Belle785 Birth Story

belle785 · July 2014

Owen arrived 7/24 at 1:59 am after a very quick labor once it got going! He is 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 inches long.

I had posted on here that I had been having timed contractions on Monday and Tuesday night that would fade out after a few hours. All day Wednesday, I did not have any until about 6:30 pm and at that, they were very random and were not painful at all. I didn't think anything of it. However, around 10:30 when I was going to sleep, they seemed to start coming about 5 minutes apart. I could not sleep through them but was dozing in between them. They were lasting about a minute. So at 11:30, I was getting up to call labor and delivery to see what they wanted me to do and I felt a small gush. I got to the bathroom and my water completely broke. Just like last time when my water broke, it was everywhere! We got ready and headed to the hospital. We arrived at about 12 am. They checked me and hooked me up to the monitors to see if they were going to be admit me- I was 6 cm! So they did admit me and got me into a room. At this point, it was about 12:30 and my contractions were on top of each other about two minutes apart- lasting a minute each. Even when I wasn't having one, I was still in pain. I was begging for an epidural but they had to send my blood work off and I had to have an IV of fluid. I was not prepared to labor without meds but I had to. The nurse was putting pressure on my hips when I had a contraction and DH was pushing on my back. It eased the pain a teeny, tiny bit but not a lot at all. I was sweating and crying and trying to breathe through them as best as I could. Finally, at 1:20 or so my epi arrived. As he was putting it in, I felt a huge urge to push. I let him finish and told my dr who had just arrived- I have to PUSH!

I had a few more contractions and the epi was in and working finally. I started pushing at about 1:40 am. At this point, I felt so much better. I could feel pressure when I had to push but the serious pain was gone. I was able to joke with the doctor and nurses in between pushes. After 20 minutes, our little Owen came out crying. They put him right on my chest and I was instantly in love with him. As they stitched me up, we did skin to skin and eventually breastfed. He latched right away.

All in all, it was about 3.5 hours from start to finish from when I KNEW I was in labor and had him. My first labor with DS1 was about 7 hours long. I am conflicted if we will have another child partly due to this experience. We have always been on the fence about having a third child, but now I am scared that the third labor will be even faster. I was not expecting to labor naturally until 10 cm and it was extremely scary for me for that hour when I was so unprepared.

We are home now and doing great. His latch is very good and his big brother just loves him to pieces.