 2:30 pm and got the epidural. Left side didn’t work, so it was painful for 30-45 minutes until I could roll on my left side and get another dose to drip to the left. I couldn’t believe I went from a 4 to a 7 in two and a half hours!

Started pushing at 5:00 pm on June 12th

I advanced so fast, that the epi had completely settled in and I couldn’t feel when to push. they downed it so I could feel, but it ended up being too much and I felt everything. I felt everything for 30-45 minutes. The anesthesiologist came back, upped it again (thank the lord). I was having such bad back labor. Found out he decided to turn sunny side up at the last minute and was stuck on my bone, the the doctors manually turned him with each contraction. But in the end it was 5 hours total of pushing with only a first degree tear. My little bear was born at 10:02pm weighing 8 pounds and 7.2 ounces. He’s now 5 weeks old and a whopping 12 pounds 3 ounces! Thanks for reading ❤️