I spent my entire pregnancy riddled with anxiety that I would have a long, complicated delivery like I did with my first. That L&D was 25 hours long with two hours of pushing, and I’ll spare the details there.

My due date was Feb 11 but just past 4am on January 24, strong and consistent contractions began. I dealt with prodromal labor for weeks beforehand so this was nothing new or alarming. I lied in bed and worked through them until 6am, my husband lying awake next to me and coaching me to breathe through them. I decided to try to take a bath to see if they would ease up, and noticed some spotting on the way into the tub. The contractions only grew stronger as I sat in the tub for an hour—and I had a lot of bloody show when I got out.

I got my husband out of bed and he immediately put the carseat and hospital bag into the car. I worked through contractions as I made toast for us both as I was worried I would be starving through another long labor if I didn’t at least have something.

We arrived at the hospital at 8:20am. I was put into a wheelchair to be taken up to L&D and had two contractions (2 minutes apart) on the way up. I explained to the nurses that while they were strong, bouts of contractions like this was nothing new to me but I was concerned about the bleeding (I was in denial about being in labor, really). My husband helped me undress and I was lied back immediately to have my cervix checked—fully expecting to be maybe no more than 3 or 4cm.

“You’re fully dilated with a bulging water bag,” the nurse told me. I was in complete shock still when they asked me if I wanted to try to get in an epidural. I figured if this was really almost over, then what’s the point? And decided to skip it.

My doctor came in half an hour later and I opted to have her break my water as they hadn’t gone yet. I didn’t feel an urge to push after a short bit and decided to try the labor ball to bring baby down. It worked almost immediately. I got back on the bed and leaned over the back to work through the transition—and when I say that I thought I was going to tear in half... wow.

I was helped over onto my back as I screamed that the baby was coming and I needed to push. After barely 6 hours of labor and only two pushes, I brought my sweet baby into the world. She was immediately placed on my chest (I didn’t get to do immediate skin to skin and delayed cord clamping with my first due to complications), my husband standing next to my head crying, and we fell in love all over again with our second baby girl.

Violet Sarah

January 24, 2021

10:07am

7lb 2oz, 19 inches long