I gave birth!!!!!! I was obsessed with reading your stories all pregnancy and can’t believe I finally get to write my own. William Michael joined us on February 13th, nine days before his due date. Here’s how it all went down. LONG!!

Day before labor (38 3)

I woke up on Friday feeling completely normal. I was 0 cm dilated and my cervix was high and thick at my 38 week appointment on Tuesday, and my OB said “yep, nothing imminent.” I pumped for nipple stimulation for an hour in the morning, bounced on my birthing ball a bunch, did this squat video several times, had an induction acupressure massage in the afternoon, and then walked the 5 miles back to my apartment listening to a few episodes of Evidence Based Birth. During the walk, I really noticed increased pelvic pressure compared to earlier in the week – it felt like he was about to just explode out my abdomen. When I got home I pumped for another hour. A few days earlier I had made a huge batch of the famous “eggplant babies” eggplant parmesan from Scalinis, which I polished off for dinner. My husband and I had sex around 9pm and almost immediately after I started having bouts of low period cramping accompanied by pressure in my lower back. It wasn’t painful or consistent, and I fell asleep as usual that night.

Day of labor (38 4)

I woke up very early and realized right away I was still having the period cramping and lower back pressure every few minutes. They were mild but coming regularly. I pumped for an hour, had coffee and breakfast, did some more squats, and walked a half an hour to acupuncture listening to more of Evidence Based Birth. During the hour of laying down, focusing, and meditating at acupuncture I realized these might actually be contractions. Walking back from acupuncture the pelvic pressure from his head in my crotch started to really hurt. When I got home around noon I laid down, put on the Office, and started timing the contractions on my app. I was surprised to see they were 5-1-1, and my app told me several times “Time to go to the hospital,” but they still weren’t painful. I called the OB on call and she told me it could be early labor or it could fizzle out, and to call back if they remained at 5-1-1 and they got so painful that I couldn’t talk through them or my water broke. Disappointed, I felt sure it was prodromal labor and decided to do the Miles Circuit. After the Miles Circuit my husband came home and around 6pm we ordered pizza for dinner from our favorite pizza place – I loaded mine up with jalapenos, spicy pickled peppers, sriracha, and red pepper flakes. (This would later prove to be a mistake!!)

Around 7pm something changed. Contractions were slowly becoming more painful, especially in my back. I laid down on my side in the Miles Circuit position in bed and watched some Netflix, continuing to time them and focusing on my breath. Still 5-1-1. As they got more painful I moved to my birthing ball. At 10:30 I called the on-call doctor back and told her they had reached the point I couldn’t talk through them. She seemed skeptical but told me to come on in to get checked out. I was sure I was overreacting but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep through them so why not go in and see what’s going on. We quickly finished shoving clothes and toiletries in our half-packed bags, grabbed some goldfish and gummy worms, and headed out, sure that we would be returning home in a few hours. During the 15 minute drive to the hospital I had 4 mega contractions that were extremely painful and I had to vocalize through them. My husband had googled how to get to the hospital before and wasn’t following the GPS directions and I could have killed him if I could have talked.

We got to triage at 11pm. The nurse checked me and I was only 1cm dilated, cervix was thick, and baby was at -2 station. I was so disappointed I wasn’t more dilated but wasn’t surprised. She hooked me up to the monitors and baby sounded great. The staff decided to keep me in triage for a few hours to see if I progressed, and if I hadn’t we would head home. At this point, I was loudly vocalizing through contractions and getting through them by standing and leaning on the bed, swaying my hips from side to side. Our bags were still in the car so I didn’t have my comb to squeeze, so I used the prongs of a phone charger instead. My husband and I had taken a Lamaze class and were all prepared with several positions he could help me labor in, but he realized quickly I did NOT want to be touched or even looked at during contractions. I had several poops and my bloody show. (FWIW I never noticed losing my mucus plug.) We put on a few podcasts but it was in one ear out the other for me. They did not test me for C***d since I had it over the holidays. We could take our masks off when we were alone, and put them back on when staff came into the room.

