FTM. Started having contractions around noon on the 17th of March. At first they were pretty irregular in pattern, but by 3am that night they were exactly 3 minutes apart and I went to the hospital. I was only about 2.5 dilated, but I was over 39 weeks and my contractions were so strong/painful there was no way I was letting them make me go home. They had me get in a jacuzzi tub for an hour and work through the contractions to see if my dilation would progress. I had back labor.. and let me tell you, I had no idea what I was in for. My contractions would make me puke and almost black out with each one. I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my actual skin and die.. I thought like I might actually go insane from the pain. Dilated to 4, got an epidural, things got better, my right side never got very numb, but it was manageable. Baby had a dip in heart rate that scared everyone, they broke my water.. I spiked a little fever and they gave fluids and antibiotics and my urine output was low. I ended up pushing for 2 hours, but babies heart rate kept elevating and being distressed. Doc felt like baby was in a bad position and it would be hours before I pushed him out and it wasn't safe. So we had to do a cesarean. I cried a lot cause it was all very overwhelming and scary. They had to take my epidural out since I wasn't numb enough and do a spinal block. This took two anesthesiologists and 20 attempts (not kidding) They could not get it placed correctly. I was sitting on a metal table, puking over and over-- Having contractions and being poked over and over in the spine. It was the worst moment of my life so far and I'm pretty sure my body went into some sort of shock. They kept saying they could just put me to sleep, but something told me I would never wake up if they did. They finally got it and I was completely numb. The pressure of the cutting was a horrible sensation, but they finally got baby out. The paralytic from the spinal block went pretty high into my chest and I had a panic attack cause my breathing felt super restricted. Atleast my baby Asher was out and healthy, even if I was too scared to hold him at that point. The recovery has been pretty horrendous. All the poked in my spine made cerebral spinal fluid leak out and give me a severe spinal migraine. They did a blood patch on me yesterday where they draw blood from my hand and inject it thru an epidural into my spine to clot off the holes. My back has been inflamed and spasming continuously since. All on top of trying to pump and breast feed every 3 hours and care for a new born. None of my birth went the way it was supposed to and honestly I think I'm going to have some serious ptsd from it all. I've been struggling a lot. If anyone has any advice or had similar or difficult births.. please reach out cause I could use a chat and any type of support I can get.