As someone who hadn't made any progress, dilation, effacement, and so on-wise, for weeks, I'd just about given up on giving birth any time before fourty-one weeks. So when I ended up having my baby at 40+5, I almost felt early.

On last Wednesday, 40+4, I went to my routine OB visit and was told that I was finally 1-2 cm dilated. Had dropped a lot, too. Plans were to check on things on the following Monday and plan for induction.

I ended up waking up that next morning, about 3AM, with the most massive cramps. I pulled out a contraction timer app I found, and timing them was confusing to me... after awhile, it really hurt, and I thought I was going at 4.5 minutes per contraction, so husband and I headed to triage, half-waiting to be turned away.

Wasn't. 4cm dilated when they checked me, and I was right about the 4.5 minutes. Getting to 8cm wasn't that bad. I asked for the epidural at 7, thinking it'd likely work because most everyone I'd asked-- my mom, who's an OR nurse and has worked with two obstetricians, my own obstetrician, one of the two birth planners I'd met with, and silly Dr. Google-- made me believe that it'd probably, but not certainly, work out for me, despite my having steel Harrington rods in my back due to scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and a pretty severe curve.

Even having the anesthesiologist on duty feel for the epidural space hurt. like. hell. I have a huge black welt on my back from the effort. Supposedly the anesthesiologist on duty was even a favorite with the nurses, so it's not like I had a crappy dude trying to help. So I went basically med-free, unless you count a little pitocin at the very end and local anesthetic for the episiotomy I ended up having to have (I'd always planned to just tear, as everything I read said that was better, but pushing was just not getting me all the way there. ONE push after the cut, and he came right out! I totally see that episiotomies aren't as clearly worse as tearing as I thought.)

Delivering without epidural hurt crazy-bad. As crazy as I know this sounds, my mind went to Dr. Kevorkian and dying with dignity and thinking, yeah, I totally get it. Or to yeah, I know they said they can see the hair, but maybe a C-section would be good? Never yelled cursing or anything, but I did say that I know I wasn't progressing well, regardless of what they're saying, and that I seriously can't do this anymore. Birthing ball did not a damn thing for me.

It was intense, but in the end, it was only a 12-hour ordeal. Felt the pain in bed at 3AM, at the hospital at 4, the bulk of the contractions, pain and pushing was between 9 and through the afternoon, and I gave birth at 2:42PM.

7 pounds, 9 ounces, 22 inches. 9/9 APGAR. No idea what degree tear I had. He's way more beautiful than I ever expected. Slight jaundice, but breastfeeding should be enough to rectify that, and his hands/feet are a little colder/bluer than ideal. Nothing major. I love him. :)

If there's any one thing I wish I knew earlier about post-delivery, it's this. Don't be surprised if the 2-3 hours between breastfeedings you're told isn't how it always is. Cluster feeds suck. Orrin can feed for an hour straight, then my husband can help hold him off for between 15 minutes (yes, seriously) and an hour between there for me to sleep, use the restroom, or eat, when it's bad, which is often. But supposedly, this is normal from time to time, and it passes. Thankfully, my cute little boy is worth it :)

TLDR: You know those birth stories you see on TV where people want all-natural deliveries, then shit gets in the way and they're thrown into an epidural despite their best wishes? Yeah, well, I was the opposite. Forced into almost no meds. But we made it, and all is well!