April 9, 2023. This was the day Easter fell on this year and also my favorite holiday. I was 38 and a half weeks and was determined to have my baby this day. We had a full day of traveling from Ohio to Pennsylvania to see my in-laws. I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel a single contraction or even a gut feeling that my baby may be coming on this day.
We celebrated the day like normal and end it by watching TV in bed. It was probably around 10:30pm when I started feeling what I thought were contractions. My husband was sound asleep so I laid there for maybe a half an hour longer before tapping him on the shoulder. I remember saying “ I know you’re sleeping, but I think I might be having contractions but I’m not really sure.” My midwife told me I wouldn’t be able to walk or talk through contractions that were real and I felt perfectly fine at this point so I didn’t know what was going on. Like a good husband, he pulled out his timer and began timing the contractions.
Two minutes. That’s it. They were two minutes apart (Big yikes). I decided to call the after hours nurse. She asked a few questions but ultimately told me I needed to go get checked out at the hospital. I remember trying to convince her that I didn’t need to go tonight since I had an appointment scheduled for the morning anyway (I’m stubborn, I know). She told me to pack my bags and head out. I already had bags packed for weeks, but I had to grab the essentials on the way out… SNACKS. I literally was stuffing my face on the way out of the door.
On the way to the hospital I stopped having contractions completely so I tried to convince my husband to turn around. He wouldn’t (Thank God) because by the time we got to the hospital, my contractions started and they were on a whole new level. I remember going back to triage, and it felt like years before anybody came in. As soon as a nurse came in, the first thing I told her was “I have to poop”. Me being a nurse, I knew I probably didn’t have to and it was just the baby but then again, I don’t work in labor and delivery so I wasn’t sure. The nurse got me all set up on the monitors and at that point, she realized I was in active labor.
The resident came in soon after that and I was 4 cm dilated so they moved me back to a room. It didn’t take long before I had an IV and I was signing papers to receive my epidural. At this point, I was in excruciating pain and all I could say is “I have to poop”. I probably said it at least 100 times lol.
I got my epidural which was painful, but made all the feeling of my contractions go away (I literally don’t know how women do natural labor. Those are some bada$$ ladies). I was eating Jell-O (again stuffing my face) when I felt a weird sensation down there. I looked at my husband and I said “I think my water broke or I pooped myself”. I couldn’t move my legs at this point because of the epidural so my husband took a look under the blanket and sure enough my water broke.
We called the nurse in and the midwife followed soon after. The midwife confirmed that my water broke and told me that she would be back in a few hours to see how much I’ve progressed. All I could say, is “I have to poop”. She decided to check to see how dilated I was at that point, and I will never forget the words that came out of her mouth. She said “just kidding, we’re having a baby now. That’s not poop, that’s his head”
Everything moved pretty quickly after that. My husband on one leg, a nurse on the other leg. Thank God for modern medicine because I laughed the entire time I pushed. 15 minutes. That’s all it took. At 2:30am on April 10th, I birthed a 6lb 1oz beautiful baby boy.
The birth went perfect, even though the midwife had some problems with stopping my bleeding. My baby was healthy and our hearts were so full.
Now the problems set in. I had all of these dreams of exclusively breast-feeding and I never thought twice about it. But my baby wouldn’t latch. I had nurse after nurse and lactation consultant after lactation consultant come in and spend hours trying to help us. Eventually, the doctor decided to just supplement some formula because my baby just seemed miserable. He literally chugged the formula.
My heart was shattered, and I spent pretty much the rest of our stay at the hospital crying because all I wanted to do was have the perfect breast-feeding journey and it just wasn’t going the way I planned.
Our journey is a story for another time, but regardless of how things went down I know I have a perfectly healthy eight month old baby boy.
Thank you for reading my birth story!
xoxo,
Sydney
