Hi Ladies!

It was super insightful when Kim shared her birth story. So I wanted to do the same! Sorry it’s taken so long, adjusting to life with a newborn.

So I had an appt with my dr on Wednesday September 4th. I was 5 days past my due date. During the appt she stripped my membrane again and asked if I wanted to get induced. At this point, I was ready!!

She put me on the list for induction for that night. And we didn’t get a call till 10:30AM the next day to go in and that a bed was ready. We got there and got settled and around 1:30PM they tried to insert the ballon to induce labor (probably the worst pain ever, worse then going through labor). The balloon failed 3 times- after being inflated, it kept falling out. My inner cervix was dilated but not my outer.

So they started me in pitocin around 3PM. They increase the pitocin every half hour.

At 10PM my water broke while I was getting a check from my nurse. And in that time she was checking me, I went from 3cm dilated to 5!

I got the epidural at 10:50PM. And it was something I was very scared about getting- I hate needles!- but it was the easiest part and was not scary at all. So glad I went with it!!

We went through the whole night, getting checked every few hours, in and out of naps and family coming into the room (both our families were in the waiting rooms during labor! Ha!)

At 5:45AM I was finally fully dilated and effaced and we we’re ready to start pushing! We started pushing around 6:15. It was me my nurse and my husband. For some reason I thought it would be more people. My husband had music going all night and I pushed through each contractions at 6:45-7AM there was a nurse change. Which was heartbreaking because we loved our night nurse. The new nurse skipped contractions while she set up and readied her shift. So we went from about 7-7:45 with no pushes even though we were already pushing for about 30 minutes with the other nurse.

After about 2 more hours of pushing the dr came in the room to examine where the baby was during my pushes. The baby was VERY stubborn. So the dr gave me two options- forceps to pull her out or a c section. After being explained the forceps, I went with the forceps and confided in my nurse on if that was the right decision. She said this dr is the best and it’s how they used to deliver babies all the time in the 90s so I went with it! After 1 contraction and 4 pushes with guided forceps- she was in the world!! The doctor told us both it was a girl and the tears were streaming down both our faces.

After they placed her on my chest, they delivered the placenta and stitched me up. He ended up having to cut to get her out. I felt everything. It was the worst pain behind the ballon! I’m squeezing my husbands hand and trying to take in the moments of the baby but it was so painful. The dr looked up and asked if I was in discomfort and noticed my epidural and run out. He actually confronted the nurse and asked when it ran out and she said before the forceps. Which actually was no surprise to me because I could feel her moving down the birth canal and pushing her out. Which to me, it was probably just starting to wear out because it wasn’t super painful and allowed me to feel her and push harder. The dr then told the nurse to either get more of the epidural or numbing cream. We went with the numbing cream and they were able to get everything stitched up with no more pain.

It was the most beautiful experience of my life. She was born at 7lbs 5oz and we couldn’t be more in love.

The recovery of post partum is no joke. It’s painful to walk, pee, poop and sleep. I highly recommend the frida post partum line for recovery. The ice pads are everything

I hope this is helpful for you ladies. Let me know if you have any questions. She’s starting to wakeffrom her nap.