Prior to labor, I tried to listen and read birth stories. I searched Instagram for labor and delivery pictures and watched Youtube videos of new babies being born.
Why? Because I wanted to be as prepared as I could be. Sure, my plan was to have a natural birth. But what if that wasn’t to happen? What if there was a twist in my birth plan and I ended up having to go down a different path that I hadn’t prepared for?
I knew I couldn’t be 100% prepared, but I wanted to feel confident going into my baby’s birthing day.
That’s why I’m sharing my experience with you. I want you to know how my experience was and I want to help empower you to have a positive outlook on your labor and delivery.
I took a hypnobirthing class at The Midwife Center in Pittsburgh, PA. I knew I wanted to learn the techniques of hypnobirthing. The concepts of the practice really align with my meditation and yoga background. I wanted to take the class earlier in my pregnancy, but I started it at 30 weeks. To be honest, since I had a background in breathing techniques I think 10 weeks was perfectly fine. But if I had been unfamiliar with the concepts, I think starting earlier would have been beneficial.
So for those ten weeks, every day I did my rainbow relaxation and repeated my birthing affirmations. As my 40 weeks neared, I started getting more anxious and anxious!
“The MIND F$%K” aka The End of Pregnancy
It’s truly up for debate when my exact due date was, but I was told it’d be in the beginning of March. Throughout my whole pregnancy, I never believed I’d make it past February! I was certain I had gotten pregnant in May, not June.
As February ticked on, I started to become VERY anxious waiting for my baby girl.
February 22nd I started having early labor symptoms. From that day on, I had contractions at some point off and on throughout the day. I had major cramping, every few days my body felt like it was trying to eject everything out of it (aka many trips to the bathroom) and I thought the end was near. (or you could argue the beginning!)
At my 38 week checkup, my midwife told me I was 1cm dilated and 30% effaced. My midwife Lauren asked me if I wanted my membranes swept and I opted to do so! She said it could be any day or it could be a few weeks. There really was no way of knowing.
The following week, I started feeling like I was leaking fluids a whole lot. I called my Doula Becky and told her what was going on. She told me to try to do a test to see if maybe my waters had partially broken. So I drank a glass of water, laid down for 30 minutes and when I stood up I felt water trickle down. Because of this, she suggested I go to the hospital to get check out.
Walking into the hospital I was excited, but intuitively felt like it wasn’t time yet. I didn’t feel like I was in labor and had an inkling that my water had not broken. After checking in and being moved to triage, my suspicions were correct. My waters were still intact and I was not in labor. I went home sad, but I had figured that would happen.
My plan was to have a natural birth and I wanted to support that plan as much as I could. Emme was due 3/8 and I watched that date come and go.
Raspberry leaf tea, primrose oil, Miles Circuit, walking, bouncing on my stability ball, acupuncture, an induction massage, chiropractor adjustments – I tried everything I could to get this baby moving. The only thing I did not try was to eat spicy foods. For the majority of my pregnancy, I couldn’t eat anything with flavor because she gave me SO much heartburn.
Halfway into my 40th week, at my next appointment at Allegheny Health Network Midwives, I was asked if I wanted to be induced. I really wanted it to be all natural, so I said I’d wait. But, before leaving, I did have my Midwife Amanda sweep my membranes again (2nd time).
Since I passed on the induction, I was required to get an ultrasound and a stress test. If I passed these tests, they said they’d let me wait til I was closer to 42 weeks before having me schedule an induction. Not only did baby pass the tests, but she passed with flying colors. My midwife Amanda said her stress test could have been framed it was so perfect. Before I left the office, she once again swept my membranes (3rd time).
The day of my 38-week appointment I had gone to the nail salon to have my nails done. I wanted to look presentable for my baby to be! As the weeks ticked on, my nails started chipping and I needed to have them done again.
So on Thursday, March 15th, a week after my due date, I went to go get them done again. I left my house around 6 pm. As I was driving the 10-minute drive to the nail salon, I started having a contraction.
“Here we go again!” I thought.
Up til that point, I had had contractions at some point each day. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but it seemed like this time might be different. A few days earlier I had started having contractions at night. I told myself I’d let them go for one hour, to make sure they were legit, before alerting anyone in my family. Of course, at that time they stopped RIGHT at the 1-hour mark. (UGH! SO FRUSTRATING!) But I agreed to follow that same principle here too. I wasn’t going to alert anyone until I passed the 1-hour mark of having consistent contractions.
As I sat getting my nails done, I realized they were occurring every 8-10 minutes. As I drove home, I passed the 1-hour mark and decided to let my family know.
I walked in the door and prefaced the news with a “don’t get your hopes up. . . this could be a false alarm.”
But this time it didn’t seem like a false alarm!
The Begining of Labor?
I started out laying in bed moving through my surges. Throughout the night I used my yoga ball, a TENS unit my friend Krista let me borrow and spent the majority of my time in a jet tub. Throughout it all, I listened to calming music, had my diffuser running (a mix of Balance and Serenity), lathered up with other oils and tried my best to be present in the moment. Using my hypnobirthing techniques, I tried to stay calm and ride each wave as best I could.
