Welcome Ezra Calloway

Mabsi1129 · February 2016

On Monday, February 1, I went to my OB for my 36 weeks appointment. It was my first internal exam and she told me I was dilated 1cm. During the exam however, she inadvertently stripped my membranes which caused my water to break less than 24 hours later.
At first I thought I was leaking pee (which I had been doing a lot of), but that night I realized it might be something else. On Wednesday morning I called my OB and she sent me to the hospital to get the fluid checked. When they discovered it was amniotic fluid, I was booked and it was happening! I called my boyfriend who was in Virginia (I was in MA) and he hopped in the car and started driving up. It was my first birth so I wasn't concerned about him making it in time, but I had no idea at the time how right I was about that.
I had been having contractions all day, but the doctor wanted to start me on pitocin since it had been 24 hours since my water broke. She agreed to wait for my boyfriend to arrive to begin. He arrived at midnight and they began the pitocin right away.
Rather than starting active labor, the pitocin gave me one giant, painful contraction and 12 hours of pitocin later, I was still only dilated 1cm. The doctor found a small water bag in front of the baby's head so she broke that in the hopes that it would get the contractions going and it worked! I was almost immediately sent into very active labor.
At around 4pm, exhausted and in intense pain, I was 4cm dilated and decided with my boyfriend and nurse midwife that it was time to get an epidural. I had honestly never felt more blissful in my life and I fell asleep almost immediately, drifting in and out until about 7pm when I starting feeling the urge to push.
I was so happy that the epidural didn't affect me too much at this point and I could feel everything while I was pushing, from the contractions to the urge to push, to my baby coming out. It was painful and I was still exhausted, and there were a few times when I didn't know if I could do it, but my boyfriend and nurse midwife were so wonderful and kept me going. At 9:03 pm on February 4, after 33 hours of labor, my 6lb 2oz, 18.5 in baby boy Ezra Calloway was born. They dried him off in my stomach and immediately put him on my chest and I felt love like I had never felt before. Within 10 minutes, he was nursing and we cuddled and nursed all night.