Birth story/announcement

*originally posted on the PAIF board* We got pregnant from an FET on our first round of IVF. My water broke at midnight a couple weeks ago, a day after my due date. They say that usually your water will break as a trickle, but mine came as the huge 'Hollywood' gush. I somehow made it from sleeping in bed to the bathroom (off the carpet) before pretty much exploding! Lucky for me, it only got on the bathroom floor. Anyway, I didn't think I was having any contractions, so I cleaned up my house for an hour before waking my husband to go to the hospital (we live 1.5 hrs away). My contractions were far apart and not very intense, so after labouring from midnight to 11:30 am the next day, I got an epidural and got induced. I had only gotten to 3 cm dilated on my own. I finally got some sleep with the epidural, which was very welcome. Around 5 pm, I started to feel messed up. Apparently my temp spiked and they started me on antibiotics bc I got an infection (likely from water breaking so early). Baby started to become distressed but luckily by 6 pm, I was dilated to 10 cm. The doctor quickly checked me and told me that I had to push out my baby ASAP or I would have to get an emergency c-section bc the baby was so distressed. Then the doc went to deliver another baby, so with just my husband and a nurse to coach me, I started pushing. I made some progress for half an hour, when the doc returned and sh*t really started to hit the fan. The baby's heartrate plummeted with each contraction/push. Suddenly the room was filled with nurses and the doctor attached the vacuum to baby's head. Do or die time. Even though I was exhausted and very messed up from the fever, I somehow kept pushing out that baby. Complete with the Hollywood screaming (it was weird, it didn't hurt much but it helped to scream the baby out). After 51 mins of pushing/vacuum extraction, our precious little turkey was born - with the cord around the neck!! They immediately undid it and put baby on my chest. I barely glanced at the little face before I looked down to see if it was a girl or boy. Our baby was a boy! A boy!!!! I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hoping for a boy. After 2 yrs of infertility, countless tests, and one round of IVF my husband and I finally could hold our son and call ourselves parents. I started bawling at this point and they whisked my boy away to clean him up and make sure he was okay. I had third degree tearing, but I didn't care bc our boy was fine. Welcome to the world Henry 'Hank' Leo (French, pronounced 'lay-oh'), 9.0 lbs, 22 cm.