This is definitely late but its been sitting in my notes and I’ve just been hella busy haha 🤪 long read ahead!

Due to having gestational diabetes I had to get induced at 39weeks. 6am 01.19.2021, we arrived at the hospital to get this weee man evacuated haha 😂 I got an iv line put in, an vaginal exam which to my surprise found that i was 2cm dilated already. I got given misoprostol pill in solution to start the induction process. They straight away put the monitors on to make sure son didn’t react to it, i was hooked up for a good 40mins, within that 40mins i was having little tightenings/contractions. I was allowed to walk around the hospital afterwards to try get the ball rolling faster. Every hour or so i was given another dose of miso’ and again put on the monitors only it was for 20mins instead. My tightenings/contractions were slowly.. very slowly becoming more and more. By my last, 8th dose of miso’ still no real change, I walked around the hospital all day in between monitoring, my mum even made me walk up 7 flights of stairs twice 😂 haha. Not gonna lie it was alittle disheartening that I hadn’t had my baby by now (6pm? Im not quite sure), I was definitely excited to have my baby with me by the end of the day but that was it for the night and i was left alone till the following morning to continue the process all over again.

3am 01.20.2021 rolled around very slowly, as my contractions were starting to get more frequent and not as bearable, I eventually got up to go toilet & I had a little bit of a show (i was so excited at this point cause that meant we were having a baby soon), I had me a shower & by then it was time to start continuing the miso’ process and get another vaginal exam... 4cm dilated awesome we’re definitely getting closer 😊 by 11am my contractions were definitely closer and painful enough to break my waters. And finally im in active labour, I was allowed to sit in the bath tub for a good hour to help with my pain while waiting for my midwife to arrive. Eventually the contractions got to the point where i needed to “poo” (mamas y’all know that feeling haha) I hopped outta the tub onto the bed and pretty much started pushing.. fast forward 2 hours and 30mins later, my baby was finally crowning and i got to touch his head (one thing i wished to do, definitely an unreal feeling). My babys shoulders ended up getting stuck, usually known as shoulder dystocia, this definitely hurt more than labour itself, my knees where pushed to my ears, the emergency button was pushed and 8 more people rushed in, at this point I was getting tugged from every angle, left, right and centre. 🥲😅 (Not tryna scare anyone this is just what happen and how i felt haha) My son stopped breathing (I wasnt aware of this till afterwards) for a min or two because he had trouble getting under my pelvic bone whilst i was pushing and he was exhausted and had gave up. To think about it now scares the hell out of me, so many what ‘ifs’. Anyways.. haha I got 6 stitches internally, and he had a little bruise on his left shoulder from getting stuck which hasn’t caused him any hassle at all. But overall my son is healthy. Super blessed.

My first born, my baby boy was born 3:41pm via a natural vaginal birth & weighed 9.5lbs on the 20th of January 2021. We couldn’t have ask for a more handsome and chilled baby! Hes been so good for us and we’re truly grateful. Dad & I love you more then you know my baby! ❤️🥰

•Elijah James Uruaokāpuarangi Mclean•