I found out early in my pregnancy that my body had made antibodies that could attack my baby’s red blood cells. It is a very rare type that could have not been prevented, and let’s just say I was a nervous wreck my whole pregnancy. My levels stayed low so we wanted to try to have labor start on it’s own rather than induction. I had my second sweep at 39+4.

One day later I started having consistent contractions 🤰🏼. They weren’t super painful, but hubby and I decided to stay in a hotel by the hospital bc it is a 40 minute drive and he has some unrealistic fears about birthing a baby on the side of the road. I was able to get some sleep, but starting at 6am more painful contractions started. I waited 2 hours before going in bc I didn’t want to be sent home and of course as soon as I am checked in they stop 🤦🏼‍♀️. We decided to go home and see what happened and I was ready to go back about 5 hours later. I knew it was real real because the NFL playoffs were on (go pack go) and I absolutely could not wait thru 4th quarter. Hubby had to watch it on his phone as he drove me to the hospital. When I got checked I was 2 cm and I knew they wanted me to be at 3 to admit me 🙆🏼‍♀️. Thank God I had a sympathetic nurse that saw my pain and said they’d monitor me for an hour to see if I progressed. The pain was intense for that hour and the nurse said I was almost “about a 3.” I can’t imagine if they would have turned me away at that point.

The contractions were becoming incredibly strong at about 4 minutes apart. As soon as they asked if I’d be getting an epidural, I confirmed “Yes!” Once officially admitted they let my husband back with me. We had to be masked the entire time. They took 3 attempts to get the IV in, so painful when you have contraction waves crashing over you. Then the anesthesiologist finally came with that sweet sweet juice. Unfortunately it took her around 40 minutes to place the needle in 🙇🏼‍♀️. I couldn’t help but be annoyed at her when my last epidural was in and working within 5-7 minutes. Even after the placement the numbness was only reaching the top of my thighs “why?!?!” I was told because I am tall I needed a higher dose 🙄🙄🙄. 2 additional injections of something through the IV and I finally had relief. It was about 2.5 hours of level 9/10 contractions.

They had me try to rest a bit and the epidural was so good, I didn’t even notice my water had broken 🤷🏼‍♀️. I progressed from a 3 to a 10 in about 4.5 hours (quick!). I reached 10cm dialated around 11pm(ish). Given my first baby I pushed for nearly 3 hours, I thought for sure I’d be pushing into the next day and deliver right on my due date. The midwife set me up to do a practice push and I jokingly asked, “can we get this done in 3 pushes!” After 10 seconds of my practice push she told me to stop and looked at me and said, “Yes, we can!” A whole team of people were called into the delivery room before I really started pushing. Baby had pooped inside me and she was at risk for NICU time from the antibody complications. I did two good “count to 10” pushes and on the third I only counted to 5 and she was out!

I had several comments on how beautiful her head shape was because she didn’t spend long in the birth canal 💆🏼‍♀️. At 11:28pm my sweet P was born. She didn’t need any NICU time (thank you Jesus!) and was worth all the anxiety, worry and pain 🤱🏼.