A smooth labor and delivery EXCEPT when...!

My water broke while writing thank yous for our baby shower that was two weeks prior. It was a gush of water which left me thinking "oh my God... I'm not ready!" It was the day I became 37 weeks pregnant. I only had half of my hospital bag packed. I still needed to pack baby's bag and get dad to pack his. AND I wasn't done cleaning everything!!!

I called husband home and called OB waiting for her to tell me which hospital she was delivering at. She had two locations. I wasn't thinking clearly because husband came home to find me doing the dishing frantically while water was still squeezing out of me. He made me stop and go pack the remanding of the mine and baby's bag. He quickly packed his and let our dog out and gave our neighbor a key to let our dog out while we were at the hospital. 

Once at the hospital I was put on pitocin and the contractions came on slowly. My body took the pitocin very easily and didn't need much. I made it 6 hours into labor before I gladly accepted an epidural. I was having major back labor because of baby's position. After that I was able to rest, eat ice, and take turns laying on each side to get baby to turn into a better birth position. 

Finally at 6 am the nurse came in and asked me to try a practice push. She watched for a contraction and said "okaaaayyyy.... go!" I pushed for about 5 seconds and she quickly said, "ok, stop stop!" She laughed and said, "You're a good pusher, let's have a baby!" The doctor was called in.

The doctor check me and assembled everything ask the nurse had me push for a 2 sets of contractions. Then the doctor took over. Her head was pretty much out when doctor told me he needed some extra good pushes because baby was big. I pushed as hard as I could (husband said I turned purple/blue). 

Doctor mumbled something to one of the nurses and seconds later 4 nurses came in and pushes my husband out of the way and doctor said to me, "Ok, you need to push now hun!" I felt the urgency so I took the deepest breathe and pushed the hardest I could push!!! I pushed so hard I started gagging and the all these nurses took action. Their were two on each leg contouring them up into the sides of my rib cage and one nurse climbed on my bed and was pushing down on my stomach. Doctor commanded me to PUSH as the contraction started ! 

I did as hard as I could and right when I felt like I was going to pass out Allison popped out with a gush of fluid. The relief was great but she didn't cry loudly. With all the urgency I was very scared something was wrong! It felt like an eternity as the doctor and nurses were doing their thing (in reality it was about 10 seconds) Allison screamed a beautiful cry out and I started crying in happiness with my husband as they cleaned her!

Doctor was cleaning me up and started to explain why the urgency. Not only was the baby a big 9 pound baby, she has wide shoulders and she was stuck at the one shoulder. It's called shoulder dystocia and it was VERY urgent that she came out NOW. He was happy with the result of the nurses help and me pushing. He told me I did a very good job and I was a strong mama. 

After we were brought up to recovery my husband researched this shoulder dystocia.... scary stuff. 

Injury to the nerves of the shoulder, arms and hand. This may cause shaking or paralysis. A broken arm or collarbone.Lack of oxygen. In the most severe cases, which are rare, this can cause brain damage and even death.Everything is just fine, baby is healthy and we are sooo blessed!!!