I did it!! My 3rd med-free birth!!

I posted a few days ago about being worried about making it through without meds this time. You ladies gave me some great encouragement and I was able to do it!!

Don't have any pics uploaded yet but thought I would share my birth story before life gets crazy (DH will be here to pick me up from the hospital in about an hour and then the chaos at home begins!!!).

Warning: It's long!!

Thursday night (8/23) I took a nice loooong bath and had some good, painful contractions while in there. I would guess maybe 10-15 minutes apart? But when I got out they stopped almost completely. Throughout the night I was up a ton going to the bathroom to take care of all the BS I was having (much more blood than I had at the start of the week) and would also wake up every couple hours to a strong contraction. Morning came (8/24, my edd) and everything was pretty much gone by the time I got out of bed. 

After lunch and during DS's nap time I decided to lay down and take a nap as I was exhausted from so many night wakings the night before. I laid down/fell asleep at 12:30p and woke up to a painful contraction at 12:45. From then until about 2:30 I had contractions sporadically, spaced anywhere from 45 minutes apart down to about 15 minutes by the time I got up. They continued that way and eventually got painful enough that I needed to stop and breath/moan through them. I played/supervised a game of monopoly with my girls while I got things packed up for them and myself.

We needed to make some "in case this is actual labor" decisions about our kids. I was still in denial that this could actually be it. I thought that my contractions would have picked up and gotten more painful more quickly if it truly were labor. But just in case DH ended up taking the kids over to our friends house around 4:15pm. My contractions were just under 10 minutes apart when he left and pain was a little worse. When he got home around 4:45 they had dropped to 2-3 minutes apart and I was now sitting on my exercise ball to help stay relaxed. He immediately freaked out that we needed to go to the hospital even though the contractions weren't horrible and I was fine in between them. I didn't want to go but I lost that battle, haha. He was worried with it being my 4th we would have the baby at home I was getting hungry so I grabbed a quick bowl of cereal before getting in the car.

We had about a 10 minute drive to the hospital - contractions sucked while sitting down. Got there, he dropped me off and parked and then we headed up. I went into triage, got changed, went to the bathroom (was drinking a ton of water) and then laid down to get checked. Again, contractions sucked not being standing up or on my ball. They were still about 2 minutes apart and I was mostly fine in between. Got checked and I was 7cm!! Nurse said things would be moving a little quicker than normal from here

Got into my room around 5:45, and the on-call dr. from my office came around 6 to talk. I told him that my water had never broke on it's own and after it had been broken in past labors things had moved quickly. He asked if I wanted to have him break my water and I said sure. He did that around 6:15. After that I got back on the ball but shortly after had to get off the ball because her heart rate was dipping a little too far during contractions. Got in bed on my left side and it looked better. Dr. left the room to let me labor. Eventually started feeling a little pressure so the nurse checked me and I was 8.5cm (this was maybe around 7?) Nurse suggested switching to my right side, that it would probably complete me pretty quickly. Definitely worked!! I don't think I made it 10 minutes and it was baaad pressure. Within 2 or 3 contractions it went from bad bad pain to unbearable, yelling, baby is going to come, kind of pain!!

(Side note: During my labor i was listening to the same song over and over again on my playlist, the words were something about just breathing. It actually really helped me focus on my breathing and just getting through another contraction. So glad i had that one on there!!!)

She ran to get the dr. and they took the bed down and put the stirrups up - i HATED the stirrups. Didn't have them with my last two labors. Hated them. Just so uncomfortable and awkward.

I think i pushed through 3 contractions. The first contraction I don't think i was pushing right (i felt gassy and was afraid of pooping   ). The second one was better, felt her coming down. The third one was horrible. Got her head out but then had to stop because the cord was around her neck twice. That was absolutely HORRIBLE! I was definitely yelling (and dropped the S-Bomb) because it was just excruciating to sit through that. Had to push two more times i think to get her body out, still during the same contraction. Of the other 3 kids (granted DS was with an epidural) this was the worst/hardest/most painful pushing. It sucked and didn't have that same relief type of feeling that I remember with the first two.

Andrew introduced Maren Noelle, a girl, born at 7:22pm (about 2 hours after arriving at the hospital) and we both were laughing that she was a girl - we for sure thought she was a girl!.

Dr.massaged my stomach for a good 15 minutes before i was able to push out the placenta, which i reeeally had to push out. 3 or 4 hard pushes. Again, different from the other 3 as they just seemed to slide out with one or two wimpy pushes. And either before or after the placenta, he was reaching inside me and pulling out these huge clots. 3 or 4 of them. Ouch!!! But no tears so no stitches!! The pushing and what not definitely sucked, but man, what a night and day difference of how i feel now without stitches. It's amazing! I'm sore and achy but have no actual pain down there. And no stinging from going to the bathroom. It's been great.

While this was going on, she got quickly wiped off, weighed/measured and wrapped in a blanket before coming back to me to nurse and cuddle. She came in at 7lbs 15oz and 22in long - long and skinny!!

She was quite fussy for the first couple hours and had a hard time latching on. Kept rooting around and going for her hands (which she still does constantly), but would just thrash around on my nipples. I was getting a little nervous about that. DH left around 10:30 to go home and she went to the nursery around 11. She didn't come back until almost 3am to eat and since then she has looooved to nurse. Definitely a sucker. I ended up giving her the Soothie yesterday because she really just wants to suck constantly. Hasn't caused any latch issues with nursing at all.

She has a TON of loooong, dark hair, super long fingers and fingernails and very long, skinny feet as well. She's just super long and skinny

The kids came yesterday to meet her and they all adore her and love to hold her. DS did give her a good wack to the head during his first visit. Not with mean intent, but it happened. I think I will end up wearing her in carriers a lot at home until she's a little more durable