**Updated with Rolling Stones birth story & pics! - Colin Thomas is here (inluv4life2)

inluv4life2 · February 2014

Thank you all for the well wishes!

Colin Thomas was born at 1:21 am. 8 lbs 5 oz. The induction went beautifully after 36 hours of stop and start early labor at home.

Thanks again ladies. We all felt your support!!

Sorry in advance for such a long post! I just had to write it all down.

My Rolling Stones birth story:

I was scheduled for an induction at 41+3 which was set to
take place on Friday, 2/21. On 2/20, I woke up at 3:30 am feeling a little
funky and hoped this would be the day so I could avoid induction as I had been
working towards a totally med free birth. At about noon on that Thursday, I
started contracting. Wahoo! This was it!

By early evening, my contractions were as close as 6 minutes
apart and getting stronger so I called my doula and asked her to head over. I
continued laboring at home and my contractions started to be at different
intervals. My doula worked with me to try different techniques to try to get
into a better labor pattern and encourage active labor to start. It never did. My doula and I felt that there
was a good chance baby’s head wasn’t in the right position to allow him to drop
down and trigger my body to start active labor. We tried everything!

After 36 hours of early labor with contractions all over the place, I headed into the hospital for my induction.
The start time had been pushed back 12 hours as the hospital was really busy
but I was thankful for those extra hours to allow me to try to do it naturally.

At the hospital, my midwife checked me (still at a 3!) and broke
my water which caused my contractions
to come a little more frequently and stronger. She told me that the
nurses would start Pitocin and that would really get things going. I was REALLY
reluctant to start pit so the nurses gave me a couple of hours to see how
things went. After about two hours, I still hadn’t really progressed so they
broke in the Pitocin. The normal dose to start is 2 units (whatever that means)
but they started me on 1 to see how things would go.

Immediately, I began to contract every two minutes with the craziest
contractions. The monitor showed they were off the charts and my doula just
kept helping me breathe and try to relax but it was really challenging. I was
starting to stress because I could feel that the baby was not dropping and I was
sure I wasn’t progressing. Something just seemed wrong. After about 90 minutes, I asked for an
epidural. Both my husband and doula asked me if I was sure and we decided to
see if I had progressed. The nurse checked me and I had only progressed to a 4
and she said I would probably advance about 1 cm per hour. I nearly fell on the
floor right thinking about 6 more hours (minimum) contracting every other minute! I asked for
the epidural and my doula suggested that we turn off the Pit while I waited and
the nurse agreed because she said I was super sensitive to the pit. I continued
to have transition level contractions even off the pit. They never did turn it back on.

FINALLY, the doc came to give the epidural and I shared with
him the things that I disliked about the epidural last time – not feeling
anything, how I felt so weird after and that I felt that not feeling caused me
to push in a weird position and hurt my back. He really took that into
consideration and gave me a lighter type of epidural which allowed me to feel
the contractions but not suffer them. It was perfect! As soon as the meds went in,
I felt my body relax and felt baby drop down. I asked the nurse to check me,
just to see if I was right and I was at a 6 and baby had dropped 3 stations.
YES!

My contractions on the monitor were still a bit weird and my
doula said they were called “coupling” which can indicate that baby is in a
weird position but she assured me that I could still deliver him without too
much trouble.

Two hours later, I said, “I think I need to push!” Hubby ran
to get the nurse and when she checked me, I was complete and baby was super
low. They let me labor down a few more minutes while we waited for the doctor.
Finally, I pushed three times and my sweet boy was born, which one arm up over
his face! He had been in a funky position!

Little Colin Thomas was 8lbs 5 ounces and absolutely perfect!
He completes our family and makes us so happy!

I jokingly call this my “Rolling Stones” birth because you
can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you
need. Things didn’t go as planned but they went great and I have no regrets!

I am so thankful for
my hubby and my awesome doula who gave me so much love and support. I also
really appreciated the nurses and hospital staff that were just AMAZING! I couldn’t have asked for a better experience!