My Birth Story & Signing off the blog!

On Sunday night, July 31st (38w 4d), around 9pm, I was sitting at home bouncing on my exercise ball when I thought I peed myself (which was not all that uncommon at that point). As I stood up I felt another gush and started wondering if it could be my water. After checking out the color and realizing it had no smell, I figured out that it was, in fact my water.

I told my husband and called my OB and she said to head over to the hospital and they would call her and let her know what they found. I put on a pad, finished packing my hospital bag and grabbed some towels to sit on in the car. My husband had just taken Tylenol PM to get some sleep and since I wasn't having contractions yet, I drove us to the hospital.

Once we got there they let me skip triage and just admitted me to a room. Then they hooked me up to the monitors and apparently I was having contractions 6-9 minutes apart but I couldn't even feel them. They also checked me to see if I was dilated at all and I was at a 3. They offered me pitocin to help speed things up but I declined since I felt like I was making good progress so far. I asked for something to help me sleep and figured we could see where things were in the morning.

They gave me an ambien around midnight and I tried to go to sleep. Of course my contractions decided to kick in then. I spent the next 4 hours laying in various positions breathing though them and playing games and texting people on my phone (yes, people were actually up at that hour!) while my husband got some rest. :) I timed the contractions on my phone and they were coming every 3 minutes and lasting for about a minute and a half each. Finally around 4am I decided I was ready for the epidural. I was always planning on getting the epi, I just wanted to progress on my own until I was too uncomfortable. I thought I pressed the nurse call button but after another hour of contractions I realized I pressed the wrong button. My nurse came in this time (5am) and checked me. I was at a 5. She suggested that I get in the jacuzzi tub while I waited for the epi. I spent about a half hour in there and another hour laboring in the bed and finally got the epi at 6:30 when I was at a 6. They offered me pitocin again, but I felt like I was doing fine on my own so I declined. The next few hours I was actually able to sleep a little, which I think was helpful when I had to push.

By around 10:30 am I was at a 10 and the nurse said we would push in about an hour but to let her know if I felt like I needed to before then. I ended up feeling the urge pretty quickly but I waited a few more contractions to have my husband get the nurse. I could barely talk at this point and she could tell it was time to go. My OB came in and they had me push through the next contraction. I call this my practice push since I really didn't know what I was doing and I don't think I was very successful. The next contraction I apparently figured it out because the OB said "Woah, hold on, I don't even have my gloves on!" I pushed through 2 more contractions and at 11:21am Brynn was born!

After delivery things got a little scary. I was bleeding a lot and they couldn't get it to stop. It took about 2 hours and they were prepping me for the ER before they finally got it under control. I will spare the details but this whole process was much more painful and scary than my labor. I wasn't able to hold my baby or attempt to breastfeed her until this was all over but fortunately everything turned out just fine.

I have enjoyed being a part of this blog over the past (almost) 2 years and am glad I was able to share my story with you- from TTC to IF to IVF and now finally to my sweet baby girl.