Eli's birth story

sweetbabyrahe · November 2014

I started having irregular periodic bouts of contractions throughout this past week with a longer bout on Thursday evening and overnight into Friday. Before work on Friday they had stopped, so I went into work. Contractions began picking up again at work and got to consistently 6 minutes apart, so I decided to head home about 10:30 am.

While I waited for DH to meet me at home, I walked and walked until contractions were 3-5 minutes apart, although they still weren't very painful. DH got home and we headed to l&d at about 1:30 pm. I was 5 cm and admitted.

Because I had stopped moving around, my contractions had slowed, the OB broke my water at about 3 pm. I made it a few hours and then got an epidural at 5 pm. At 6 pm, I was 8 cm dilated but baby was still high up. An hour later there was no change so they added a very low dose of pitocin. By 8 pm, I was nearly 9 cm and they positioned me on my stomach to help baby come all the way down.

At 9 pm, they re-checked and I was complete. I started pushing at 9:20 and Eli was born at 9:31 pm.

Overall, the experience was amazing with less than 12 hours of labor and only 11 minutes of pushing (so different than my 24+ hours of labor and 3 1/2 hours of pushing with DS).

The best moment was learning we had another baby boy and Eli meeting his big brother. Also, Eli's great grandpa turned 99 yesterday so they share a Halloween birthday which is so special!

We are doing great so far and he is taking to bf really well for the first day. Here's one more pic of me with my little boys. I wish those left births as healthy and smooth as mine!