After a long 40 weeks, I finally have my chance to tell my birth story! I daydreamed about it every day leading up, accompanied by the first time mom anxiety of the unknown. Anyway, here goes!

Our due date was March 12, and by the time I turned 38 weeks, me and everyone around us thought he was coming well before the 40 week mark. Nonetheless, I continued to work and found that it was getting super uncomfortable to even turn over in bed, like a bowling ball was constantly pulling on my stomach muscles.

At 38 weeks, I was dilated 1cm, then by 39 I had dilated to 3cm. I didn’t really do any of the things that were supposed to bring on birth besides baby dance once. At our 40 week appointment, everything was still looking good and we had set a tentative induction date for 41 weeks if he hadn’t come on his own by then.

That night, everything was normal until I felt some vertigo around 8pm and it persisted throughout the night even when I slept. By the morning it was still happening, so I had my husband take me to OB/GYN triage at our hospital to be sure I wasn’t experiencing preeclampsia or any other complications.

My blood pressure was perfect throughout my entire pregnancy and this morning it had been 140/92. It was slightly alarming to me, but I figured it was because I was kinda worried about how baby boy was doing in there. After a few more checks, my blood pressure returned to normal but I was still experiencing dizziness.

After all the testing, nothing was found to be abnormal and we thought we’d go home to wait for our induction date. Instead, the doctor told us that since I was past 39 weeks and had 2 high blood pressures, I would have to be induced that day. I won’t lie, some slight panic set in. I planned on having my labor start naturally and eventually waddle my way to the hospital in agony but that was quickly thrown once they got a second IV started and told me they were getting a room ready for me.

By this time it was about 1pm, and I had gotten my little private delivery room with a window. I’ll never forget my first nurse, Jen. She was amazing, she talked me through everything and had wonderful bedside manner. She had started my Pitocin and my mom came to be with me while my husband went home to get his bag packed (even though I told him for WEEKS to pack one) and walk our dog before coming back for the night.

Fast forward, doctors came in and broke my water and that was probably the ickiest feeling of the whole thing. It felt like I was peeing on myself and that’s when the contractions started to become very noticeable. Once I felt the pain, I immediately wanted my epidural and anesthesia was in my room within 10 min. It took them 3 tries to finally get it in the right spot and the pain of my contractions plus the pinching of the needle in my back was so uncomfortable but nothing compared to what I would feel later on in the night.

As time went on, my epidural kicked in and my entire lower half was numb. It was the weirdest thing to touch my legs and my belly and not actually feel it that much. Despite this, I felt all my contractions between my vagina and my butt and it was slowly becoming more and more unbearable. My anesthesiologist was also amazing, coming to my room every 30 min or so to give me a new pain med to try and relieve my agony. I would feel the beginning of a contraction and whine/cry through it, staring at the clock and telling myself “just 10 more seconds and it’ll be over”. My husband held my hand and tried to distract me as best he could but eventually I was falling asleep between the contractions and waking up to cry and groan through them. I lost track of time by now, and I’m assuming it was about 2am by the time the doctor came back and checked my cervix for the last time (after many checks) and saw that I was finally 10cm. My nurse at this time was also nice, but to me she was the devil when it came time to push.

She positioned me and wanted me to start pushing with each contraction, meanwhile I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since Thursday night and it was now technically Saturday morning. I had no stamina for pushing and it felt like I was gonna pass out with each one. Every time she said to keep going was probably the most agitating thing to me, and I wanted to rip her head off but I kept my mouth to myself. After so many pushes with what felt like no progress, she asked my husband if he wanted to see the baby’s head and he told me he was right there and that I just needed to keep going a little more. I didn’t believe him, of course, so the nurse brought in a mirror and I could see that, indeed, there was a baby head coming out of my lady bits. Seeing him come out during a push motivated me some, but I still lacked the energy to go for a long while. Eventually 3 other doctors came in and they asked me to keep pushing during contractions and began counting down for me - the method that had worked for me earlier. I pushed with all of my might and eventually I heard, “he’s out!” And I opened my eyes to see my beautiful baby boy suctioned and wiped down quickly before they pulled down my gown and placed him on my chest.

The second I saw him, all of my pain disappeared and I was now crying because of the overwhelming love instead of the contractions.

Jaxson Action was born at 2:46am and weighed 6lb 14oz, 20.5 inches long.

He is our rainbow baby after our loss in November 2018, and he was conceived the month we were due with our first. I definitely believe our angel gave him to us, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

If you read this far, thank you so much! Much love!❤️❤️❤️❤️