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!

 

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-JB, McMinnville