Discover Top Posts Tagged with #igavebirth

RAAAGHHHHHH finally after two days one page is done

Also AJ's pose in the end was NOT intentionally supposed to reference a family guy death pose 😭

Also yes i know the poses are a bit.....euhh💀

The Birth of a Babr

Three years ago I was sitting on the floor of my living room, eating dinner off the coffee table and jokingly texting my sister complaining of cramps and “stomach problems.” I was 38.5 weeks pregnant and had a membrane sweep scheduled for my next ob/gyn appointment in two days because I had zero signs of impending labor and no one wanted to be in the hospital on Christmas. I had had a very uneventful/healthy pregnancy and not even a Braxton Hicks twinge up until this point. I had a feeling I’d have the baby before my due date (12/28/15) but I was convinced it would be the 22nd or 23rd for some reason.

I went to bed a few hours later, not suspecting a thing. However, after the third time waking abruptly with “stomach problems” in less than three hours, I knew something was happening. (In the interest of transparency, “stomach problems” 9 times out 10 means “diarrhea” and this was no exception, but I don’t want my first blog post to have the word “diarrhea” in it 20+ times so please just roll with it.)

So I bust out my latest downloaded pregancy app, the contraction timer and the “cramps” were about 10 minutes apart. I started to scare myself about going into labor for 36 hours and the hospital not letting me eat anything so I ate some wheat thins and a banana. Then the contractions were seven minutes apart, and then pretty quickly they were five. I woke PJ up and told him, “don’t freak out, but I’m definitely in labor and I really want to shower, so in about 15-20 minutes you’re going to have to wake up and take me to the hospital.”

We lived literally an eight minute walk away from the hospital where I was going to deliver and my plan was always to “labor down” on the walk over, but at 4am with mind-numbingly painful contractions two minutes apart, that plan went out the window. (I was also still having stomach problems and pooping in a bush was not part of my birth plan.) I threw a bag together and waddled, trying to find my yoga breath, to the car. I think I yelled at PJ for the entire six minute drive then somehow calmly told the front desk at Triage, “I think I’m having a baby.”

Once they took me in and hooked me up to everything, the assessment was that I was only 3-4cm dialated and while usually they like you to be at least 5cm before being admitted, my contractions were strong and consistently two minutes apart. I would not be going home that day. After several more stomach problems and vomitting up 10x as many bananas as I remembered eating, I agreed to some anti-nausea meds and finally stopped yelling at PJ for touching me. I hit the magic five centimeters and we moved upstairs.

I had been bouncing on the birthing ball and that was helping the lower back and hip pains of contractions a little but all my energy stores had gone out either end over the last few hours and I was already so weak and tired. I wanted to try for an unmedicated birth but when I asked a nurse at 9am how much longer she thought it would take, “like two, maybe three more hours??” and she laughed and said, “oh, at least six.” I gave up on that part of my plan too and got the epidural. PJ would tell you I became almost instantly more pleasant upon insertion of that needle, but I’ve kicked him enough times that I think he’s stopped telling that part of the story.

Finally, I relaxed and let myself get excited - we were having a baby! I texted family and friends. I canceled the prenatal massage I had scheduled for that evening. I might have even napped. By 4:30pm I was starting to feel contractions again, but they were more just uncomfortable than really painful so I waited until the nurses came to check on me to mention it. I assumed that meant I was getting ready to go, but she said it would be at least another hour and bumped up my epidural just a little. During one of my cervix checks my water broke and from that moment on I had the faint sense that I was peeing myself and that was definitely one of the worst and weirdest parts of the whole day.

Two hours later I could faintly feel the contractions again and really felt like something else was happening. My doctor showed up and I pushed like maybe four times? The doctor and nurses commented on how much hair the baby had as the little head crowned and retreated and crowned again. (This resulted in the strangest Marge Simpson-esque shaped head that took several days to resemble a normal baby dome.) At 6:53pm a whole healthy baby emerged and - it was a boy! I cried and he cried and then he was on my chest and I totally melted and then I noticed brown on my hand but everyone in the room swore it was from the baby and not from me. He wiggled down to latch right away and he was so perfect and I was his mother and it really was the most perfect magic moment. And he is the most perfect magic little guy and I’m still really in awe of all of it, pregnancy, birth, babies, motherhood, family, love. It’s all so amazing and so magical. I mean, there’s so much poop, but even more magic.