My second labor and delivery keeps me up at night, in an absolutely positive way; it was completely opposite the birth trauma from my first son. My body knew what to do and the hospital team followed its direction in such a positive way!

I had been having prodormal labor since 37 weeks which was absolutely frustrating. So when I started having contractions at 8pm (again), assumed they were false, and waited for them to ramp down. But they didn’t - a shower made them worse, walking wasn’t helping, and I was really having to focus through them. Hubby and I called my parents at 9pm to pick up our toddler and started watching a movie thinking we’d wait for them to arrive around 10:30pm before heading to the hospital. Around 10pm I realized they weren’t going to make it in time and rerouted them to the hospital as the contractions were intense and just under 4 minutes apart.

I was checked in by 11pm and already 7cm dilated, 100% effaced, and my waters were bulging. Before they could get me to a room I was asking for the epidural 😂 Props to anyone who does labor naturally, I got to the point of cursing the surges as no position seemed to help the pain. I tried walking, squatting, sitting, laying, you name it! My hubby’s hand will never be the same. Also - amazing how your body knows what to do. Throughout the contractions there were points of deep breathing where my body involuntarily bore down.

Finally at 1 am the epidural was in but didn’t fully work on my right side. So the wonderful nurse helped me roll on my right around 1:30am to try to get it to even out. At 1:45am, my waters broke and the midwife was called. Before she got there, I was super uncomfortable so I rolled to my back and literally couldn’t not push! I think my exact words were “I can’t stop this” 😂 Nurse checked and baby was crowning. A few deep breaths later and one push, little one was born at 2:03 am 🥰