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A positive birth story

peachmuffinspeachmuffins member
in June 2012 Moms


I saw someone posting on here a few days ago wondering if there were any positive L+D stories so I just wanted to the story of mine. 

 On Wednesday 5/30/12 I went to my 39wk OB appointment, I was .5 cm dilated and about 75% thinned. I asked my Dr. to just go ahead and strip my membranes while he was down there checking my cervix anyways and he did. It was a little uncomfortable but really nothing horrible and I just bled lightly for the rest of the day and it stopped that night.

The next day (5/31/12) after I got off of work (around... 2:30ish i think) i went home, walked the dogs and went to the bathroom and when i was wiping something that could only have been my mucus plug was on the tp. It was tinged with some red and brown blood.... which i thought COULD be bloody show... or COULD be just leftover blood from yesterday's membrane stripping. It was really hard to tell so I just assumed I wasn't lucky enough to be going into labor yet and I felt totally normal so I went and got a pedicure and my eyebrows waxed... just in case it was real labor. Which I know sounds really silly but I knew it would be the last time for a while I'd be able to have those things done and I needed to distract myself. 

Fast forward to that night at around 11:30 I was sitting at my SO's computer reading TB and ebay shopping and SO had just come home from work and we were getting ready to order some food and I had a pretty obnoxious contraction. It didn't bring me to my knees or anything, but I knew it was definitely not a BH. I had had a couple of the "real" uncomfortable contractions the week before but I would just have one or two in a day and then i'd quit so when I had another contraction 2 minutes later I grabbed my phone and used one of my pregnancy apps that has a contraction timer. They were pretty much 2-3 minutes apart and 40s to 1 minute long immediately. SO and I took a walk around the block and I drank lots of water to see if that would affect them and they were still coming at the same rate. So I timed for about 2 hours and when it was pretty clear that these were going to remain consistant I called my OB's office and they called me into L+D at 1:30am on June 1st. 

We got to L+D and were sent to triage so i could be monitored and have my cervix checked. I was at 2cm... I have no idea how thinned i was but having my cervix checked this time hurt like HELL because it was lodged behind baby's head and she really had to dig back there to check. They had me walk the halls of the maternity ward for 2 hours to see if I would progress at all and then would decide if they were going to keep me or send me home. I walked and walked and my contractions were starting to be more than I could walk through and i would have to grab the handrails that go down the hallway and brace myself until it was over... then kept walking. After an hour of monitoring and an hour of walking I went back and got checked, I was at 3cm and officially admitted at 3:45am. 

I called my inlaws and parents to let them know what was going on. Ideally I would have liked to wait awhile to call anybody but my MIL is also my boss and I run one of her shops so she had to have some sort of warning that I wouldn't be opening one of the shops tomorrow (lol) and it wouldn't be fair for my inlaws to know I was in labor and not my parents. 

I got my epidural at 5:30am after they had given me a full bag of fluids via IV. This part was NOT as bad as i thought it was going to be, the anesthesiologist was highly efficient and just got it done in 10 min and was really warm and kind, which was nice. 

I want to say though, my contractions before my epidural weren't that bad. I mean... yes they sucked and didn't feel good, but they weren't really worse than when you have bad pre-diarrhea gas and you're bent over on the toilet clutching your stomach like "omg what did i eat to deserve this". Hahahaha ok maybe that makes them sound bad, but for me it was doable, but I knew they would get much worse and I was only at 5cm and I had a feeling I'd really regret not getting an epi when i hit "transition". 

After my epi I was as cool as a cucumber. My inlaws and parents and SO were all sitting in the room and we were all talking and watching my contractions go by on the monitor. FIL and my dad were asked to leave during my progress checks and I was making really good progress on my own and didn't need a single drop of pitocin. I also was told that I had the ideal epidural b/c I still had the ability to move my legs a bit, but didn't have any pain. Apparently some women's legs just go into deadweight mode and they cant move or feel them at all after. Mine just felt super asleep like i had been sitting cross-legged for waaay to long. 

By 11:15-ish am i was 10cm dilated and it was time to start pushing and everyone but SO was sent to the waiting room because we wanted this to be our moment. There were only 2 people in the room, 1 nurse and my SO and they both held my legs and I started pushing with each contraction. According to my nurse I'm a champion pusher for a FTM with an epi b/c 30 minutes later my OB was in the room and the little man was about to be born.

A side note- when I was having my "pushing" contractions I could feel a lot of pressure and knew I was having a contraction, I also did feel some nausea during the "transition stage" but nothing horrible and I didn't throw up at all. 

So my OB (who thank goodness was the one on call for the practice he works at for that weekend) arrived and was like "Erin.... didn't I just see you yesterday... or wednesday?" and i was like "YES i didn't know it was going to happen this fast!" and he was like "Me either!!!!". I got a contraction and did my 3 sets of 10 second pushes and made a little bit of progress and he told me the baby would be out with the next contraction which took 5 minutes to happen so in between i was joking with my OB and SO and everyone in the room was laughing... i cant remember what was said but i was like "Omg Dr. R if I keep laughing i feel like the baby's head is going to fall out." Because I really felt like it would...  he was like "it's alright I've had women vomit their babies out, laughing would be much better." which made me laugh more right before I had my next contraction. I started to push and he came out head and all in one push at 12:12pm... i think I really was about to laugh my baby out. They put him on my belly and I started crying and SO and I just stared at each other for a moment and then he got to cut the cord. The baby was whisked away from me pretty quickly to be cleaned up and checked, he was crying just fine and everything was perfect with him. About an hour and a half after delivery I was ready to get out of bed and take a walk around the maternity ward and take a shower. My nurse said i was crazy... and maybe I was but the baby was sleeping and everyone was there in the room staring at him and I had been laying down for 12 hours start to finish and needed to go and do SOMETHING and stretch my legs out. So as soon as she took my IV out i popped out of bed and started heading to the bathroom and she almost had a heart attack that I didn't wait for her to walk with me. I took a shower, changed into my hospital outfit, stuffed the 2ft long and 3inch wide pad into my mesh undies and walked around maternity for 30 min and then came and laid down to breastfeed Asher. 

 

I had to get one stitch, i'm not even sure where it is, I kind of checked my lady bits in the mirror since i've been home and cant see the tear so... it must be really small. I haven't had any "recovery" to speak of... my vagina does burn when I pee and I do have blood coming out but it's not worse than a period so it's handle-able. I do have a 'roid, but it's under control with what they gave me in the hospital.

So there it is, a positive birth story. :) 
I may have just gotten lucky and I know everyone's body and labor are different but don't just assume you are going to be 2 weeks late and have a nightmare delivery like i did because i was actually pleasantly surprised about how not horrible it was.

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