I recently discovered this subreddit, and my son's birth was interesting, so I thought I'd post it. He's 3 now.

I was 41 weeks.Waiting for the hospital to have space to do an induction. They finally called at 3PM saying they had a room. I went home from where I was, packed, and my sister drove me in. (My SO was working). I was admitted and settled by 6PM and they started me on what I think was a picton drip. Then me and my sister settled in with a movie on her laptop and waited. Around 10PM I started getting sore and having what I now know as back labour. It sucked. So they gave me a shot of morphine. That knocked me out cold until 3AM. I woke up and walked around a bit, there didn't seem to be any contractions. But I was still having decent back pain. They checked me and I was 3CM. Woo. So I got another shot of morphine and I passed back out for a couple hours. At 8ishAM they upped the drip and I passed time watching TV and snoozing. My sister had gone home for a bit to deal with getting her kids to school. They sent me walking. I made it to the food court and back before I had to lay down again. Not 5 minutes after I laid down my water broke. Like a HUGE gush. It was everywhere. The bed, the floor, on me. I called the nurse and obviously yes, it was my water. They sent me for a shower and cleaned up the water.

Then the real contractions started. OW. The problem was they were so close together couldn't tell them apart. It wasn't waves it was just gut wrenching pain. It took half an hour to get someone for the epidural. The epidural made me loopy. I laid in bed, not feeling anything, which was way better than the pain I was in before. The problem was, I couldn't feel the contractions. The monitor said they were happening. But I felt nothing. I watched TV for a bit, with nurses checking me every hour. Finally, shortly after 3PM. I was ready to push. I didn't feel anything, so I was like, oh, Okay, lets do this. So my sister stood on one side of me, my mom on the other. My dad and my SO were sent outside. (To be perfectly honest he wasn't my SO at the time even though it ended up being his kid. But that's a whole other story)

After a few practice pushes they asked if my labour could be observed by a class that was touring the hospital. I was so loopy from the epidural that I said sure. An hour and a half of pushing later, he got stuck. We could see his head. But it wouldn't move. So they tried forceps. Couldn't get a safe grip. Next was the vacuum. They attached it to his head, started it, and it made a horrifying POP noise. I almost had a heart attack. I thought they had removed his head. (He had too much hair, they couldn't get a seal on the suction cup).

After being reassured by my doctor that it was indeed still attached, we decided to push some more. They did a full Episiotomy to help. After a total of 3 hours of active pushing, the doctor was getting nervous, told my sister the baby needed to come out NOW. (I didn't know until afterwards that he had prepped a room for C-section right then). So we had one final push to get him. Completely exhausted, I gave it everything I had left in me.

And out he came. 6:28PM. 27 hours after I was admitted.

Still screaming and bloody they dropped him on my chest. After a few seconds of cuddling they scooped him up to clean and weigh him, so they could stitch up my cut.

All I heard after that was my sister screaming "OMG I can't believe you just did that!!!"

He was 9 full pounds. Largest baby to ever come out of my family.

Final count of people in my room for the birth:

1 Doctor, 2 Nurses, My sister, My mom, An entire nursing class of students (Approx. 9 students), My dad, And my SO.

It was nuts. Everyone got to say hi to the baby and then everyone but my sister, my mom, and my SO was shipped out.

He BF'd like a champ. We stayed the night to make sure everything was good. We were discharged at 9AM.

Hope you enjoyed it! Here's hoping my next birthing experience has a few less people (She's due in Feb)

-YLB

Edited for clarity and a couple missed words.