I am about a month and few days postpartum and thought I’d share my birth story!

So, to start off, I was seeing the MFM my whole pregnancy because I tested positive for the Musclar Dystrophy gene and since I was having a boy, he has a higher chance of having it( we opted for getting cord blood at birth and are still waiting for results). They did all my scans and had me monitoring my blood pressure at home. They had me doing this because I had some elevated bps at the beginning of my pregnancy.

Towards 35-36 I started noticing I was having higher bps than usual, along with my feet and legs swelling and waking up with headaches in the morning. I went in for my last appointment with them right before 37 weeks and they decided to go ahead and induce me. My sister had to be induced twice with her babies and told me it was very painful and sucked so I was obviously nervous but excited to meet my baby boy.

I went in on a Monday at around 6 am and started the induction process at around 7. They started off with giving me pills to soften my cervix, one in my vagina and the other 2 through my mouth. It worked but wasn’t working fast enough. So I opted in for them to place a balloon inside of me, they also had to break my water. The contractions from this was very painful. I used laughing gas but it did not take away the pain whatsoever. I was clinging onto the bed rail with each one. When the contractions were over, I went to the bathroom to pee and the feeling of the balloon coming out of me was crazy and sooooooo weird.

After this, they told me they were gonna go ahead and start pitocin. I immediately asked for an epidural before they started it. Turns out, the first one did not work. I felt those pitocin contractions for at least 2 hours before asking if they could re do it. Getting the 2nd one done while having the most painful contractions ever was so hard. But that one actually worked and I was able to sleep for quite a bit.

The nurses kept switching my positions in bed with the peanut ball in between my legs which I believe helped progress my labor a lot. At around 2:20ish I started to feel intense pressure down there. I held off for a bit before calling my nurse but eventually I did around 2:40. She checked me and said she was going to call the midwife so I could start pushing.

I felt EVERYTHING with my labor. Even tho I had the epidural I literally felt him coming out of me and the ring of fire lol. He was 6 pounds, 2 oz and 19 inches long with a head full of black hair. It was very painful but I got the best thing that has ever happened to me 💙💙💙💙