Finally here to share one of the most amazing, exhausting & emotional days of my life.

After experiencing such an intense final few weeks of pregnancy (you can read about that here, if you missed it), my induction was scheduled for October 8th, which was exactly 1 week from my original due date (October 15th). I was already dilating and thinning out on my own, just slowly, so my OB wanted me to check in to the hospital the night before to start the induction slowly. She was confident my body would respond quickly, but it is hard to tell how you’ll respond with your first delivery. She knew that I was aiming for a vaginal delivery and that I wanted to avoid a c-section if at all possible.

The entire day before seemed to creep by. I tried to enjoy my last day of this pregnancy, but it was hard to do anything else. I knew that I would not be able to eat once I checked into the hospital until after I delivered, so we went to Chili’s and I tried to eat but basically failed. We arrived at the hospital at 10pm on Friday (10/07), had to wait until after midnight to get a room, which (fortunately) would be the worst part of the whole experienced.

Once we were taken to our room and settled in, I was hooked up to all of the monitors, went to the bathroom, changed into my wonderful gown, and my parents went home to get some sleep. Around 2am they gave me a dose of Cytotec to get things going. I was told that I had to at least be at 2cm and 100% effaced in order to start Pitocin, which was scheduled to start at 7am. Cytotec (side note, don’t Google this unless you want to give yourself a mild heart attack over all of the possible scenarios. I made this mistake and caused myself a lot of unnecessary anxiety.) is placed on the cervix (sorry, TMI), so once they administer it you aren’t allowed to go to the bathroom for a while. The nurse told me it would be best that I hold it for 4 hours, if possible, so it could fully absorb. Challenge accepted. But, telling a full-term pregnant woman to not urinate for 4 hours is cruel. At this point, they left me hooked up to all of the monitors and said to rest as much as possible.

Well, it’s difficult to rest with a blood pressure cuff going off every 30 minutes. And I couldn’t sleep on my back because Wyatt’s monitor didn’t work well that way. I pretty much just shut my eyes for 15 minutes at a time. Kevin slept though. Another side note: Kevin had food poisoning for 2 days before our induction. He was still dealing with that while in the hospital, so I let him sleep. And only mildly resented him for doing so.

Fast forward to about 6:30am, I decided I was done trying to sleep. The nurse checked my progress, I was about 3cm dilated and fully effaced so they let my OB know and I was set to start Pitocin at 7am. And I was able to pee, so there were celebrations all around. My parents came back up to the hospital and brought Kevin Chick-Fil-A. Again, only mild resentment.

Around 7:30am the Pitocin was started. The nurses (my amazing, wonderful, fantastic nurses) let me know that I could get an epidural at any time, just to keep in mind that it takes about 30 minutes from when I ask for it. I wasn’t ready yet. Pitocin started to kick in pretty quickly, contractions intensified and become more regular. At this point, it was just a waiting game. They checked me regularly and I was slowly progressing. They also came in every 30 minutes to an hour to turn me to my other side.

9am. I ended up requesting the epidural when I was about 4cm dilated. The epidural was easy, just some burning. I was very unhappy about the fact that I couldn’t feel my legs or anything else below my belly button area. I couldn’t even feel my butt and that really upset me. My OB came in and broke my water at 11:30am, I was at about 5cm then. Around this time my epidural started giving me some trouble. I started hitting the button to administer more medication a few times every hour. They had me switch sides when I hit the button to see if the medication would disperse more evenly. This went on for a while and eventually I had to have the anesthesiologist come back in and give me another dose through the catheter in my back. That did the trick and made my lower body even more numb, which I guess was a good and bad thing!

At 2:00, I was at about 5 1/2 cm. So, everything was moving very slowly from about 11:30-2. My amazing nurse suggested that I sit more upright, so we moved the bed to where I was in a sort of crouching position. It felt so much more comfortable. I started feeling a lot of pressure after that and started getting very nauseated. Between 2:30 and 3, I threw up a few times so they gave me Zofran in my IV. They checked me again at 3:11 and I had bloody show and was at 10cm. So, I had dilated from about 6cm to 10cm, which was absolutely crazy. At this point the table next to my hospital bed (with my iPad, phone, & water cup on it) broke. The nurse let me know that she would call my OB and let her know it was go time. I was concerned about my iPad. Mostly in shock. But still concerned about my electronics. (They were fine, in case you were worried, too.)

All of a sudden people started appearing, the bed broke down, and it was go time. I did some practice pushing with the nurse and it was happening so fast that she almost had to do the delivery. After 15 minutes of pushing, including the “practice’, Wyatt was born at 3:37pm.

He weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz, and was 20 3/4 inches long. All day long the nurses kept telling me they felt a lot of hair, which I didn’t believe, but surprisingly he was born with a ton of dark hair. He was, and is, absolutely beautiful! Immediately after birth we did skin to skin time for about an hour and a half. Kevin didn’t even hold him until he was almost 2 hours old! (Oops!)

All in all, both Wyatt and I had the most wonderful birth experience. Everything went smoothly and I recovered easily and without complications. We were so well taken care of by my husband, parents, family, friends, and the entire hospital staff and I am so thankful that it was all so positive.

I’m a little sad that it took me 6 months to write this post, but I’m glad I finally did. I have a lot more posts planned that I’m hoping to get to very soon.