My Scary Good Birth Story

My husband knew I was in labor before I did.
written by Mikaela

The Build Up

When I was 20 weeks pregnant, I obsessively watched and read birth stories. I couldn’t help it. If you’re reading this, then you can understand those first time jitters where you need to know every single scenario that can happen. I knew I wanted a positive birth, but I needed to be prepared. I didn’t care what type of birth it was – I watched them all. All day long. Over and over. I watched so many of them that I literally ran out of mommy bloggers to watch so I had to resort to reading stories. I say all this because that is probably the very reason as to how you ended up here. You need to know ALL the things.

Don’t have time to read? Check out my Vlog on YouTube where I discuss My Birth Story! Be sure to Like and Subscribe!

Fast forward to October 30th, 2021.

My baby stopped moving. Literally. She was a little wiggle worm that moved all hours of the day. But for some reason, on this day, she hardly moved. This brought forth a fear like no other. I’m going to pause here and tell you right now: DO NOT WAIT if your baby stops moving. Run, do not walk, RUN to the ER to get checked if your baby is not moving. While it turned out okay for us, that is not always the case when a baby stops normal movement.

After sharing my concerns with my husband, he suggested we call my doctor. Putting the phone on speaker, we were given two options:

Lie down with no distractions, count kicks, and then go to L&D
Immediately go to L&D (Labor and Delivery)

Those two options did not give us any peace, especially after the doctor’s worried tone of voice. Mommy gut is a real thing, and so we decided (after a short panic moment) to do as he said! Better safe than sorry.

Next Steps

Me being me, I had barely anything packed in my hospital bag. I was convinced we weren’t having the baby anytime soon (even though my due date was in three days) so I didn’t even bother to finish packing or try to take it with us.

I worked in office up to my delivery date!

Cue my husband, who is convinced it is GO TIME. He packed the bags, loaded me up in the car, and even took a video… all without me knowing! (Psst. Read all about What You ACTUALLY Need in Your Hospital Bag here.)

Looking back on this now, nearly seven months later, I’m in awe that he knew what I didn’t. We were having a baby!

At the Hospital

Excited about the good news – my positive birth story is about to begin!

We arrive to the hospital, adorn our masks, and get checked in. I have an exact timeline thanks to Mr. Handsome.

At 3:13PM we left to go to the Hospital and arrived at 4:02PM. The check in process was extremely easy. They admitted us immediately and allowed us to fill out the insurance forms via our phones from our room.

I have to admit, the room was very spacious for just observation. They allowed me to change into a gown and handed me a clicker. For every kick I felt, I had to click.

And what a surprise, baby starts moving like crazy. Because there was nothing wrong with her (her heart rate and oxygen levels were great!) they decided to send us home after 30 minutes of observation. At that point, I felt silly and like I had wasted everyone’s time, but it wasn’t a faux pas because, well, you’ll see.

If you didn’t watch the video, just know that within 30 seconds of me standing up to be discharged from the hospital, my waters broke!

Talk. About. Surprise.

According to the doctor, my waters broke before I even started labor! It wasn’t in my original birth plan, but that’s a topic for another day. (Psst. Subscribe to my blog to read more on my birth plan.) And looking back on it now, I believe God knew what He was doing because it ended up being a hidden blessing that we went in early.

Side Note: If your waters break at the hospital, you can not leave. From what we were told, it’s so they can monitor the baby because once your water breaks there is increased chance for infection.

The Labor Process

I definitely didn’t let the fact that I had to labor at the hospital, instead of at home, get me down. After my water broke, it didn’t take long for my contractions to start.

If you haven’t been through the birthing process before and are curious about what contractions feel like, the best way I can describe it is this:

It’s like a rollercoaster of pain. It starts like a low grade period cramp, works up to the worst cramp you’ve ever felt, continues to a crescendo of spasms, and then goes back down. It feels like it lasts forever, but truly contractions only last around 45 seconds.

At first, my contractions were eight to ten minutes apart. For every contraction I had, I played my hypnobirthing playlist and slowly breathed through them. (i.e. Breath in, one, two, three four. Breath out, one, two, three, four, five, six.)

After several hours of this, a doctor came to check me and was concerned that I still hadn’t dilated past two centimeters. If I wasn’t dilated to a 4 by by my next cervix check, I would need Pitocin to speed up my labor (and thus prevent my chance of infection).

Side note…

By the way, if you aren’t sure of what a positive birth is, let me tell you! Positive Birth is about feeling empowered with your birthing experience. No matter your birth plan, medicated or unmedicated, you CAN have a positive birth.

… and back to it

I was checked again around midnight and had not dilated past 2cm so I was then notified that I would need Pitocin to speed up my delivery. Let me just say, that Pitocin drip they gave hit like a truck! Within 10 minutes of receiving Pitocin, my contractions went from 6 minutes apart to 2!

I must be very honest and tell you that going through 4 hours of contractions that were two minutes apart, was brutal but I did it and I am very proud of myself for making it that far! No matter how you give birth, just know that you are a super woman (or champion as Mr. Handsome said).

Eventually my waters broke and I noticed there was meconium in it. Meconium is the baby’s first poop which is tar-like and is typically caused from the baby being distressed.

When I was checked again around 4:30am, though, I became very discouraged because I was told that even with the Pitocin, I had only dilated to 4 centimeters. With all that pain, breathing, and curse words (yes, I know, I’m sorry) I had only dilated 2 more centimeters.

The Transition

It was at that point I decided I couldn’t take the pain any more. When the nurse came back in, I said the words I had been dreading… “I want an epidural.” To be honest, I was terrified of getting the epidural. I thought it would be extremely painful but I hardly felt it!

In fact, it worked so well to relax my body, that within an hour after I received the epidural, I was fully dilated. At 6am, I told the nurse that I absolutely needed to push. She checked my progress, and discovered that I WAS fully dilated and ready to push this baby out!

She begged me to do my best to hold the baby in until the doctor arrived.

The baby warmer – look at those sweet birthing blankets!

After waiting 15-20 minutes, with the excruciating need to push, he made it to the hospital. The second I received word that he arrived, I couldn’t help it and started pushing. They quickly put me in the stirrups and with everything I had in me – I PUSHED.

Within six minutes of pushing, I popped a sweet baby girl out. They quickly wiped her down and set her on my chest. I remember trying to see her face while holding her but she was snuggled into my neck so I couldn’t see a thing. I could, however, feel her soft skin on mine and felt so relieved.

Mr. Handsome cut her cord and then they whisked her away to be cleaned.

Baby Reveal

Baby Reveal.

Voila. I reveal to you Eleanor Mae, also known as Bugs (short for lady bug).

She was born at 6:31AM on October 31st at a whopping 6Ibs 2oz and 21 inches long. She has all 10 fingers and toes with bright blue eyes and a cry that made my heart sing.