BUT, as soon as I got excited for the contractions to be every 5 minutes apart, they started spacing out longer and longer. The night dragged on and my contractions seemed to diminish. By 7 am they were 20-30 minutes apart.
I was exhausted and FRUSTRATED. Between 7 – 9 am, I was able to get a little sleep. And as Friday the 16th went on, I had contractions about every 10 minutes.
Friday afternoon I called my Midwife practice and talked to Devon. She said that it sounded like I was having prodromal labor that turned into early labor. I had 2 choices: wait it out or come in and get Pitocin moving things along.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I hung up the phone and cried for an hour. The only reason I wanted to go in and get the party started was because I was getting impatient. NOT because there was something seriously wrong. I still really wanted this birth to be natural, so I called back and told her that I’d be waiting it out.
Due to exhaustion, I ended up falling asleep and getting about 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was glorious! I ended up waking up around 1am-ish and realized my contractions were getting closer together again. By 3-4am, they were very close and by 5 am they were 5 minutes apart (AGAIN).
After they were consistent for an hour, I called Devon and let her know that I’d be coming to the hospital.
Is it “go time” yet?
I checked into Jefferson Hospital at 7:30 am and was first moved to the triage room (again).
I’ll be honest, I was nervous they were going to send me home (again). Yes, my contractions were 5 minutes apart, now for over 2 1/2 hours, but the problem was they weren’t very intense. The night before I had had much stronger contractions. I worried I was still having prodromal labor and wouldn’t be any closer to having my baby than I was on Thursday when I had gone in to have my stress test.
Midwives Devon and Amanda came into check me. I was now 80% effaced (at least those contractions had done SOMETHING), but still only 2cm dilated.
I can’t lie, I was really bummed. I thought I was going to be a lot further along – ESPECIALLY since it was Saturday morning and I had started having contractions on Thursday. So a decision had to be made – I was either going to go home and continue to wait it out or make the decision to have my baby and get hooked up to Pitocin. In the meantime, Amanda stripped my membranes (4th time!!) and then left the room to allow me to make my decision.
Now, I REALLY wanted to have a natural birth, but I was only going to have until Monday the 19th to have the baby naturally. After that, my midwives were going to push me to have an induction. Throughout my entire pregnancy, Josh had told me to hold the baby in and have her on St Patty’s Day, March 17th.
There I sat, in the hospital triage room on March 17th, and thought it through. I thought about how if I didn’t have the baby today, there was the chance I could go home and feel this way until they induced me later on that week. I thought about how exhausted I was and they were telling me that my “true” labor hadn’t even started yet. And I thought about how Josh had really wanted her birthday to be on March 17th.
After giving it much thought, the decision was made = we were going to have a baby!
GO TIME!
If you’ve been following my pregnancy story, then you know that my husband Josh was deployed for my entire pregnancy. I was extremely lucky to have my family and Josh’s family by my side helping me not only through the 9 months of pregnancy but during my labor and delivery too.
By 9 am, I was hooked up to an IV and started my Pitocin bag. To me, the day FLEW BY from that point on. Looking back, I feel like the whole day was about 2 hours long.
My care team was stacked. Nurses Kimberly and Lauren were my labor and delivery nurses, my midwife was Amanda and my doula was Becky.
Anesthesia came in to talk to me about the possibility of getting an epidural. They had to make sure everything would be ok since I have a history of blood clotting issues. I still wanted to try to go without it, but I told myself that if at any point I felt like I was suffering instead of managing/coping with the pain, I’d get the injection. I didn’t want to suffer through my labor but wanted to see if I could cope on my own. I had my tools ready to go but wanted to have my back up plan known in case it came to that.
I found sitting on a yoga ball to be the best thing for me. I could move my hips with the surges while wearing my friend’s TENS unit. At the same time, my Doula Becky was able to press down on my hips and gave me a warm rice bag to put on the front of my belly (which felt AWESOME).
I know that the best thing to do in labor is to keep moving, but every time I’d move into a different position I’d hate it and end up going back to the ball.
I was doing pretty well and my contractions were getting stronger and stronger. They weren’t pleasant by any means, but I was coping. If I intently focused on the wave of the surge, I could get through it. I had my eyes closed for most of the time and couldn’t talk to anyone. I hated whenever anyone would come in and ask me a question because that would knock me out of focus. Whenever I wasn’t completely focused, my contraction was always 10 times worse.
Whenever contractions are 2-3 minutes apart, you honestly don’t get much downtime between them. Once it’s over you’re prepping and getting ready for the next one.
Around 2 pm, I was 4cm dilated and Amanda broke my water to get things moving. It wasn’t the breaking of my water that hurt, but the fact that I had a contraction right after they broke it. Like I mentioned before, if I wasn’t intently focusing on the contraction then it was 10 times worse. Having to move up on the bed to have my water broke definitely knocked me out of focus. I won’t lie – I freaked out. I felt like the pain was so intense and everything was overwhelming. It took me a few more contractions to get my head back into the game.
