The Day I Became A Mother: Our Birth Story

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Here it is everyone. Our birth story. The best day of my life, the day I became a mother, the day that the purpose of my life only began to be fulfilled.

As many first time pregnancies go, mine was long, exhausting, and endlessly exciting.

Truthfully, for the most part, I loved being pregnant. I just didn't think I would be pregnant past my due date. Technically four days past due but in my mind this baby was two weeks tardy.

My family had a calendar printed out with names and times written down on nearly every day leading up to my due date. Everyone believed I would deliver early. To be fair, it was probably because I was enormous, but either way, I agreed. I was totally on board with the idea that I would never have to wait for my actual due date to meet my sweet boy.

At my 20 week appointment, my baby was measuring almost two weeks ahead- he was big from the start- oh goody. It was hard to determine my dates in the beginning of my pregnancy, so I pretty much just thought that my dates were off and he wasn't actually big, it just seemed that way because my due date should be earlier. (eye roll. Wishful thinking I guess)

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I was ready, but baby wasn't

We had our baby shower nice and early and was completely prepared for bringing a new baby home by 37 weeks. I was anxious to be checked at my 38 week appointment to see if I had made any progress without knowing it- nope, closed. Mmkay, well, that's disappointing but it's fine.

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At 39 weeks I was dilated about a finger tip which I suppose is progress that I should be thankful for…but hardly. At that appointment my doctor attempted to do a membrane sweep but it was difficult because fingertip really doesn't give her a ton of space to really do a sweep good enough to put me into labor.

And it didn't.

40 weeks…my due date.

It was here. I was so impatient. For the past 3 weeks I had been walking, squatting, bouncing and doing all the things that I had heard would help naturally put me into labor but I hadn't even had one single contraction worth writing home about.

I could not bear the thought that the membrane sweep didn't work and I was going to be induced at 41 weeks, the end. Nope! I contacted some of my friends at work to see who was on call that night. Lucky me, I had a few friends working and one of my favorite doctors (other than my own OB) working that night. I texted the doctor who was on call and asked her if I could come to the unit for a quick membrane sweep to give it another go. She agreed, thank goodness.

So, this time, I was about 1.5 cm dilated and she did a really good sweep on me. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but not unbearable by any means. She told me that I'll probably go into labor in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Nope!

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Three days later

I had to do an NST. Since now I was past my due date, my doctor wanted twice weekly NSTs to make sure everything was going well. It was my first NST and it was also my last. The NST went alright, nothing about the baby warranted them admitting me or inducing me, but it also wasn't a perfect strip so they monitored me for a little extra time to see what would happen.

After a couple of hours, they gave me the option. Do I want to go ahead and have them induce me tonight? Or go home and wait it out for a few more nights? I decided to have one more membrane sweep (I know, I was desperate you guys, don't judge me) and go home. We finally made it home at 1:30 am when I went to bed feeling completely normal.

My water broke

Well, that didn't last long. I woke up at 5:30 am with one big contraction. I woke my husband up just out of excitement that I finally had a contraction that actually was painful! Yes, when you are that ready for labor to begin, pain can be an exciting thing.

Listen carefully. I am not condoning that you wake your husband up in the middle of the night when you have your first contraction. It's a terrible idea. You're going to have lots of contractions and labor absolutely does not happen like media likes to make you think it does. Go back to sleep.

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But here I am, waking him up to let him know that something might be happening. He says “That's exciting baby, try to go back to sleep” and rolls over. So, naturally, I sit up in bed and put my hands on my belly as if to summon more contractions.

I summoned my water instead.

It's Happening

I suddenly felt a pop and a quick release of pressure in my pelvis and I became completely soaked. That time, I made sure Dean woke up and I jumped out of bed saying “my water just broke! My water seriously just broke!”. When I walked into the bathroom, I left a huge puddle of clear fluid on the floor beneath me and Dean dared ask “Are you sure it's you're water?”. Umm, yeah, pretty sure.

I'm a crazy person and just became so stinking excited that the day had finally come that I literally just cleaned myself up, put on some sweats, grabbed my hospital bag, and got in the car to leave. I'm not joking, we were out of the house in a matter of like, twenty minutes. It was ridiculous and completely unnecessary but I was on the labor train and ready to move.

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We showed up to Labor and Delivery at 6:30 am and I got admitted for PROM. I was having occasional contractions but nothing labor worthy. I still had to get admitted, so no plans were being made yet.

{Do you just love my hospital gown? It was one of the best things I packed in my hospital bag. Find out where you can get a similar one in my FREE Hospital Bag Checklist. }

Reality hit

Admission is annoying. It's a process to get you all put in the system before your healthcare team can really start doing anything with you. They might do a quick ultrasound to make sure your baby is head down, you typically get an I.V. and lab work drawn, get hooked up to the monitor, get your cervix checked, and answer a bunch of admission questions that no one wants to answer when they about to have a baby, but it has to be done. blah blah blah.

By the time the admission process was complete, the doctor came in to talk to me about possible augmentation of labor. I was only 1.5cm dilated at the time of admission and since I was a primigravida (basically, a first time mom), we all anticipated that labor would take for-e-ver since my water broke before labor even started.

But I wanted to give my body a chance.

I asked if we could wait a while to see what my body would do before we started any induction methods and the doctor agreed. Luckily, my contractions were consistently becoming more frequent and more intense without any help from outside sources. My body kicked into gear and knew exactly what to do. The problem was, it freaking hurts.