The nurse re-checked me at 3am, and I was only 1.5 cm dilated, but due to the horrendous back labor I was experiencing they decided to admit me. Yay!! We got to our room and I met our new nurse. They asked if I wanted the epidural. All throughout my pregnancy, I was hoping and planning to get to at least 5cm before getting the epidural, but I had now been awake for 24 hours straight and knew I needed to sleep if I was going to have this baby. So I said let’s do it. They started my fluids which took about 45 minutes and I continued to labor leaning against the bed, moaning through the pain. When they checked me pre-epidural I was now 2cm dilated and 70% effaced, with the baby still at -2 station.

The anesthesiologist came right away after my fluids were done. All throughout my pregnancy I was so confused about how people sit still while contracting during the epidural but I don’t know, somehow I just did it. I agree with the other moms who compared the feeling to a beesting, it really wasn’t bad at all. It slowly started to take. In went the catheter without issue. But after about a half an hour, I realized it was supposed to be fully functional at this point and I still had a large window of pain on my front right side and back right side. My nurse helped me roll onto my side to let gravity disperse the drugs, but it remained excruciatingly painful. The top-up button I could press every 20 minutes did absolutely nothing. I threw up the pizza we had for dinner from the pain and knew I wouldn’t be eating there again for a while. My amazing nurse Marie called the anesthesiologist back and she gave me a bolus of more pain meds, which didn’t totally take away the breakthrough pain but made it manageable. My nurse gave me a peanut ball to put between my legs to help with dilation. She told me it was the best peanut ball on the floor – her name was Giselle and she was famous for her dilation powers. Let’s do this Giselle. I believe in you. At this point it was 6am and we were able to rest. I slept on and off until about 8, getting woken up every 15 or so from my shallow sleep by the blood pressure cuff.

Day of delivery (38 5)

After 2ish hours of “sleep” I was up, feeling surprisingly rested. I texted and called family and friends to let them know we had been admitted and it was baby day. Everyone’s excitement helped me feel more energized. I drank a ginger ale slowly for the sugar and we put on HGTV.

At 10am they checked me again and I was 5cm! Go Giselle! 90% effaced. The breakthrough contraction pain had returned with a vengeance, up came the ginger ale rather violently. My nurse came rushing in and asked what happened and I told her I threw up – the baby did not like that and had decelerated. We repositioned onto my other side and his heart rate returned to normal. Marie kindly told me, my dear your just threw up, take off your mask. She called the anesthesiologist, I got another bolus and started to feel better.

My contractions were apparently a little too spaced out, so they decided to start me on the lowest dose of Pitocin. Baby tolerated it fine. I ordered a coffee after briefly worrying would it make me poop? And then decided I couldn’t care less and I needed a little caffeine. It was snowing outside and I just felt remarkably calm and relaxed. My husband and I watched some TV, FaceTimed more family, and talked about the little man we were about to meet. On some level I was still expecting Marie to come back in and tell me, we’re actually going to send you home, today’s not the day, false alarm.

But around 11:30am I was feeling excruciating breakthrough pain again. I called in Marie and she returned with the doctor, who said “She might be complete.” What?! There’s no way, I thought. I just got here. I can’t push. I don’t know how. They went to check me and within a second of lifting up my gown the doctor said “YUP! Go time! Let’s call pediatrics!” I was fully dilated with bulging water and baby was at 1. At that moment my water broke. There was a little bit of meconium but they assured me it would be okay and just explained that meant they would take him to the warmer to check him out right when he was born. We also talked about how since I was on Zoloft my whole pregnancy he might not cry right away and not to be alarmed.

While we waited for baby to descend to 4, Marie explained to me how to push. So I was feeling really guilty about this because I was NOT active during pregnancy (first trimester morning sickness, second trimester moving to a new city and starting WFH, third trimester terrible SPD and sacroiliac pain) and was really afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough to push him out. Let me just say it wasn’t an issue!

