A Birth Day Story

Today’s post is about this cutie. 

She just turned three on Sunday! So because it was her birthday, I thought I’d share with you a short story of her birth!

The night before Talia was born, I was having some contractions they weren’t super painful and were still about 10-12 minutes apart. I was keeping track on a little notepad and I can remember Matt asking me often, are you having another one? I never had contractions with Stella because I was induced. I wasn’t sure what to expect or how things were going to go. The contractions I was having with Talia became more consistent and a bit more painful as the evening went on. I called the hospital and they said if I felt like I needed to come in, do it. I remember it was about midnight when I decided I was just going to try and sleep because it probably wasn’t labor. I tried using the heating pad to relieve some pain and took a Benadryl to help me sleep. Neither of those things helped, as I woke up 15 minutes later, still in pain. I didn’t want to go in to the hospital yet because they said contractions needed to be 3-5 minutes apart. At this point they were still 5-8 minutes apart. It was about 2:45 am when I finally decided we should probably go to the hospital. 

We got our toddler out of bed and loaded her in the car. We didn’t want to bother anyone if it was nothing, so we just took her with us. When we got to the hospital at 3 am, I was already dilated to a 7, so they took me to a room right away. Things were moving pretty quick and they were prepping everything so there really wasn’t time to call for someone to get Stella. We told her to quietly lay down, and she fell back to sleep in the chair in the corner of the delivery room. 

The contractions were really strong at the point, and I was progressing so fast they told me an epidural was no longer an option. It was super painful and as each contraction happened, I remember looking at the ceiling a lot of the time because it had a lot of little squares. Side thought: During this pregnancy I played candy crush--a lot! So each little tile on the ceiling to me was a candy crush game which actually got me through labor. My doctor arrived fairly quickly. 

I was fully dilated by 5 am, and by 5:15 our beautiful baby girl had arrived. Shortly after she was born we were all moved to our room and Stella woke up. 

A few minutes later my husband was asleep and now I was awake with a newborn and a toddler and did I mention I just gave birth? I mean, waiting for a baby to come is exhausting right? Perhaps the adrenaline wore him out or maybe he was tired because he had been up almost 24 hours!

So now it's your turn. What did you do to help you get through labor? Did any of your husbands fall asleep?