Miss Abbie {The Birth Story}

I've thought about writing the birth story vs. not writing the birth story for a while (2 weeks to be exact). And although it's a very private and emotional event, I've decided team 'share' was going to win. After having my kids I kind of became a birth story junkie so here is my contribution.

Ho humm.

My last prenatal appointment was Monday July 27th and it showed quite a bit of  progress - I was 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced. The doctor assured me that I was going to have the baby by the end of the weekend and if I was still pregnant, an induction was scheduled on Monday. They would break my water and give me a smidge (he promised) of Pitcoin (which I was deathly afraid of) and see how things went from there. Thank goodness there was no need.

The entire week I would start having contractions which would slow right down when I laid. Three longest days of my life have passed and I wasn't in labor still. Friday morning I was ready to throw in a towel. I called the birthing center around 8am and asked if they could break my water that day. Uh, no, dear. Only scheduled appointments and mine was on Monday. THE ENTIRE WEEKEND was ahead of me. So I Googled all the natural methods of induction and proceeded to execute them all. I was already walking every single day, taking red raspberry leaf tea and evening primrose oil.

By 12 pm my contractions were 10-15 minutes apart but nothing horrible pain wise, plus they were irregular, so I stayed put. Trying to distract myself, I was working on a blog post (ha!) and Googling away birth stories. By 1:30 pm Sergey went to put Jonathan to sleep (who seemed to be in a terrible mood ironically) while I started feel stronger contractions. At 2 o'clock I told him to get the bags into the car as I had to really breathe through each contraction and they were 5-7 minutes apart.

I called the birthing center saying that we were on our way. The 45 minute drive to the hospital wasn't my favorite as I started getting nauseous and every bump felt extremely painful. By the time we pulled into the parking lot I could barely walk and my contractions were 2 minutes apart. Sitting in a wheelchair felt horrible so I made it to the 3rd floor while leaning on Sergey and moaning my way through each contraction.

We arrived on the L&D floor at 3:45 pm. At the nurse's desk the ladies weren't amused and I was wondering why they were all moving at a snail pace. Didn't they see I was in pain and a baby was coming out of me?!?! Probably one too many times.

We were escorted to our room where the nurse checked my blood pressure and asked for me to change into a lovely hospital gown. By that time my contractions were so strong I couldn't talk. My entire back felt like a UFC fighter was tearing it apart with his bare hands. The only thing that was making it bearable was Sergey applying pressure as I was standing and holding on to the bed. I was in a zone and having the worst back labor.

When the midwife checked me, I was 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced and in a lot of pain. The back pain was horrible and I didn't care what I told Sergey before because I wanted the epidural. NOW!

The nicest anesthesiologist waltzed into the room and proceeded to explain the risks and talk away for good 10 minutes. Again, I was wondering why wasn't he hurrying up already?! Then the nurse started an IV and drew some blood, which had to be tested. It would probably be another 30-45 minutes before the results came back and I would have to go through a lot of contractions before blissful relief came.

An hour passed and I was baring down, which my midwife said was OK but had to check me again. I was 10 cm dilated and that baby wasn't staying inside. I got in bed and started pushing but baby's heart rate started dropping with every push. Deja vu. Although she would recover every time, I was getting scared and started panicking.

1. My epidural wasn't coming anymore.

2. I could end up with emergency c-section after pushing and going through all this horrible pain.

I started talking crazy and asking maybe we should just go for C-section right away. The midwife assured me that everything was OK and I should just continue pushing. I asked for epidural again but alas, it was too late.

The pushing part seemed like a relief because I was actually focused on muscles doing something. After about 45 minutes of pushing, there were more people in the room, wheeling in the baby cart, getting scale ready and I knew she was almost here. With all my might I gave it another push and at 6:22 pm she was born.

It was super intense. It was super fast. It was super (duper) painful.

Right after she was born, I realized I was frozen to the core because of the hospital AC and lack of decent clothing. I was shaking almost uncontrollably and the nurse offered me to get into the tub to warm up. It was a blissful 15 minutes and I almost fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

I was transferred into the recovery room almost immediately. Still in shock of what just happened, I couldn't sleep for the next 24 hours. I couldn't believe that I just pushed a tiny little human out of me and that I did it without meds (not that I didn't want them ;).

At this point, I don't think I want to ever do that again (ha!). But check back with me in about 2 years when one of my friends has a newborn and I'm flooded with all those pheromones.

And that's that.

The end.