Birth Story

Thursday, August 27
My induction begin on Thursday night, August 27. John and I checked into L&D at 8:00 pm that night. We were put into a room and checked in. The nurses started hooking me up to the NST monitor and to an IV and asked me a bunch of questions. At about 9:00 pm the OB on called came to see me. She did an internal and of course no progression on my part. My cervix was completely closed. She gave me a medicine that hopefully would get my cervix to begin dilating and make progression. The medicine was like a tampon that was placed on my cervix. That night I could barely sleep. Every 20 minutes nurses kept coming in to read the NST and my blood pressure was being taken every 20 minutes automatically. Every time I moved from side to side, the NST would lose the heartbeat and they had to come in to adjust it. So it was definitely a long night.

Friday, August 28.
At about 6:00 am one of the nurses took out my medicine because my OB would be in around 7ish to examine me.

At about 7:30 am my OB arrived and did an internal on me. At that point I was 1-1.5 cm dilated. I thought to myself, wow it's going to be a long day. I couldn't start on pitocin right away because I tested positive for the GBS so I had to be given penicillin first before the pitocin so the nurse started me on a bag of penicillin.

At about 9:00 am when I was done with the penicillin she started the pitocin on me. Every 30 minutes the pitocin dosage was gradually increasing but my pain was not. The nurses kept coming in to ask me my level of pain and I had no pain at all although I could feel the contractions coming.

At noon, my OB came back in to check me and I was still at 1-1.5 cm dilated. At that point he thought maybe he would break my water, but than he decided to give me another bag of penicillin. Again the contractions were coming but I was in no pain at all.

At about 1:30 pm the nurse asked me how I was feeling and I told her I was in no pain. They kept telling me, this is not good. So she increased the pitocin so that hopefully things would start progressing. Well that definitely helped because at 3:30 pm my water broke and I was put into a delivery room. That was when the contractions started coming on quick and strong.

At 4:30 pm the nurse examined me and I was 4 cm dilated. An hour later, I was checked again and I was 6 cm dilated but I could no longer take the pain of the contractions. I was getting a break between them but when they came they were strong. I had 4 cm left to go and from what I had read the last 3 cm are the most painful ones. The pain was getting stronger with each contraction that it was bring tears to my eyes. I wanted to try to go as long as I could without the epidural but at this point I was starting to think twice.

At 6:00 pm I asked the nurse that I wanted an epidural and about 30 minutes later the anesthesiologist arrived to give me the epidural. I knew that my progression could slow down but I wouldn't be in pain. And once the epidural started working I was in heaven. I could still feel the contractions coming but I had no pain which was nice.

At 7:30 pm my OB came in to check me again and at that point I was only 6 cm dilated. That's when I realized the epidural had definitely slowed down my progression. My OB told the nurse to increase the pitocin so that I could keep on progressing. John's mom and step-dad arrived shortly after and they hung out with us for awhile. At that point, I kept feeling a lot of pressure everytime a contraction was coming although it wasn't painful.

At about 9:10 pm the nurse said that my OB wanted her to examine me again to see where I was. At that time, I was 10 cm dilated and she said, I'm surprised this baby hasn't come out yet. She said your OB wants you to start pushing. John and I were in shock that in just a few hours I was fully dilated and ready to push. His parents went outside in the waiting room, John called my family to let them know I was going to start to push, and the nurse was getting the room ready. My OB arrived and around 9:20 pm I started pushing. I pushed for about 15-20 minutes and at 9:39 pm my little boy was born; 6 lbs 8 oz and 21.5" long. John cut the umbilical cord and shortly after he was placed on me. It was amazing when I saw him for the first time. I felt like my miracle baby was finally in my arms.

About 30 minutes later my family and John's family arrived to see Little Johnny and they hung out with us for awhile.

Because I delivered after 9 pm on Friday night, I had the option to stay an additional day at the hospital which I did. I was released on Monday, August 31.

It's now been 2 weeks since he's been born and things are going really well. I tried breastfeeding but had no luck with that, so I pump and bottle feed him. He's still getting my breast milk which I'm happy with. The nights are not bad at all. I thought they would be much worse. He gets up once or twice in the middle of the night and that's it. I still get a pretty good night sleep. John has been home with me since he was born so Monday will be our first day alone. The days go by really quick now because I'm always doing something, between feeding him, pumping, and doing laundry. But everyday John and I thank God for such a beautiful baby.

And here are a few pictures of him.

His going home outfit from the hospital


Sleeping on Daddy's chest


A few hours after he was born


Sleeping on Daddy's chest again


The new family of 3