I want to thank Jamie from Jamie Isaacs Photography for coming to the hospital at the crack of dawn and for staying for hours to help capture my son's birth. I have attached some of those images in this post. Check out her work by clicking Here and visiting her website. She is also found on Facebook and Instagram (@omgitsjamielee). Her work is amazing!



The last thing that I wanted was to deliver my baby boy eariler than 40 weeks. I wanted him to arrive right on schedule but of course life does not always work out the way we would like. Instead at 38 weeks and 6 days I delivered my beautiful baby boy.

I was so swollen from my preeclampsia (That is what caused me to swell and have protein in my urine and high blood pressure. It is not fun and not safe for the baby.). 

The long hours of labor began. I remember the first couple of hours were fine. I didn't feel anything at all and even walked around the hospital to try and help speed things up, even though I didn't want that at all. 

Oh and I have to mention this because it is funny. So my husband was so excited that I was induced because he wanted me to have our son on Labor Day. Which is not fair that he got what he wanted because I was the one about to push out a child. But on top of that, he had mentioned the day before that he wanted to watch the Back To The Future movies and guess what was playing on the television; A marathon of those movies. He got exactly what he wanted and that did not make me happy. Of course looking back on it now, it is funny.

Once I could feel my contractions they started out feeling like period cramps. I noticed that my upbeat mood was slowly going away and I started to feel tired. The cramps got worse and worse but I didn't ask for any pain medication yet. I didn't want any until I couldn't handle the pain anymore. 

The hospital bed was so uncomfortable to me. Thankfully they had a massage chair in the room that I slept a few hours in. It was so nice to have and  it even had heat which eased my contractions. By 3:00AM I really started to hurt. 

Contractions are hard to describe. It felt like really really intense period cramps and it also felt as if someone was twisting my insides and stabbing my stomach. It sucked, not going to lie. I wanted to try to deal with the pain on my own so I tried walking around the hospital, which did not seem to help much. I ended up having to stop walking everytime I had a contraction. 

I then took a nice warm bath in the jacuzzi tub they had in my room but that didn't even help. My husband stayed by my side while my mother in law, cousin Ashley, and best friend Stephanie stayed in our room. There wasn't much anyone could do and I was about to go crazy with as much pain as I was in. When I had a contraction, the bottom of my stomach was flat and the top of my stomach stuck out. It was really weird to watch.

Finally I caved and asked the nurse for anything to help ease the pain. When she checked to see how much I had dilated I was a 7! No wonder I was hurting so badly. She gave me a low dose of stadol to help ease my pain until the anaesthesiologist was able to give me my epidural. 

I regret taking the stadol because it didn't help the pain and it just made me feel shaky and sick to my stomach. By the time the anaesthesiologist arrived it was around 6:00 AM. When the nurse checked to see how much I had dialated, I was at a 10 and the pain was unbearable. 

 To my surprise the nurses said they were shocked to see me that dialated because to them, I didn't act like I was 10 centimeters dialated. Inside my head, I was screaming. I held it together and toughed it out as long as I could but I just couldn't take it any longer. I seriously don't know how women do it without medication. I have so much respect for them. 

I begged the anaesthesiologist to hurry. I just wanted some relief but it felt like he took an hour to give me my epidural. I had to roll on my side because I couldn't bend over or even sit because my son was so low. I remember squeezing my husbands hand and grunting as loud as I could. I kept saying "I'm sorry if I'm being mean but could you hurry up! I'm grunting because it's helping me with the pain." I thought I was being so mean but everyone swears I wasn't. 

Finally I felt some relief once the epidural kicked in and my midwife was kind enough to let me rest for an hour before we started to push. I needed that rest so bad. While I slept, my photographer made it and I am so thankful that she was able to be there to capture my son's birth. 

I started to worry once I woke up after sleeping for an hour and a half because I could feel my contractions again. Before it was time to push, my cousin and best friend made sure to fix my hair and put makeup on me. I'm very thankful for that but at the time I could of cared less. 

The contractions started to get worse and it was finally time to push. At first I would push for 8 seconds and 3 times and would stop even when my contraction was still going. I did not know the best way to push at all. It took me a few tries and by the second hour I finally started making progress. I would push as much as I could, sometimes 10 or 11 seconds and 4 good pushed before the contraction would let up. I started to feel sick everytime I pushed. It was because of the stadol. Thankfully I didn't puke all over my midwife.

I kept my eyes on my husband because looking up at him helped to keep me sane. I prayed to god to give me the stregth to keep going because I felt so tired and the pain was intense. At one point my husband had a cramp in his side from holding my leg up and I looked at him like I wanted his head to explode. There was no way he was in as much pain as I was.

My cousin and best friend sat on the couch that was next to my bed. The photographer was balanced on the edge of the couch and the cabinet, my mother in law help my left leg and kept whispering encouraging words in my ear, my husband held my right leg and counted for me, and my wonderful midwife guided me through each push. After 2 hours of pushing my son was born on 9-7-15 (Labor Day) at 10:05 AM.

He weighted 5 pounds and 11 ounces and was 19 inches long.  

I remember feeling a huge relief once he came out and an over whelmimg sense of happiness and love when I saw my midwife hold him up. He was the most beautiful baby boy I had ever laid my eyes on and I love him so much. I remember saying "I want him." While she was cleaning him. My husband bent over to kiss me three times with tears pouring down his cheeks as he whispered how much he loved me. Everyone else in the room vanished and I focused on my beautiful new family. 

I held my son for the first hour during our kangaroo time. I remember feeling his cord and it hurt like hell when my midwife pushed on my stomach to make the placenta come out. Talk about gross. My mother inlaw helped me to get him to latch on to my breast and he got a few good sucks which made me so happy. I was so excited to be able to breastfeed.  

 I tried to enjoy my time holding my son for the first time but after a while I started to get worried. I was bleeding way to much and my midwife even had to call in another doctor to help stich me up. She said my skintone was really pale and I started to feel as if I could pass out. My mother finally made it and was able to see my son during our kangaroo time. I was so happy to see her and her presences took my mind off of the pain. 

 

After an hour my eyes grew heavier and heavier and finally the nurses took my son and I went to sleep. I missed them finishing my stitching, measuring and giving my son his first bath. I didn't even get to say goodbye to the photographer or my midwife. But I was thankful for the sleep because when I woke up I felt more energized to visit with family and friends. 

The first time I was able to stand up, with the help of two nurses, I had a wave of dizziness and nausea hit me. I had the nurses to rush me to the toilet so I could sit down and I ended up throwing up into the trash can. All I could see was black dots and it scared me. 

After a few minutes I felt a little better and was able to learn how to clean myself and take care of my "down stairs". It didn't look as bad as I thought it would. I was swollen and a little bloody but nothing like I had expected. 

Over all I would say that my first birthing experience was a success. I couldn't of done it without my family, friends, my husband, the nurses, or my wonderful midwife. Having a great support team makes a huge difference. I am so blessed to have a healthy baby boy. Words can never describe the love a mother feels the first time she sees her baby. 

Speaking of my son, he is crying as I finish his birth story. So I am going to end this post, take care of him, and I plan to write about the first week of his life and everything else I can think of to share soon. 

Thank you so much for reading my story.