I can’t believe I did it!! FTM

I waited so long for this tiny human, and now that she’s here it just feels so unreal!

Here’s our birth story:

So, there I was: 39 weeks exactly.

Contractions started regularly, about 10 minutes apart, late at night on July 3rd. They were easy to handle, and everything was peachy for a while. They started and stopped, slowed and got closer together quite a few times. They were too uncomfortable to sleep through, but since they weren’t close together, I didn’t bother freaking out about them yet.

Fast forward 12 hours later, they got to being 5 minutes apart. By the time I decided it was time to go to the hospital, it was around midnight. I tried calling my husband (he works nights 45 minutes away) but he didn’t answer because he runs loud machinery. So I began to panic and ended up calling my parents to come get me and take me. Luckily on the way there, he called me back and met us at the hospital.

So I get to the hospital, they check me and I’m only at a 2, 60% effaced. Contractions are still regular and 5 minutes apart. So they keep me for 2 hours, check me again, and still no change. So I ended up getting sent home.

My contractions slowed back to being 10 minutes apart, but slowly got more intense as the day (now July 4th) went on. Eventually I was almost unable to keep from yelling out because of how painful my contractions were, but they still weren’t close enough together for me to justify going back to the hospital and getting sent home again. I wasn’t treated very nicely by the previous nurse, so I was very stubborn about going and getting sent home after being strapped to monitors for 2 hours.

Midnight rolled around again, and by this time my contractions were INCREDIBLY intense. So intense that I was crying and yelling through them and could no longer breathe through them like I had been. They suddenly went from being 10 minutes apart to less than a minute between each one. I finally had enough and had my husband help me get dressed and we went in and got there at 12:54 am on July 5th.

I was checked, told I was a 4 and 90% effaced so I wasn’t going anywhere! I asked when the epidural would be happening and this nurse (who was an ANGEL, so much better than the nurse from before) told me it would take an hour, but she could get me something for pain while I did the necessary paperwork.

Eventually I got my epidural and could finally get some rest after not being able to sleep for 2 days. I woke up every few hours to get turned and readjusted to get baby to move down. Eventually, they woke me up, checked me, and it was time to push. My nurse kept telling me how first timers usually take a few hours to get baby out, and she said we could do a few practice pushes while we wait for my doctor to show up, and I apparently ended up being better at it than she expected and she ended up having to tell my doctor to hurry! 😂

I pushed with a mirror, which was incredibly cool, and I got my baby girl out after an hour and a half of pushing. It was such an insane thing to see, and really helped with motivating me to keep going because I could see my progress. Thank God for epidurals, because I really didn’t feel any pain, it just felt like I was trying to poop out a bowling ball lol

Once all was said and done, I had my baby girl at 8:23 am! She weighed 8 lbs 5 oz, 20 inches long. She latched on immediately and fed while the doctor cleaned me up.

I did have to get quite a few stitches. I tore up the left side as opposed to downward, and had a few internal tears as well, but it was all worth it!

She’s now 3 weeks old, feeding well and getting chunky, and I couldn’t be more in love with her! It’s crazy to look at her and think that she came out of me such a short time ago. It doesn’t feel completely real just yet, haha!