I remember the first time I found out I was pregnant, I scoured the internet for hours reading birth stories, and it gave me a newfound passion for all things birth and birth advocacy. I went in to my first labor knowing exactly what I wanted and what I didn’t want, and I was very convicted.
With Addison, I went in to labor on my own exactly one week ahead of my due date at 5 AM and had a scheduled doctor’s appointment that morning at 9 AM, so there was no guess work in “should we go to the hospital”. When we arrived at the hospital, I was dilated to a 5, and she was born at 1:00 PM. Zero complications, zero interventions, and in the middle of the day. I seriously couldn’t have planned it better myself.
This time around was totally different. My midwife told me early on that the baby was head down, and with my past experience she didn’t think I would go past 38 or 39 weeks. So basically the entire month before my due date I was on edge. I didn’t stray too far from home and I made sure AJ was always available at a moment’s notice. Also, add in the current state of the coronavirus pandemic, we basically stayed close to home the entire month of July- thinking I would go in to labor anytime.
Well, my 39 week appointment rolled around and I was so sure I would have a baby by then, that I talked to my midwife about scheduling an elective induction on my due date the following week. Due to the fact that we live over an hour away from the hospital, and my last labor was extremely fast, she was comfortable with that decision. I was only dilated to a one (at my 37, 38, and 39 week appts), but I was sure I would go in to labor before the scheduled induction. During that week, there were 3 times that we “almost” went to the hospital. I would have contractions for an hour at a time, ranging 6-8 minutes a part and then they would fizzle out. However, the following Thursday rolled around and still no baby.
I was super nervous about our hospital experience with the COVID restrictions, masks policies, etc. However, other than my COVID test ahead of time, and wearing a mask in the hallways, it really wasn’t any different than our hospital experience with Addison. The entire staff was so good about the whole situation.
We arrived at the hospital at 7 AM for the induction, and I didn’t realize how slow things would move along. The first 2 hours were spent settling in to our room, hooking up my IV (but not starting the Pitocin until I saw my midwife at 9 AM), and trying to narrow down baby names. We are the WORST people at naming children, and we literally had 5 boy and 5 girl names. I mentioned this quite often during my pregnancy, but AJ knew the gender and I chose not to, so we had to have both names narrowed down. We managed to get it down to 2 girl names and 2 boy names before Terri, my midwife, arrived to give orders to start the induction.
Timeline of labor
9:30 AM- Terri arrived, still dilated to a one and she tried to break my water (at my request). No luck, so we started Pitocin.
10:30 AM- My water broke. The nurses (we had 2- Lori and Vanessa because Vanessa was completing orientation) weren’t in the room at the time, so A.J. threw towels at me from the bathroom while gagging.
11:30 AM- Nurse came back in the room to check me. Dilated to a 4, and we were passing the time watching Friends. I impressed the nurse with my ability to basically recite every line of every episode of Friends.
12:30 AM- Dilated to a 5, contractions super manageable still at this point. I chose to use the birthing ball to keep moving and hopefully progress faster. We were watching the episode of Friends when Joey built the entertainment center, and I remember still laughing through contractions at this point. The L&D team started bringing in delivery supplies and the baby warmer at this point, and I remember thinking “I’m only dilated to a 5, we have a long ways to go.” Good thing they thought otherwise :).
1:00 PM- Things seemed like they were picking up, and I was more uncomfortable. I had told AJ going in to this labor that I wasn’t against an epidural, mainly because I expected the induction to be more intense than my labor with Addison. I told him to make me labor until 1 PM, but if I asked for an epidural after that I was serious and I wanted it. At this point, I was dilated to a 6 and thought I would try the whirlpool for relief before getting an epidural. So around 1:10 I got in the tub.
1:30 PM- In the tub, and I started shaking uncontrollably. I told AJ to call for the epidural right now and get me out of the tub. In my mind, I was dilated to a 6 and probably had hours to go yet. I just wanted to relax and “enjoy” the rest of my labor.
1:38 PM- Our nurses came back in the room, I told them I needed the epidural and Lori said I probably didn’t have time for an epidural because it would take at least 15 minutes. I was like, well, let’s get it going then- mainly because I still thought I had hours of labor left. She checked me again and I was dilated to an 8. I asked if she could just give me something in my IV to take the edge off, and she was hesitant because of how fast I was progressing, but ended up giving me a dose of Fentanyl. I’m not even kidding, it was like the best cocktail I’ve ever had- like, I wish I could have taken some home with me (kidding, but not really). My body stopped shaking, and I could completely relax- it was like my labor went back to it was at 12:00- totally manageable again. The nurse also called over to the clinic at this point for Terri to come for delivery.
1:47 PM- I told the nurse that I felt like the baby had moved down. A.J. at this point was sitting on a chair in the corner, more than likely looking at Joe Biden videos on TikTok. With my labor with Addison, I pushed for just over an hour- so again, that’s what I was preparing for. I figured she would tell me to wait for Terri to come and we could start pushing.
1:52 PM- My body started involuntarily pushing- like I couldn’t stop myself. I was laying on my side and Lori looked down and all of a sudden Alivia was out! The cord was wrapped around her neck and she didn’t start crying right away, but after a few pats to the back she let out a big cry. Terri walked in to the room about 30 seconds later!
Honestly, I was super nervous going in to this labor and being induced. I had heard absolute horror stories of inductions. However, I would 100% do it all over again. I do think this labor was more intense- but things moved fast enough that I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. It would have been a totally different experience if things were as intense as the last hour the entire time, but I really thought the whole thing was manageable and not super painful (especially with the little help from my best friend Fentanyl).
We moved up to the postpartum floor that afternoon, and having no visitors was actually kind of nice. After 24 hours we were able to be released and headed for home to meet big sister and the grandmas and grandpas!
