Birth Story

I've always been curious of other's birth stories so I thought I'd share mine and of course some pictures of Isaac.

Sunday morning I started having contractions, nothing out of the ordinary but I could get back to sleep at 2am so I started timing them. At 4am they were coming every 10 minutes but they didn't seem that bad, just uncomfortable. Around 5:30 I woke David and let him know that the contractions were coming closer together and that I thought my water broke (it didn't). I call the on-call doctor at 6am and she tells us to go to the hospital. We get to the hospital about 7am and they but me on monitor and do a test to see if my water broke. We find that my contractions are 5 minutes apart but my water did not break and that I am only 1cm dilated. I was 1cm the week before so I was kinda bummed that it was early labor. By noon I'm still 1 cm dilated and having contractions every 2 minutes. The doctor gives us the option of laboring in the hospital or at home. I decided to go home.

When we got home I was able to take a nap and my contractions then slowed down. By dinner time they started picking up again and I was not able to sleep that night. David helped me through most of the morning hours since I was having intense back pain. At 8am I call my doctor see what to do and she tells me to come in to the office to get checked. It turns out I am now 5cm and she tells us to go to the hospital. At the hospital I make use of the jacuzzi and their massage therapist. My water breaks at 3:30 and the contractions then become very painful. At this time I am only 6 cm dilated, kinda bummed that I have labored for so long and not making much progress. The massage therapist was heaven sent, she stayed with me most of the day helping me labor with out medication. At 6pm I'm 8cm and just feel like I can't take it anymore. I'm completely exhausted and am falling asleep in the 2 minutes in between contractions. I end up getting an epidural and make it to 10cm in just an hour. I then started to push, but my contractions weren't coming that frequently. So after an hour of pushing we tried Pitocin to make the contractions more regular, but it didn't help. I requested that they use a vacuum extractor but I had no energy left to help push him out and he just wasn't coming. The doctor then did an episiotomy and pulled out his head. I was supposed to help push out his shoulders but I couldn't. She pulled him out and in the process I tore in two other places. The epidural had worn off so I was in an incredible amount of pain and was given two more doses of medicine before repairs were made.

My birth plan was to try to deliver naturally and I feel that everyone was very supportive in trying to make that happen. Honestly, I knew that his birth wouldn't go as planned (what does?), but I wouldn't change a thing about what I went through. And yes I would do it again, because he is the most precious gift from God.