Benjamin Matthew's (very late) birth story (BPer)

BPer · July 2014

So, it's been a long couple of weeks since baby Ben made his entrance. Last week was just hectic, and this week DD has been home from daycare with HFM, which has been fucking joyous, let me tell you. So needless to say, I'm just getting around to typing this up.

Short Version: Benjamin Matthew arrived on July 19th (39w2d) via an unplanned, epidural-free birth. He weighed in at 6lbs, 12oz and was 19.25 inches long.

If you'd like to read on, it gets a little crazy.

I was scheduled for induction on Sunday, the 20th to hopefully avoid any additional swelling, and recurrence of Bell's Palsy which I was diagnosed with on my due date with my daughter. It sucked balls.

Surprisingly, my water broke on it's own just before midnight on Friday the 18th. It took several pad-changes for me to finally accept that I was not just peeing myself repeatedly. So I hopped in the shower, pulled myself together, woke H up and had him call his parents to come up and stay with DD. At this point I was having a few irregular, uncomfortable, but not painful contractions.

We get to the hospital around 2am, get settled in the birthing suite, IV put in and all of that. They checked me and I was a 3-4, but still on the thicker side. The nurse told me to walk the halls as much as I could to try and get things started, but they'd be starting pitocin around 6am. So I told H to get some sleep, and I wandered the halls for a couple of hours. My contractions were 4 minutes apart, but not getting any stronger or closer together, so they started pit at 6am.

I was able to cope pretty well for awhile, nothing like my first experience with pit, and when the nurse came in around 8 to ask if I needed the epidural right then, or if I could wait until 9:30, after the anesthesiologist finished a csection. Rather than be bedridden, and have a catheter put in (one of my least favorite parts about my delivery with my daughter), I told her I could wait.

Well 9am rolls around, and the nurse comes in and tells me that there was a trauma in the ER, that required the anesthesiologist, so the csection was pushed back, and I probably wouldn't get an epi until closer to 11. At this point, I was still doing okay, so I said NBD, I'll wait it out. She checked me and I was about a 4-5, so making progress. I asked her if Dr. Patterson was on, he had done my epi for DD's birth and was amazing, and she said "No, Dr. Cunningham is here, she's pretty good too." Oh, pretty good? Oh, good.

At around 10:30, my OB makes her appearance, and checks me. She says that I have an additional bag of water that was covering part of the cervix, when she then proceeded to break, and fished around to pull the excess fluid out. At this point, she tells me that I am now 9cm, but baby still has to come down a bit, so try rolling from side to side every 5 minutes. Okay, a fucking 4 to a 9 in 30 minutes? Shit is about to get real. So nurses start coming in and out, preparing the birthing table, and setting up the area for baby. At this point, I was in excruciating pain, and begging to get the anesthesiologist in there. Turns out she hasn't even started the csection yet, so the nurse tells me that it looks like I'll be doing without because this baby is going to be there within the half hour.

The nurse and H stay with me, trying to help me get into positions that don't cause me to scream in pain, and out of nowhere I'm like "I really fucking have to pee, and poop." So the nurse helps me to the bathroom (at this point my contractions were less than a minute apart, so it took awhile) and I just could not go, so I made my way back to the bed. I sat there for a minute, and told the nurse that I was feeling a ton of pressure. She tells me to do 2 practice pushes before she calls in the doctor. 5 seconds into my first "practice push", she says "Oh my god, you need to stop pushing.", which is pretty hard, let me tell you.

She goes to page my OB, but the phone in my room is broken. She runs into the hallway (where my entire family is sitting) and flags down a food service worker and tells him to page my doctor in maternity. He looked around confused, so she ran into another room.

Two minutes later, my OB was there, and managed to get smocked up just in time to "catch" the baby which she stated "shot out like a football". 3 total pushes, during one contraction and Ben was out, with his arm up by his face, which made my vagina feel awesome.

He's beautiful and such a sweet boy. If you've made it this far, here's some squish for you to enjoy.

Katieryan13 · July 2014

Congrats!!!

ADC1979 · July 2014

I love his name, that was on our short name list! Sorry for the no epidural....ugh do I know how painful back labor is without it! Amazing job on handling it like a boss. Your kids have an awesome mom!

reils500 · August 2014

Congratulations! My DS1 had HFM this past week too so I feel your pain. Hope she's feeling better & your DS doesn't catch it! DS 2 broke out in crazy rash luckily not in his mouth