Estimated Delivery Date: 02/08/2021
Actual Delivery Date: 01/19/2021
To begin, I started to have elevated blood pressure and other abnormal lab values beginning around 31 weeks. I was sent to the hospital for an overnight stay for monitoring for consecutive weeks beginning at 34 weeks until 36 weeks when I was sent home on bed rest having been diagnosed with preeclampsia with plans of being induced at 37 weeks. I was a mix of emotions throughout this whole process. I felt very overwhelmed as a first-time mom. I ended up having a positive birth story, but I was a bundle of nerves walking into the hospital on Sunday. Luckily, my best friend was the best person to have with me to defuse my nerves and replace them with excitement!
Induction Time
January 17 – My best friend and I arrived at the hospital to be admitted for induction. The whole process began at 8 pm when they placed the Cytotec.
January 18 – I slept maybe an hour and a half or so between 12 am-4 am. I was just too excited!
The nurses started me on Pitocin at 4 am because I was having too many contractions to do another round of Cytotec. I started feeling contractions around 10 am. They were not crazy, but I started to feel them nonetheless. Kim, my midwife, broke my water around noon and the contractions intensified around 1:30 pm. As the pain was still manageable, I was able to roll around on the exercise ball, use the peanut ball, and the princess position to try to get kiddo to move further down into my pelvis.
Contractions started getting more intense – like intense, intense – around 4:30 pm. I labored through those contractions – breathing and trying to stay as relaxed as possible. At around 6-6:30 pm pain management started getting more and more difficult. I quit talking much, if at all. I kept my eyes closed and kept trying to breathe through the contractions. Contractions were getting more and more frequent lasting who knows how long being about 1-2 min apart.
As we approached and passed the 24-hour mark since beginning the induction, shit started hitting the fan. I was exhausted and hungry. I started to fall asleep in between contractions. I would wake up to another one already hitting its peak and be in stupid amounts of pain until it passed. I kept telling myself ‘they don’t last that long’ and if I would stay awake in-between them the intensity of the pain was less.
Around 7 pm (I think), I finally admitted that I may need some help with the pain because I could not do it by myself anymore. I was about 6 cm statically, but they could stretch me to 7 cm. I asked what my options were for pain management. The nurse said IV – fentanyl or epidural. I asked, would the Fentanyl help? The nurse said it would “take the edge off” (whatever that means) and the epidural would take away everything except the pressure. I gave it some thought and the nurse started a bag of saline just in case because you have to be hydrated to get an epidural.
I am not sure how long I lasted from the conversation with the nurse to electing for the epidural, but let me tell you, I was at the point of almost crying in between contractions. To be honest, I think it was more the hysteria of minimal sleep and no food getting to me more than anything. I mean it hurt, but I was not in the right state of mind that’s for sure.
Epidural Time
Anyways, the epidural was placed by this TALL anesthesiologist, like my best friend had to stand in front of me to make sure I did not fall off the edge of the bed while the epidural was placed tall; but anyways it was placed pretty quickly after I decided I wanted it. The epidural worked almost instantly and was MAGICAL!
I started talking again, I even posted this picture on my Snapchat story to let everyone know I was still alive. I was a whole new person!
After this small burst of energy with the pain being gone, I decided to sleep! The sleep was heavenly! A nurse would come in every 30 minutes or so to help me change positions because they were still wanting little girl to engage in my pelvis more, but I was barely awake for the position changes.
January 19 – Sometime later, around 2 am, two nurses came in and flipped some lights on. They said they thought it was time to do some practice pushes. I agreed and they helped get me in position to push on my back. My legs were seriously dead as a doorknob! Epidurals really do wonders.
It took me one or two sets of pushes to get the hang of how they wanted me to do it; but once I got the hang of it, little girl was coming and quick!
Delivery Time – A First-Time Mom
I asked my best friend to facetime my husband quickly because he was in Georgia for AIT and unfortunately unable to be there. It took two or three calls before he finally answered. We had woken him up and he was sleepy, I could tell.
While my best friend called my husband, the nurses called my midwife to come in because we were having a baby!
Once my midwife arrived, it took one more set of pushes, and my little girl was born happy and healthy on January 19th at 2:43 am. She was instantly placed on my chest and we stared at each other for some time while my midwife cleaned me up. I had a first-degree tear, but nothing serious. I was unsure of what to do with little miss just staring at me so I said hi and tried to talk to her a bit. She was gorgeous and so peaceful.
I finally felt like a mom, but a very hungry mom!!!
What’s funny is, I thought I had just accomplished one of the biggest feats birthing my firstborn, but little did I know, as a first-time mom, my biggest adventure was just beginning!
