Babygirl finally made her way into the world on Sunday August 3rd at 2:56pm, after an extra 13 days
of cook time. She was 8lbs 13oz and 20.25in long. She made us wait until the very last day before the
doctors wanted to induce, but she also waited until my birthday, so I’ll forgive her 🙂
Our birth story:
On Friday August 1st, after getting acupuncture, I finally started to have some contractions that
were noticeable but not painful. That night those contractions increased to more of a cramping
that was difficult to sleep through. Contractions continued on Saturday but were not very
consistent, but seemed to be increasing and at about 12:30 at night they were much closer
together and I thought that my water may have broken, so we decided to go into the hospital.
Once at the hospital after some monitoring and a test to see if my water had broken, my
contractions were 3-7 min apart and my water hadn’t broken. So the lovely nurse told us to come
back for my appointment on Monday (to talk about inducing), needless to say I was extremely
annoyed by her instructions and so we asked her to do a cervical check. I was 4-5cm dilated
when just the day before I had only been 2, so I was clearly progressing. The nurse suggested we
hang around and walk for about an hour and she’d check again. After an hour I was 6cm and so
they finally decided to admit us at 3:30am. At this point the breathing techniques and light tough
massage was making the contractions much more manageable. Even with non-continuous
monitoring, I had a hard time staying in a relaxed state because they would come in about every
30 minutes to put the monitors back on and check her. Later on at times they had a hard time
positioning them and would physically hold them in place and it felt like the pressure made the
contractions worse. I wish I had the nurses leave the monitors on and just turn down the volume
so that I didn’t have to listen to the continuous beeping. At one point I got into the tub and found
it to be very helpful for reducing the discomfort. I think it was all pretty manageable up until the
last hour or so before pushing. Because we were in a hospital they did cut off solid foods and so
I think I was a bit dehydrated and hungry and I’m sure that made the contractions worse and I
was pretty shaky towards the end. By the time that things got to be more uncomfortable, I tried
the tub again but it wasn’t quite as relieving as before, but at this point Babygirl was still
posterior and lower down so that is probably why. At this point we had a change in nurses and
we lucked out and got a nurse that had done hypnobirthing and for some reason I had an easier
time listening to her than Dad. I definitely hit the point where I wanted to bring on the drugs, but
everyone knew that’s not what I wanted and were very encouraging and while I hated hearing it
while I was in labor I’m so glad that I didn’t give in. It finally came time to push and our
wonderful new nurse reminded me to push into the pressure which I had totally forgotten about
and found it very helpful. After about an hour it was finally over and instant relief once she came
out and only had a tiny tear that didn’t require stitches. The women in the videos are amazing for
being so quiet because I definitely was not, but other than that it is completely doable and you
guys will do great!
-JB, McMinnville
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