I did not feel like superwoman

I did not feel empowered or strong or brave or amazing or any of the things that you might be told you are during labor. Maybe I WAS those things. Maybe I WAS doing an amazing job and I am amazing. It takes a TON of strength to be a laboring mom. I just didn't feel the strength. I felt scared and doubtful. It was easy to wonder if I could really do this.

After pacing the labor room, bouncing on the labor ball, and leaning over every surface in the room, including my husband for about 3 hours, I was in a lot of pain. By the time it was 11am, I was asking (begging?) for an epidural. My nurse checked me and I was only about 3.5 cm dilated but I did not care. I wanted the epidural.

oh, the relief

Before I went into labor myself, I always thought that I would try to get an epidural as late as possible. I definitely wanted to be in active labor before I asked for an epidural. Ok, well, reality happened and I couldn't care less what the pre-labor-me thought. The current me felt like contractions were one on top of the other and I did not want to suffer through this awful back labor for one more minute.

My epidural was wonderful. The anesthesiologist who put it in did it pretty quickly and gave me just enough relief. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to sit still long enough for him to do it, but it's amazing what you can get yourself to do when you have hope that the pain will be gone if you do.

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Once I was comfortable, my nurse put the foley catheter in and checked my cervix again. I was about 4 cm. I was happy to be making progress but my hopes weren't very high. It was still pretty early.

I Could See The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Want to hear something wonderful? I took a nap for four hours while I labored with a peanut ball between my legs (miracle worker, I swear). Four glorious hours passed before the doctor checked me again.

At one point during labor, my wonderful nurse came in the room to check on me and I looked up and said with disappointed anticipation “am I still contracting?”. I  was sure that she was going to say something like “yeah, kind of”. Instead she said, “Yes! You're contracting every 1.5-2 minutes!”. Oh my goodness, thank the Lord almighty I was really doing it.

You guys, at 4pm I was completely dilated. Yes, I was 10 cm dilated, and 100% effaced. I could have kissed the doctor who checked me. It was so exciting. I was shocked and thrilled that I could actually see the light at the end of this tunnel.

Hurry up and wait

The baby was still pretty high, so they labored me down for an hour and a half. I was totally prepared for to labor down because I knew that once I got to 10 cms, I still had to wait for my baby to get as low as possible before I started doing the real work.

So, complete and all, I finally allowed my family in to see me after all of this time not allowing visitors in. I'm sorry, but when I'm in pain, I'm not particularly interested in people staring at me like I'm a circus animal. Then, when I was no longer in pain, I just wanted to rest before pushing. So shoot me. Sorry not sorry. This was the perfect time for people to come visit because I was comfortable but things were actually happening. The excitement was actually real.

My Mom, Dad, Mother-in-law, and father-in-law all stepped in for a little while to wish me luck and congratulations. They didn't stay in my room long because truly, I think labor is a very personal experience between you and your husband and it's not really anyone else's business. Especially because labor has sights and smells involved that I really don't need in anyone's memory for the rest of their life.

It's Go Time (Or in my case, Go Slow Time)

After laboring down, it was time to push with my nurse. Everyone stepped out of the room except of course, Dean who was my amazing coach and motivator the entire time. When I say entire time, I mean 3 hours. Yes, I pushed and pushed and tried and tried to get this baby out for three straight hours. All the while, my wonderful husband stood right there next to me, holding my hand, holding my leg, encouraging me and I think, sometimes, even pushing with me.

It was a slow process for a few reasons.

1.) I was a first time mom. It can take up to 4 hours for a first time mom to push and still be perfectly normal. Some women are lucky enough to push for 20 minutes with their first baby but others just need to give themselves time because it's freaking hard.

2.) My baby was big. He was measuring in the 91st percentile throughout my pregnancy. We always knew he was going to be a biggun' but when the time comes to actually push him out, it's not so funny anymore.

3.) He was OP. Basically he was facing more upwards than downwards. If you are picturing delivery on your back, imagine your baby facing the bed. That's how he should be facing. Mine was facing more towards the ceiling. This makes it so that the larger circumference of his head is coming out first, which obviously makes pushing the baby out more difficult but by no means impossible.

4.) I had an epidural. Yes, sometimes having an epidural can make pushing more difficult because you don't feel everything and you don't have your body helping you out by forcing you to push in the right place. But you know what? I don't regret the epidural for one single second because I don't really have the desire to feel myself pushing for even one hour–let alone three. No thanks. I'm good.

It was emotionally draining

There were definitely times that I felt discouraged and defeated but I always tried to keep a positive mind. It was pretty easy to do because I had an incredibly positive team helping me. My doctor came in to deliver me even though it wasn't her night on call, my co-worker-bestie clocked in early to make sure she could be my nurse before I delivered, and the doctor on call that was helping us as well, was one of my favorites. I got really lucky.

Through the tough parts where I just wanted to cry in frustration, they all reassured me that I was absolutely going to delivery vaginally. They kept telling me that I could do this and that I was strong and that I was so close. Sometimes I feel like without this team of mine, I probably could have ended up in a c-section for failure to progress after pushing forever and ever.

But I didn't. My body did it!

{see how my bra unzipped down the middle? It was a God-send. I loved having support during labor but a bare chest for skin to skin. A bra like this is essential!}

All My Dreams Came True

It was 8:21 pm when my sweet Logan Dean was born. He was perfect. 8 pounds 9 ounces and 21.5 inches of perfection entered the world and he was mine. I loved like I had never loved before in that moment. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into, but it is worth every second of labor that I endured and will endure for the rest of my life as his mother.

Was your birth story all that you expected it to be? Did you deliver in the hospital or at home? How was your experience? Let me know in the comments!