My first pregnancy was normal. When the doctor said I was likely to be sick, I was sick. When she said I was likely to be better, I was better. I distinctly remember throwing up when I was 39 weeks pregnant and thinking that I should really be past this, but that was an aberration, at least in this pregnancy. Afa and I attended birth classes, but I did not do extensive research on birth because I didn’t want to set myself up for “failure” if I ended up needing a c-section or wasn’t able to breastfeed. This logic seems ridiculous to me now…both refusing to educate myself about something as important as birth AND associating those two things with failure.

When I woke up with contractions about 2am the day before my due date, it would be an incredible understatement to say that I was excited. But I did learn a little in my birth classes, so I tried my best to rest and not wake Afa because it was likely to be a while before the baby came (little did I know how long it would be…). I was GBS positive, so when I called the OB around 6:30am, they suggested I come in to get checked. Afa and I headed to the hospital, and my mom, my younger brother, and my parents-in-law stayed at home waiting for word as to whether or not they should come. We left the car with the valet and happily bounded into the hotel (sign #1 that I was no where near actually giving birth). They hooked me up to the monitors, which didn’t register any contractions, and the nurse asked what my pain was from 1-10. When I responded “3,” she gave a knowing smile and said they would likely send me home and I would likely come back later that day to give birth. I was at 2cm and contractions were about 15 minutes apart, so they sent me home. Afa went to work so that he wouldn’t miss more days than he had to, and I stayed to work the baby out.

My sister arrived from Tennessee around 10am with her son, who was almost a year old, and I was glad that baby had waited until she arrived. I had the privilege of being there for her first birth, and it was very special to me that she was going to be there for mine. We labored all day, doing everything the birth class suggested. I ate small meals and labored all day. We all walked to a park so that my nephew could play, and I labored the whole time we were at the park. I danced, bounced on the birth ball, and walked up and down stairs. Now, it’s important to note here that I only had back labor. It was super painful, and if I had done even a little research, I would have known this indicates the baby is the wrong direction and there are a few things I could have done to encourage her to rotate. In my ignorance, I didn’t do any of those things and the back labor continued. Afa got home from work, and I kept laboring. Around 8pm, the contractions were getting much stronger and closer together. I could no longer speak through them, and I was sure it was time to go. This time we caravaned to the hospital and I had such strong contractions when I arrived, that they took me directly to a delivery room instead of a triage room. I was again hooked up to monitors, which again, didn’t pick up any contractions, and again they checked me. You can only imagine my disappointment after laboring for 15 hours at this point, I was still at 2cm.

Now, I don’t like to be touched in normal life, and I REALLY don’t like to be touched when I’m trying to hold things together. I was visibly upset that I hadn’t progressed at all, and when someone tried to hug me, I completely lost control, unhooked the monitors, went into the bathroom, melted down, and cried. After a few minutes of very emotional release, I took a big breath and decided that I needed to go see what my options were. They said that we could stay for two hours to see if I progressed at all. If not, they would send me home again. I was devastated. The contractions were so painful, all in my lower back, and I had no idea how I was going to handle them if they sent me home. After two hours, another check said I was at 3cm. Because I was still before my due date (at this point I was approximately 2 hours before my due date), they could not give me induction drugs since there was no medical reason for an induction. They offered to give me a morphine shot and let me stay overnight to see if I would progress any more.

We accepted the morphine shot and sent everyone else home to get some sleep. I don’t think the morphine helped much at all, and Afa and I woke up every ten minutes all night with strong back contractions and no knowledge of how to help them. And this whole time, the monitors didn’t pick up anything; so I think the nurses thought I might have been making them up. I assure you, I was not. I was very much in labor. The next morning, they came to check me again, and I was 4.5cm and could be admitted. We called our family, and everyone came back to the hospital.

They decided that at that point, I could have an epidural, which I happily accepted since I had been laboring about 28 hours with very little sleep. I had one constant contraction the whole time they were trying to put the epidural in, which was miserable, but as soon as it took effect, I fell asleep. My poor husband had also been up all night but didn’t have a bed or an epidural to help him. I woke up a few hours later and had gotten to 6cm. I went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, I was at 9.5. It was 1pm. I had been in labor for 35 hours and was ready for it to be over. So again, in my ignorance, when she asked if I wanted to push, I said yes even though I wasn’t fully dilated. This led to a pelvic floor injury that took several months of pelvic floor therapy to rectify, so I highly recommend that you wait until you get to the FULL 10 to start pushing.

I had had my epidural for hours, so I had no sensation about where or how to push. I also couldn’t hold up my legs. So my awesome birth assistants, my husband and my sister, held my legs and counted loudly while I made feeble, failing attempts to figure out how to push. They were doing so much to help that at one point the nurse looked up and said “she is going to have to start doing some of the work.” After more detailed instructions, I got the pushing thing down, and after 45 minutes of very directed pushing, our gorgeous, perfect baby was born. She had her eyes open immediately. And everything about her was perfect. She was more than I had ever imagined, and she continues to be to this day.