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It can be so helpful and empowering to read a positive birth story before you go into labor, so I am sharing exactly mine and everything that happened to bring hope and send positive vibes your way!
Finding the positive birth story that resonates with you can really help set you up for your own positive birth experience, so I hope that mine can provide that positivity for you!
This is all about my positive birth story!
This is likely to be a long post, so if you’d rather watch instead of read click the video above!
Things all started May 17th at 2:30am. I woke up to pee, like I usually did (pregnancy problems) but when I stood up I felt a small gush. I wasn’t totally sure what it was I was feeling, but it was a completely new sensation to me so in the back of my mind I was wondering if it was my water breaking.
I knew it could just be pee, or it could be discharge, but I think in my gut I knew it was my water. That said, I wasn’t totally sure.
I laid back down, waited a few minutes, and got up. Again, small gush. Okay, now I was a bit more convinced. I put on a pad and did it again. Laid down, waited a few minutes, and got up. Small gush!
I called the on-call OB, who wasn’t all that helpful and just told me to come in to get checked. At that point I woke up my husband and we worked on finishing up packing our bags (here’s your reminder to do that sooner rather than later!!)
While we were packing, I felt more gushes, including one big one. I also was starting to feel contractions, but I didn’t fully realize that’s what was going on. They felt like period cramps to me, and I was expecting a different sensation. Everything I had read always said it was it’s own unique feeling, so the fact that they were familiar to me threw me off!
We got to the hospital around 3:30am and they brought me back to get checked before admitting me. The nurse got all my vitals and information, and I kept on gushing and contracting. They hooked me up to the monitors to check me and baby out, and confirmed that baby was doing well and I was in fact contracting.
Then the same on-call OB who I talked to on the phone came in to check me out. He did a cervical exam and confirmed my water had broken and I was in labor! At that point I was around 3 cm dialated.
The cervical exam really ramped up my contractions at that point and I was in quite a bit of pain. I had been unsure how I felt about an epidural before then, but that convinced me that I needed one asap.
They moved me to my actual labor room and got me re-hooked up and all set up. I was slightly hesitant about the epidural because I wasn’t sure if it was going to slow things down, but after about 5 minutes of continuing to contract, I asked for us to get things moving for me to get one.
They had to first get an IV placed, which I was super super nervous about because I tend to do badly with needles. It wasn’t my favorite thing, but all in all it wasn’t too bad. Uncomfortable while having it in though, but it is what it is.
Then they needed to get fluids in me because an epidural can cause your blood pressure to drop. That took around 45 minutes to an hour.
After that, they called in the anesthesiologist. She was SO so nice and explained everything going on step by step. I was nervous about having to stay still for the placement, but she told me to let her know if I needed to move and we could pause and that there was really only one portion where I needed to stay still and it would be brief.
She first sterilized my back, then got me into position. I had to sit on the edge of the bed and curl up over a pillow that I held on my stomach. My husband supported me from the front (luckily he could stay in the room – I know that isn’t always the case.)
Then she did the first shot which was a numbing shot. This stung for a few seconds, but was really no big deal. Then she started on the actual epidural (I think it’s referred to as a catheter.) She started placing it but I could feel some weird pain kinds of sensations while doing so, I let her know and so she took it out. I was leaning a bit to one side because of where I was on the bed, so we repositioned me, and started the process over again starting with a new numbing shot.
This time she placed it easily, and I had no problem staying still when I needed to. Just focused on my breathing and getting through it. It was brief!
Afterwards they laid me back down and we waited for it to go to work. Not long after I was feeling the relief and it was SO NICE. This was around 8am and I believe I was around a 5cm at that point, maybe a 6.
My blood pressure apparently did drop, but I didn’t feel it at all, I only know because I heard the nurse mention it. I don’t think it dropped too low or anything, and soon it leveled out.
I expected to not be able to move my legs whatsoever, but I actually had pretty good movement with my legs throughout the entire labor experience. They were numb and heavy, but I could move them. Very weird sensation.
After that, things felt a lot more calm. All that was left to do was wait until it was time to push, and wait we did.
It was a looooong waiting period of moving me around to get my body to dilate and further get ready and then just chilling. I’d get checked here and there, and rotated. Checked, and rotated. Etc. Etc.
Because everything felt so fast up until my epidural, my husband and I thought he’d be born by late afternoon early evening, but that was not the case.
I’m guessing my epidural slowed things down, but honestly, no regrets because I could not have gone on much longer without it.
In the early evening my OB decided it was time to get things moving again since they weren’t on their own, so we started on Pitocin. We started with 2 units, and then I was checked every 30 minutes and we would go up by 2 if needed. This went on until I was at around 24 units, so it took quite a while. Lots of waiting and trying to rest. I was stuck around a 9.5 cm for a long time, with a “lip” as they were referring to it.
Finally around 10pm or so on the 17th, it was time to push! My husband and I didn’t even realize that’s what was going on because it was all so chill. It seemed like maybe they were still trying to reposition me or something, we both just didn’t realize we were at the pushing stage even though I was literally pushing. Idk lol. I guess in the movies it all seems more frantic and exciting??
Pushing went on for quite a while. Definitely took some time to get the hang of it. Lots of different strategies and positions throughout the time pushing. Overall wasn’t painful though! Definitely exhausting.
His head was stuck so it took a long time to get him out. Most positions would get us little bits of progress here and there, but nothing substantial.
Eventually a new nurse came in and she was there to help us try tug of war, which meant she held onto one side of a newborn blanket and I held onto another and that’s how we went about pushing. She brought a whole new energy to the room, in a tough love drill sergeant kind of way, and it turns out it was exactly what I needed.
We pushed like that for a bit and saw some real progress, but it had still been a while of pushing. An OB came in to talk to me about how we might need to try to use a vacuum and if that didn’t work then we’d go to a C-section.
I think maybe in the back of my mind I knew that I just needed more time with the tug of war, because we did it 2 more times and OUT HE CAME! At 12:54 am on 5/18/23. My beautiful baby boy ❤️
Man, that feeling is like no other. A relief I don’t think I could ever put into words!
It was definitely painful then, but very very brief. Then he was here and placed on my chest. What a surreal experience in the best possible way. He cried pretty much right away!
I just remember saying “Oh my god” over and over and over again from the shock of him being here on me to being done with such a long and hard pushing session. My husband cried too. The details might be fuzzy, but I’ll never forget that feeling.
Luckily all was alright with my baby, so we were able to do skin to skin for a while. The sweetest!
I delivered the placenta (no big deal literally slipped out.) They sewed me up, I ended up with a 3rd degree tear 😅 Took a while, but wasn’t horrible. The epidural helped!
After an hour or so, they took my baby to the warming station and checked and measured him. Everything looked perfect with him, including his blood sugar! He was 8 lbs 10 oz and 22 inches.
All in all, it was a wonderfully hard but positive birth story and I feel very thankful for my experience and labor team.
Wishing you an easy and healthy labor and that you have your very own positive birth story to look back on.
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