My friend Amy made me birthing affirmation cards and this is the moment I knew I had to really utilize them. I had them spread out in front of me on the bed and I tried to focus all I could on these affirmations.
But, if I’m honest with myself (and with you), once I freaked myself out after my water broke I never could fully get back in control of the surges. I tried my best to manage through them, but I started getting to a breaking point.
Amanda and Becky suggested I try to change positions. So I got up on my knees on the bed and leaned over the back side of the bed. I found it hard to be in this position because of my belly, but apparently, some people really like this position. I wasn’t enjoying it and wasn’t managing my pain the way I had been doing before at this point.
And then that’s when I made the decision . . . I wanted an epidural. I was over it.
Everyone asked me about 10 times if I was truly serious – and I absolutely was. I had psyched myself out and didn’t have my focus. I kept thinking, if this is how I’m feeling at 4cm this could potentially still go on for hours.
Before I received the epidural, Amanda checked me again. This time I was 6cm.
At 3:20 pm the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural. I had my eyes shut the entire time I couldn’t even tell you one thing about the whole event. All I know is at one point he yelled “This is not good! This is NOT good!!” and I was like wtf?! But I was working through a contraction so I tried not to focus on what he was doing.
(Apparently, there was something wrong with one of his instruments or tubes or something and he just needed a new one – which the nurse promptly gave him. But seriously, who yells “This is not good” in a room with a pregnant woman in labor while you’re holding a huge ass needle?! That freaked my mom out big time.)
Within minutes of getting the epidural, I started to feel a million times better. Like, a MILLION times better. It was weird, the contractions ended up going more into my hip once I got the epidural than in my abdomen. This resulted in me laying on my side while Becky massaged my hips.
Within less than an hour, I went from 6cm to 9.5cm by 4:10 pm.
And then it was baby time!!
Meeting My Baby Emme
My favorite part of all was pushing her out.
By then, I was feeling great! I still felt the contractions as they came, but they weren’t painful and I was actually really enjoying myself. I was laughing and smiling (which up to that point I had my eyes closed for hours and hours).
In the delivery room with me, I had my sister and my mom as I delivered. They were an amazing support and I’m so lucky to have had them by my side. Each of them wasn’t sure how they were going to handle being there, but in the end, they both said it was the best experience.
Emme was right on the verge of coming out and Amanda said I had about one more push for her head. As I prepared to push, my mom said something funny which made me laugh. That laugh resulted in Emme’s head popping out! I didn’t even have to push it out, she came out on her own! Amanda laughed and said she’d never had someone laugh their baby’s head out!
2 more pushes, her body came out and I pulled her up onto my chest. It was so surreal – I still can’t believe that it happened and she is here!
During Emme’s birth, Josh was stationed in Syria with very spotty internet service. Up until that point, every time I had tried to Skype or Facetime Josh it would barely work. The week prior to her birth we tried and it connected for maybe about 30 seconds. But the day of her birth a miracle happened. Not only did it work, but it worked for 40 MINUTES!!! So for 40 minutes, Josh got to be with us in the delivery room.
It’s all such a blur to me, but Becky told me after the fact that she thought it was so sweet that Josh kept telling me how beautiful I looked. I did not feel beautiful- I felt gross and sweaty, but I was so so happy. I wished he had been there for the whole thing, but having my family there to support me was amazing. Josh’s sister and mom were even there that day too to meet baby Emme!
I couldn’t have asked for a better support system throughout the entire day.
Reflecting on Almost 48 Hours of Labor
So looking back, how do I feel about it all?
I wish I could do it all again RIGHT NOW. And I’m serious – if you told me I had to go through the almost 48 hours of pain again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Birthing my baby was by far the coolest experience I’ve ever had in my life. Throughout my whole pregnancy, I looked forward to that day so much. Not only to meeting the baby I was carrying around, but I was so excited for the act of birthing. I believe it’s the single most loving act that we as women can participate in.
I mean, think about it – we birth love.
Baby’s are God’s love in the purest, simplest form.
And to have been lucky enough to have been apart of that is something I’ll never ever ever ever ever ever ever take for granted.
I enjoyed the whole process of labor and delivery so much. I know I may have used a few choice words here and there throughout those two days, but in the end, it was the most surreal experience.
I pray that I have the opportunity to do it again someday.
Don’t be afraid of your baby’s birthing day. Instead, be excited. It’s something that is amazing to experience. Sure, it’s painful. But it’s the most rewarding experience you’ll ever have.
And for now, I’m going to love my little good luck charm that graced us with her presence on St. Patty’s Day. I’m already thinking about what a crazy 21st birthday this little girl is going to have!
Want to read another birth story? Click here to read Wesley’s.
Wishing You A Pain Free Day!
