birth story time!

I thought this might be a good place to share my story, perhaps for those of you on the fence about natural birth or have questions about induction. Don't be scared.

A short history before we begin:
I found out I was pregnant with Luke in college, not married, not even engaged, clueless, scared sh-less. I had a very easy-going (read, "I'll do what you want because I don't know any better") attitude my entire pregnancy and luckily, it was pretty awesome. No stretch marks, no swollen ankles, no morning sickness, nothing! I also really liked my doctor. She recommended a scheduled induction because I was measuring small towards the end. Went in around 1:30pm 3 days after my due date, started the lowest dose of pitocin, Luke was born 4.5 hours later. I didn't get pain meds or an epi because I wanted to talk to my doctor first - but she was across the hall doing an emergency c-section and showed up just in time with the catcher's mitt...

My man did it by the book, asked my dad, and proposed a little over a year later. We got married Sept. 2012.

Shortly after the wedding, I came down with a severe case of baby fever.

Long story short: pregnant with twins in February, but one was ectopic, the other miscarried at 8 weeks. Pregnant again in April, no heartbeat on the first ultrasound, D&C in May.

I regret not giving myself time in between for emotional and immune-system-related reasons, but that's a different story entirely.

When we became pregnant with Nora, my doctor had me start Progesterone and a baby Aspirin once a day. By the time I had my first ultrasound, I had a huge hemorrhage in my uterus, but thankfully, baby was strong enough to grow and push it out of the way. I bled until mid-2nd-tri.

There were little bumps along the way, but nothing too serious, and everything cleared up on its own.

Assuming the same would happen this time as it did with my first pregnancy, we scheduled an induction for my due date, March 21st, but baby Nora had different plans!

I didn't know what actual labor felt like. Around 9-10pm on March 12th, I started having contractions. They didn't hurt and they weren't regular, so I didn't think anything of it. (Honestly, I thought I was about to have some of that glamorous 3rd-tri diarrhea.) I fell asleep, but even drempt about contractions. They started getting pretty uncomfortable around 2am. I called my doctor's office around 4am because they were starting to get intense - some were right on top of another and some were 15-20 minutes apart. I had tested positive for group B strep, so I asked if I should go in now to get started on antibiotics or if I should wait until my contractions were more regular. The whole time, I kind of doubted I was in labor. I was so nervous I would show up to the hospital, have a massive poop and go home!

I woke my husband up at 7am and told him we should get to the hospital. By then, I had contractions every 4-5 minutes for about an hour and they weren't getting any easier... It took my husband about 15 minutes to get up, get ready, get our 4-year-old school-appropriate and we were out the door. The dang car windows were iced over, so we had to wait to scrape and defrost etc. We drove our son to daycare and ended up pulling up to the hospital around 8am.

Back up a day: I had to see another doctor the day before for my weekly cervix check. My regular doctor was out of town for spring break, so we made arrangements to see one of her associates for a quick cervix check, then another the day she got back in down. On Wednesday the 12th, I was 1cm and "soft." He said baby's head was really low. The week before that, I was 1cm and "pretty thick." They always say your 2nd pregnancy progresses more quickly towards the end, but we didn't know it would be this quick...

When we checked into the hospital the next morning (Thursday,) they took me to a triage room to start my IV and ask the long list of questions. All the while, massive, crazy, I-can't-talk-so-watch-for-head-nods contractions. The nurse called in a 2nd nurse to hurry the process along. 2nd nurse checks my cervix - 9 AND A HALF cm dilated y'all! It's go time!

It was of course too late for an epi and also too late for IV pain meds. I was out of luck whether or not I wanted these things. I had decided that since I had Luke without an epidural, I could do it this time too. I'd read all the scary things about them slowing down labor, etc. But, I'm not gonna lie, those pain meds were sounding pretty tasty.

The approach I took (both deliveries) was almost like hypnobirth. Not quite as intense. My husband calls it "meditative birth." I do a lot of yoga and gave the meditation classes a go during the 3rd trimester of my 1st pregnancy. I would recommend these to anyone - learn how your body feels when it's at complete rest and you'll know all the tricks to relax your body even while your mind (and the small person inside you) is going nuts.

Anywho. 9.5cm dilated. Go time. They let my husband back to the triage room to stay with me until we were wheeled to a delivery room. I was started on an antibiotic (I don't remember which - but it was something that was supposed to enter my system more quickly than penicillin) and nurse #1 coached me through a urinary catheter (since go time was such a surprise, there was no time to pee, so she wanted to make sure my bladder wasn't in the way of baby Nora's big entrance.)

The doctor I had seen the day before was thankfully on call. I had never had a male doctor all up in my lady bits before, so I'm glad I didn't have to have 2 different male doctors 2 days in a row.

He made a quick appearance to let me know the monitors looked good, gave me a quick lesson in IV antibiotics that I quickly forgot, and was overall very comforting, obviously aware of my discomfort without my regular OB.

They turned off the lights and let me do my meditation thing for a few contractions. My husband sat with me, held my hand, and most importantly, kept his mouth shut. He learned quickly that what ticks me off the most about labor is being asked a question but not being able to answer. Or being asked a stupid question like, "Are you ok?"

Dr. Hunt and the nurses came back in right after I told my husband I would need to start pushing soon. They set up all their stuff, turned the lights back on and told me I was allowed to push through my next contraction if I wanted to. That was one difference between my first delivery and this one: with the induction, there was no question whatsoever when it was time to start pushing. My body started pushing on its own. This time, I felt like I had more control over the pushing. I wasn't quite sure how effective my first pushes would be, but after the very first one, my nurse said, "There's a head full of hair down here!"

Another difference I noticed: with my induction, I got frustrated because I could feel Luke's head sink back into me when I stopped pushing. This time, constant pressure until her head popped out.

I pushed through 2 contractions, then it felt like my body gave up. I didn't feel any more contractions so they told me I could start pushing whenever I felt like it. So I caught my breath, pushed 2 more times, and baby Nora came into the world. Sideways.

Little Nora was 6lbs 7oz, 19in long, born at 9:50am.