sharing the story of my second sons beautiful birth - july 19th 2024 39 weeks & 2 days i woke up in the morning and noticed i was spotting with mucous (my plug!) now i didn’t want to get my hopes up knowing it could still be days till baby makes his arrival but i let my husband know and we decided to take our toddler for a walk to see if we could get things going. by now it was probably around noon and i was having very occasional cramps not even as bad as period cramps. the rest of the day was pretty uneventful but my cramping started to pick up in the evening while i was cleaning up. around 8pm is when i started having more consistent contractions however they stalled when i sat down so i figured it wasn’t the real deal. suddenly my contractions started to up in intensity. my husband had went to put our toddler to bed and i decided to try and rest in case i wouldn’t be able to later. i laid down and that’s when i had one pretty intense contraction and my husband convinced me we should head to the hospital (good call😅) i was managing so well i figured theres no way im dilated to more than a 4 however i was much more comfortable standing and moving around so i wasn’t looking forward to the 30min drive. 9:44pm and we made it to the hospital, during check in my contractions were getting pretty intense and i couldn’t wait to get out of the wheelchair. once we got up to triage the midwife attempted to get the monitors on my belly but at this point i was most comfortable in a squat on the side of the bed so she accommodated and just held the monitor on my belly during a contraction to get a reading on baby. in between my next contraction i was able to get on the bed and consented to my first and only cervix check to everyones surprise … im at a 9!! the midwife pulls her fingers out and my waters came with, they quickly wheeled me to L&D this baby was coming NOW! it took me a moment to get into the other bed but once i did i stayed on my knees facing backwards over the raised bed just focusing on breathing. no joke i believe i had maybe 5 more contractions when i felt the same sensation i had with my first; my body was pushing for me. next contraction his head was born, the midwife coached me to simply breathe out my next contraction, i did and the rest of his body was born at 10:41pm - yes less than an hour after we arrived at the hospital! a healthy baby boy 7lbs 10oz and my second unmedicated birth. i was able to walk to the recovery suite and we were home the next day 🩵