Hi there yall — ive been so nervous to interact on here I dont know why but here it goes :)

I’m a 22 yr old first time mom and we found out about her at 9 weeks with a due date of 12/14/23. Throughout my pregnancy my anemia was making things difficult then I was having on and off bouts of gestational hypertension that sent me to L&D for monitoring a few times so when it got close, my OB wanted me induced on 12/8 to reduce stress on my body. Seems simple enough but nothing about me is simple.

I’m walking around my kitchen 12/4, cleaning up dinner with my fiancé when I feel a gush of water. I was nervous and paranoid so I called L&D and they told me to come in. Couple tests later I’m sent home with “your water didn’t break, you’re good!” so it’s odd, but whatever. From that night of the 4th to the 6th in the evening, I would sporadically drip liquid either in large or small amounts but everyone was telling me I was fine and the only person listening to me was my fiance- I had a massive feeling it was my water but everything and everyone was saying no. We did a non-stress test on the 6th and was told everything was fine and not to worry. We tried getting running around done but after a particularly bad gush, we went home, grabbed our bags again, and headed to the hospital fully expecting to be turned away again with “nope you’re fine !!”

Well turns out it was my water all along, so 22 hours of labor and 4 hours of pushing later, we finally welcomed miss Aurora into the world !! It was extremely painful as the epidural was given to me about an hour into being admitted so by the time I was pushing, it had practically worn off, but it was beyond worth it. She is the absolute light of our lives and is such a precious, amazing baby.

PPD is really starting to get to me which is tough because I feel like I should have it all together and this should all come naturally- and I’m terrified because I want to break cycles with her but also need to take care of myself and ask for help which is my biggest struggle- not wanting to feel like a burden or anything.

Any advice or thoughts or stories of your own are appreciated and I hope y’all have a great day :) Sorry for the long story haha