It was time! After months of reading ALL of the books, listening to podcasts, annoying friends with all of the questions (you know who you are), writing out my birth plan, practicing my stages of breathing using J breathing and Hypnobirthing. I WAS READY.

WRONG! I wasn’t ready at all for what was about to happen.

No one really is. 

            It was October 6, 2020, I was 39 weeks and 6 days. I woke up and noticed I had lost my mucus plug. As excited as I was about this possibly being GO TIME, I knew it could also be a while, even days or weeks. So, I started my morning as planned and went to brunch with a friend. I had my hospital bag pretty much packed and the house keeper was already deep cleaning the house in preparation for the baby’s arrival. Before leaving the house, I noticed I started leaking a little. It wasn’t enough to be worried, so I let Dan know before I left and headed to brunch. Everything was normal, no contractions, but I was still obviously leaking. After we ate, I decided it might be time to call Dan home. I drove home to shower, finish packing my bag and let my neighbors know we were heading out (someone had to feed Mr. General, our cat). When we arrived at labor and delivery my OB did an exam and sure enough my water was leaking. It hadn’t fully broken, but it was time to stay at the hospital until the baby was born. Due to COVID, Dan could only stay with me for two hours and then he had to leave. Even though I was already mentally prepared for this going into it, it still felt incredibly lonely and isolating. In the town of Weiden in der Oberpfalz all of the maternity rooms were shared so I had to spend the night laboring alone staring at my sweet German roommate who barely spoke any English. I would walk into the delivery wing every couple of hours to repeat CTG scans to monitor our progress. Of course, I was extremely nervous and too excited to sleep. The nurse gave me a sleeping pill and reassured me that it was safe to take to help me sleep through the contractions. I took the pill, which ended up being a mistake. Around 1:30am I woke up in a lot of pain and headed into the delivery area sure things had really progressed and I would finally be able to stay (once I was in delivery Dan could join me). Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I was still only 1cm dilated and the contractions weren’t close enough together. The midwife shook my belly to wake up Jackson because he wasn’t moving for the monitor. She then sent me back to my room to wait it out a little longer. Before going back to bed, I decided to pee and thank goodness, I did. When I went to the bathroom I noticed that my pad was full of dark green and brown discharge. Nervous I immediately pulled the cord to call the nurse. I knew what it meant, but wanted the confirmation.

Remember that sleeping pill? When the midwife shook him 

awake he ended up pooping in the womb.

            The nurse agreed it was time that I stayed in labor and delivery. As we were walking down the hallway my water officially broke. It was as if a water balloon had just popped in between my legs. 

During pregnancy/parenthood people will respond with “oh, you’ll just know”.

 Well I never felt like I “knew” anything, but let me tell you this is one of those moments where you will KNOW 100%.

             I waddled as fast as I could eager to call Dan and let him know I was staying in delivery so he could finally come to the hospital. When I arrived in the delivery room they said I could stay, but Dan couldn’t come yet because I wasn’t far enough along for an epidural. Naturally being the scared crazy pregnant lady I was, I started crying because I felt like I couldn’t get through the pain mentally without either Dan or the Epidural. My level of crazy paid off and victory was mine! They gave me both Dan and the epidural. The medicine kicked in immediately at 2:30am. My cervix still wasn’t dilating so they gave me some Pitocin to speed things along. I slept through all of my contractions and woke up around 8/8:30am. The midwife came back and said I was finally at 10cm. Hallelujah! It was GO TIME, but she would be back in 30 to 40 min to start pushing. Before she walked out of the door she checked my epidural. She looked at me and said “huh, your epidural ran out. Oh well we won’t give you anymore so that you can feel your pushes”. I thought okay, that sounds logical. I mean I was so numb and couldn’t feel my abs, so the thought of regaining some sort of sensation to help push didn’t sound too bad. 

 Now after working with a Pelvic Floor Physical therapist I’ve learned that not

feeling my abs wasn’t the issue.

The bigger picture is the pelvic floor muscles and being able to turn

 them on and off when working that baby out.

            No one knows when my epidural ran out, but it was LONG gone by the time Jackson came into the world. I could feel EVERYTHING. 

I’d like to add, I understand there are many women out there who give birth without an epidural every day. I am always in awe anytime I hear women saying they want to give birth naturally. Truly, those women are the strongest ones out there. I am also aware that everyone has a different pain tolerance. This is just all relative to my situation and how it impacted both my birth and postpartum mentally.