At 12:30 it was time to start pushing. Marie told me to take my mask off again and this time I kept it off. My husband held one leg and Marie held the other. I did one push with Marie and she said STOP! Apparently I was a very effective pusher and we needed to wait for the doctor to come back because he was going to come fast. The doctor got there at 12:45 and it was go time. I pushed for just under 20 minutes (6 contractions). My team was so supporting and validating, telling me I was doing amazing and I would meet him in minutes. Honestly I felt zero pain in my vaginal area, just the contraction pain in my epidural windows. No ring of fire. During the 6th contraction at 1:04pm I heard my husband’s tone change and he said “Oh my god!!!!” and suddenly there was a huge, warm, slippery, purple thing on my chest. I instinctively reached for him but truly did not realize it was my baby for several seconds. He was quiet but I was so shellshocked I didn’t even panic. They suctioned his mouth and nose and he started to scream. It was such a beautiful sound. Oh my god, my baby is on my chest. They let me hold him for a minute before the pediatric team took him to the warmer and my husband followed.

My placenta came out without me even realizing it because I was so focused on watching them work on my baby. He continued to scream beautifully and I tried to hear what the nurses were saying across the room. My doctor “massaged” (lol) my uterus and told me it wasn’t contracting as fast as she would like, so they were going to give me a few meds to help it go down. Do whatever you gotta do I said, again barely registering because I was so focused on my son. I had one minor labial tear requiring a few stitches. The peds nurse called over to me “8 pounds 1 ounce, mama!” and the pediatrician came over to tell me he looked perfect, even with the meconium and Zoloft.

Finally (after what was probably only a few minutes) he was back on my chest, and immediately started rooting for the breast. It was so freaking magical and cool. I breastfed him for about an hour, just staring at him in awe, stroking his perfect tiny feet and smooth tummy. My husband texted family and friends he was here. He was literally the most gorgeous, perfect thing I had ever seen in my entire life.

Recovery

Soon we headed to the postpartum unit. We had a beautiful private room and we met our new nurse who was an angel as well. I was suddenly beyond ravenous and ordered a turkey sandwich from the cafeteria – I was dying for deli meats my entire pregnancy. Oh my god, it was so freaking good. My son continued to nurse on and off as we half-watched the Olympics and stared at him in admiration. That night we decided to send him to the nursery for 2 hours at a time between feeds, which I really did not think I would do, but it turned out to be absolutely crucial that we got those bits of rest.

We are now home with our little boy after 2 blissful days on the postpartum floor. The learning curve has been steep but I am in absolute newborn heaven. Part of me wants 600 more babies as soon as possible, but another part of me just wants to go back and relive the birth of my son over and over again for the rest of my life. I was worried I wouldn’t feel a connection to him as I have struggled with anxiety and depression my whole life, and I also experienced a good amount of gender disappointment due to some gender-based trauma in my past, but let me say this. If I could Build-A-Bear my dream child, I would choose my son down to the eyelash a million out of a million times.

While I was blessed with a pretty textbook pregnancy, the anxiety I experienced about something going wrong was excruciating and at times almost unbearable. I did have two miscarriages before this and just felt overwhelmingly convinced that I was not going to get to take my baby home this time either. The panic shifted from miscarriage to genetic issues to stillbirth to birth trauma over the course of my nine months, even though I take Zoloft and was in regular therapy. I hope my story can help the other anxious mamas out there remember that sometimes, everything goes right. I don’t know what I did to deserve the birth of my near-dreams or my angel child, but right now I am just soaking up the happiness that I was somehow granted.

At home labor induction methods

I was sure I was going to go past 40w as a FTM, but I really didn't want that to happen, so I did all the tips and tricks to ripen my cervix at home. No idea if any of it actually worked or if I would have always given birth when I did, but it at least made me feel like I was doing something! Here were my methods:

Starting at 36w: 4 cups of red raspberry leaf tea daily, 4 medjool dates daily, using a birthing ball instead of a chair whenever possible, walking 30-60 minutes a day with at least 15 minutes of curb walking or side-stair walking

Starting at 37w: 1300 mg of evening primrose oil inserted vaginally every night, squats daily

Starting at 38w: acupuncture 3x/week, pumping 1-2 hours a day, sex every other day

Moms, you are all incredible. Any way you give birth is so powerful and amazing. I am in total awe of the strength of women and just so grateful I got to experience pregnancy and birth.