Owen Daniel's Birth Story

reils500 · July 2014

Hi all, I'm an occasional poster but mostly lurk. I've been enjoying everyone's birth stories & found them to be so helpful in prep for my labor. So here I go:

The short: Owen Daniel born 39wks 5 days on 7/6 at 10:03 weighing 7 lb 1 oz & 20.75 inches long.

The long: On Thursday at my 39 week appointment I had my first cervical check. I was fully closed & baby's head was so high that MW did a quick ultrasound to confirm baby was head down.
Over the next several days my BH contractions were getting more frequent. Thursday & Friday nights I woke up to a couple uncomfortable contractions, but nothing regular or timabled.
Saturday we went to Ikea & did a lot of walking, I was hoping to kick start something. We spent the rest of the day organizing our new home (just moved 2 weeks ago) & chasing DS1 around (he's 2). I told DH to get to bed early cause I just had a feeling.
At midnight I woke to contractions 5 min apart lasting 1-2 minutes. After 45 minutes they were stronger & 2-3 min apart. I got in the shower to see if they would fizzle out, but they stayed strong & regular. I called the hospital at 1:30- still not convinced it was real. We decided to head in because we had a long drive (almost a hour from our new house) & I was worried about waiting too long & not making it to my preferred hospital.

We got DS & lots of pillows for me & loaded into the car. I was getting upset about having to labor in the car & DH was great & reminded me to stay relaxed and let my body do its work.

We arrived to hospital, my sister met us there to get DS. I started puking again right outside the ED. We were checked into LD at 3am & I was at 4cm with head engaged, I don't remember the other specs because I was crying I was so happy (with DS1 it took 24 hours to get 3cm before needing pit). I was admitted & started thinking about an epi cause the contractions were coming right on top of each other. After an hour in the tub, I got my epi at 5am. The epi was great! DH & I slept & when they checked me at 7am I was only 4.5 but my waters were bulging. We started pit because my contractions were down to every 5 min. My water broke at 8am along with mucous plug & bloody show.
At 9:50 I was sleeping & woke to a big pop & pressure. When MW came in to check me I was ready & LOs head was right there. They got things ready & I started pushing at 9:58 through 2 contractions and 4 minutes later Owen literally flew out of me, he was seriously airborne. Luckily the nurse caught him! He started crying right away & up on my chest for some skin to skin. This was so different from my 3.5 hours of pushing with DS1.

I had a small first degree tear, but otherwise feel good. Owen is latching like a champ.

If you made it through all of that, thank you for reading! Good luck to everyone with their births!