She’s here!! Exactly on her due date!

Selah Grace

8.22.19

8 lbs

20 inches

To start with, I have been having false labor since 30 weeks. I would have really painful contractions that would get regular and closer, down to 2 minutes apart for hours and then stop. I wasn’t sure I would know when the real deal was... well, I knew😂

I woke up at about 5 am on the 21st to the worst contraction and right then I said “that’s what they meant by ‘you’ll know.’”

Now my husband is a fire fighter, and of course my contraction happened right as he was getting up to go to his 48 hour shift. I told him as he was about to leave “You’re going to have to come home later. These are the real deal!” He offered to stay home but I figured of course if he did my contractions would stop and it would be for nothing so I sent him to work 😂 I went ahead and got up and took a nice shower and tried to move around a lot to see if the contractions would keep coming and sure enough they did!! So I called my mom and asked her to come walk with me for a bit to see if they would pick up.

They stayed pretty irregular most of the day but never went away and wow were they painful!! I finally started timing them around 5 pm and they were 5-7 minutes apart. Around 8 they were less than 5 minutes so I called my husband and he picked me up from my mom’s house and we headed home. We were birthing at a birth center and they don’t want you to come in until contractions are 2-3 minutes apart for at least an hour. Around 1130 they had been close enough to that and I was so miserable so we called in and they said to go ahead and come down!

When we got there she checked my cervix and said I was 3cm and %90 effaced, which at my appointment 2 days before I was 2cm and %50. It was a little progress but I was disappointed after having such awful contractions all day long. She said she would check me again in an hour and we’d go from there.

The next time she checked my I was I guess closer to a 4. Still not much progress. She offered to break my water and see if that would help speed things up so I took her up on it. Strangest feeling ever😂 I thought I was peeing everywhere so much was coming out of me.

My contractions started getting worse, which I really didn’t think was possible. I usually deal with pain very well but I was making sounds I never thought I would make😂 eventually I was crying through every contraction because they were so bad in my back and lower abdomen. She checked me again and I was still at a 4. At that point I was ready to give up I had made no progress at all. On top of everything I had thrown up 5 times, the last time throwing up blood and couldn’t keep any fluid down. My midwife started an IV and gave me some fluids, and offered to give me a mixture of fentanyl and Benadryl to try and help baby and I relax and hopefully move baby into the right position. This was at about 5 am, 24 hours after I had started having contractions. I took her up on it and she gave me a dose every hour until about 9. It helped some but not much and I was screaming to my mom I couldn’t do it and I was done. When they checked me at about 10 am I was at 6 cm and I freaked out. I figured I would be in labor for 12 more hours. My mom and husband were trying to help me by applying counter pressure to my hips and back and that was the only thing that helped me. If they stopped for a second I would scream “you can’t do that!! You can’t stop!!”

About 20 minutes after she had checked me and said I was 6 cm I thought felt the urge to push. But since she said I was just 6 I thought no way so I just kept laboring...

They had wanted me to wait to get in the birthing pool so as not to slow anything down but I begged them so they started it up. I got in the tub at about 11 and I was finally able to relax. It was amazing. I started to really push at 11:25 and she was out at 11:44! It was the craziest thing. I was so ready to give up and then all of a sudden she was out!! I only had 2 superficial little tears on my labia and 2 little stitches.

After when they were doing the fundus massage I didn’t even bat an eye it was nothing at all compared to my contractions!! They think she was sunny side up at first and that’s why I wasn’t progressing very quickly.

But it’s so surreal my baby girl is here and she is so mellow! She cried for about 2 seconds when she came out and then another 2 seconds when she got her vitamin K shot and that’s it! So so in love!!