Gareth's birth story (a little late)

37w3 appt, May 7th, at 1:45 I was 3.25 cm. Quinn (ds1) had been telling people for days his brother was coming on the 7th. Doctor said I could walk him out that night or put myself on pelvic rest and maybe keep him in till Sunday. I did neither and just did my usual thing. Started timing contrax at dinner.
Contrax were 7-9 min 7-8:30

Called the doctor (lucky mine was on call!!). He said come in to be checked. We put Quinn to bed at 8 and left. Got to hospital at 8:45. Contractions were actually every 3-4 minutes but I couldn't feel them. Nurse checked and I was at 5cm.

I was admitted and she started fluids so I could get an epi. Doctor came in at 10pm and I was at a 7. I was rating my pain as 2 (scale 1-10). He said that if I wanted to try he felt confident I could skip the epi. Said epi would slow me down and might lead to pitocin. Without epi baby would be there by midnight but it was totally up to me.

I thought about it and decided to try no epi!! Quinn's birth was fast with epi and pit. With him I only pushed 15 minutes.

Doctor came back in and broke my water at 10:07. At 10:45 I asked to be checked to keep up my no-epi spirits. I was an 8 but my water had formed a seal so the nurse finished emptying it while she was checking. At about 8cm I was rating my pain as an 8. At 11:10 I was rating it a 10 and she checked again and I was 9cm. One more contraction and I was a 10 and ready. Doctor came in about 11:15. I then pushed through 1.5 contractions while yelling for them to get him out haha! He was born 11:23pm . Apparently the contraction ended with him to far out to go back in and to much inside to be pulled out. So they had me keep pushing after the contraction ended which is why it felt awkward. There was nothing "helping" me at the very end.

I had a split placenta or something which he said might have been why I went early. Another couple weeks and it most likely would have caused distress. Oh and Gareth came out facing up! He came down so fast that they had to put a little tube down to suction out fluid. He never had to leave the room though and is already nursing like a champ!

He is amazing and we are all in love, especially big brother!

His stats:
21" long
13.5" head
7#4oz