My birth story

Little miss Charlotte Rose was born 5/14 11:13 pm measurinbg 8 lbs and 20 inches long. Original due date was May 20th, but I was induced starting on 5/13 due to gestational hypertension. At my 38 week appointment my BP was 140/90, my doctor was concerned but just wanted to keep an eye on any symptoms indicating preeclampsia. My husband took my BP the following week until my next appt, and my resting BP (like after sitting on the couch for hours) was staying at 140/90. At my 39 week appt on 5/13 my BP was up to 176/86, and my dr wasnt comfortable with the rising trend she was seeing so she sent me to the hospital to be induced. We got to the hospital around 2, and they started with the covid test. Super uncomfortable and weird feeling, and hurt my sinuses for several hours after, giving me a sinus headache. The induction process started around 4:30. At that point I was only 1 cm dilated, and my cervix was high and long. They first gave me vaginal misoprostol, which started to soften my cervix and bring on contractions. At first they just felt like mild period cramps but they definitely started to grow in instensity. After 4 hours, I got my epidural, and another dose of misoprostol as well as the foley bulb to open my cervix as I wasn’t dilating more yet. The epidural worked wonders, but it did drop my BP which also dropped the babys heart rate. They gave me medication that was basically like adrenaline to get my BP back up twice throughout the night, and it made me feel very anxious and weird. At 9:30 pm, my water spontaneously broke on its own and popped the balloon out. At this point they started to use pitocin, but the baby wasn’t tolerating it as they went up in dosage and her heart rate kept fluctuating. Come the morning time, we returned to increasing the pitocin and the baby started to stabilize and have normal reactions. My epidural was amazing and I couldn’t feel anything, I pretty much slept the day away after being up all night. They checked me throughout the day after upping the pitocin, and I was staying at 4 cm. At 4:00 they said if I didn’t get to 6 cm by 9:00 they were gonna do a c-section because it would be 24 hours since my water broke. Its like the baby heard them, because a little after that she really started to actively engage. I was feeling extremely intense pressure with every contraction as she started to lower and I was dilating more. They couldn’t give me anything for the pain, and my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, so it was a very long and painful experience. My nurse started putting me in all different positions from spinning babies to try to get baby to drop more. They were not comfortable but I was willing to do anything. The dr decided to check me at 8 because as she described it, “you look like someone who is in active labor!” I was 8-9 cm dilated at that point, thank god!!! She said she would check me in 2 hours, and I thought there is no way in hell I am making it that long. A half hour went by, and I started to feel like I had to poop and push. My nurse wanted me to wait because my dr had just gone into an emergency c-section, and I tried for 15 minutes but I was getting so uncomfortable. My nurse started doing some small pushes with me to give me some relief, but then my nurse had to go to another patients room because her babys heart rate was dropping. At this point I pretty much lost it, I felt like each second of not pushing was absolute torture and I was screaming and crying, something I never thought I would be like! Finally my nurse came back and the baby’s head was descending, so she got me in position and had me start doing some pushes. The dr came in a few min later, and we really started going at it. I pushed for a total of an hour. Honestly, the first 40 minutes of pushing was such a relief, my husband told me every time I laid back I was smiling just from the relief of finally being able to push. The last 20 minutes were straight pain. I was scream-grunting through every push, and by the last couple of pushes just straight up screaming. The monitors weren’t picking up my contractions, so the whole time of pushing my nurse was asking me to identify when I felt tightness and then to push, which was super hard to distinguish when all I wanted to do was push. I ended up with a second degree tear and needing lord knows how many stitches. All of it immediately worth it the second she was in my arms. They stitched me up as my husband and I just stared at her in disbelief and fell in love. My recovery so far has been really smooth, just very sore where I got stitched up and my body feels like I ran a marathon. Getting up and out of bed and to the bathroom is a physical challenge, but my husband has helped me every step of the way. He has been such an amazing support and so helpful during the night with changing her diaper and doing the things that would be really difficult for me with getting out of bed. Our nurses and doctors have been amazing too! Can’t wait till I am back to my normal self, but I am loving every single second with this little munchkin, I have never known a love like this ❤️ Wishing the best birth experience for every mama!