TL;DR 14 hour labor started at 7 a.m when I woke up and ended at 9:07 p.m after 30 minutes of pushing with a healthy 7lb 9oz, 19 1/2 in baby girl. Only one shot of Stadol (spelling?) for pain relief while in transition. Achieved my goal of no epidural and freaked out the nurses haha Only interventions were 1mg Stadol injection and I allowed them to break my water. Yay it is over!!!! Pictures at the end.

To preface I had hardly any signs of labor before actually going into labor. The only symptoms I really had were some cramping off and on for the 9 days before I went into labor and I started losing my mucus plug 2 days before going into labor. I didn't have my bloody show until my labor was at least halfway over. I'm not sure if I really had any contractions leading up to it because even while in hard labor I never felt the typical tightening of the uterus, though you could see it and the nurses could feel it when they touched me. The day before going into labor I was 2 cm and 80% effaced.

I woke up at 7 a.m on Thursday morning to the sound of my husband cooking me breakfast before work for my birthday. I stayed in bed trying to get a bit more sleep and realized that I was having some low back pain off and on. The pain was pretty much nothing at this point. I eat my breakfast, get ready for work, and have two contractions that make me pause before leaving.

I get to work about 8:45 a.m and the contractions start picking up. My coworker and I try to time them but it is difficult because we have a lot of distractions. Eventually we realize they are typically 3-4 minutes apart and lasting for a minute already. This freaks my husband out so he comes to get me at noon and I am starting to focus through contractions at this point but the pain level is still nothing I can't handle. We go home so he can take a shower and I attempt to time contractions and finish packing the diaper bag. Contractions are about 3 minutes apart and averaging a minute long. My mom and husband are a little freaked out so they convince me to go to the hospital.

We arrive at the hospital about 2:00 p.m and get checked in. They check me and I am 3 cm and 90% effaced. I am allowed to walk around for an hour and contractions pick up during this time. I have to stop and squat through most contractions. We go back in the room and this time I am 4 cm, paper thin, and the water bag is bulging. Of course, now they want to monitor me for an hour and they are having trouble picking up the contractions and baby's heart rate. They also want to start an IV...yay. The nurse pokes my hand three times and then gets it in the other hand. The other nurse at this point is kind of a bitch. I tell them I don't want an epidural and the nurse has this attitude of yeah sure you won't get one. I ask about walking more because my contractions slowed since getting in the bed and she makes up some stupid excuse about needing to see my contractions, blah blah the doctor doesn't like that. I convince them to let me sit on the birthing ball and they don't like that either of course because it is hard to monitor me. My mom is the one standing up for me at this point because I have a horrible habit of running away from any type of conflict, on some level I even want my mom to be quiet. Anyway, they get me stuck in the bed and get a good look at my contractions. I can't remember if they check me now or come back to admit me now. I was 5 cm sometime around now.

They finally admit me around 4 p.m. The contractions are still coming every 3 minutes and the pain is still very tolerable to me but it definitely requires my attention.They start bringing more stuff in the room. They also tell me that it will be a male doctor on duty when I deliver. I was kind of upset about this. I had picked an office with only women for a reason but he was a good doctor and when it came time to push I would have let anyone down there if it meant getting the baby out. This is when I really lose track of time. I am going to do my best here but we won't have a very good time frame. I am going to guess the doctor came in around 6 to break my water. I was 5-6 cm at this point I believe. I was a little nervous about them breaking my water because I had heard the stories of how much they increased the pain but I didn't notice too much of a difference for probably an hour. Looking back on it now I would have had them wait a little longer but the idea of a shorter labor then was too tempting. The pain is still nothing I can't handle. Eventually someone checks me again and I am 6-7 cm.

Around the time I am 7 cm and am in transition the contractions get horrible. It seemed they suddenly went from bad to excruciating. I need my mom and/or husband there with me during contractions now, while before I mostly wanted to be left alone. They are helping me breathe through them and I am starting to yell through some. Someone brings up IV meds and I agree to some Stadol, even though I was afraid of how it would go. The Stadol does very little, if I hadn't known it was injected into the IV I don't think I would have known that they gave me anything. I think it stopped me from yelling out a few times during 2 contractions. Shortly after the Stadol, I start feeling like I have to poop during contractions. They check me and I think I was 7-8 still. I have no idea how much times passes but they are bringing lots of stuff and some guy comes into get my blood. Poor guy haha I can't sit still and I'm like hurry hurry hurry. Plus he probably got quite the eyeful lmao It was at this time that my gown was barely hanging onto me and I didn't care. They had put an internal monitor in for contractions and I hated that thing. I yelled during every contraction that I wanted it out and finally they did take it out. At some point they check me and I am 8-9 cm.

I ripped out my IV twice on accident from moving during contractions. It was awful to stay still while they did the IV again and again. I don't know how you ladies stay still for an epidural. I was way into transition at this point though. It would have been much easier earlier into labor. I also started shaking uncontrollably at this point. Around this time I start yelling that I need to push and I want to push now. The nurse checks me and moves a last little bit of cervix out of the way and I am ready to push!!

Pushing is actually my least favorite part of the whole thing. I thankfully only pushed for about 30 minutes or so. I have no idea how some of you ladies push for hours! I would have lost my mind.For some reason I questioned myself as to when a contraction is starting. I hated the feeling of having to push and pushing is hard. It was different than I imagined. I push through several contractions and finally feel her slide down. They say she has a head full of dark hair and I was so surprised because I have bright red hair! I push through another two contractions and her head popped out! It literally felt like it popped out. In my head I can hear a cartoon popping noise haha I didn't really experience much of a ring of fire. The doctor was helping stretch me out and I think that helped a lot. She had meconium in her fluid so they had me stop pushing so they could clear her airway. I push again and her body came out. I won't say slide out because it was not that easy. Her chest was actually a tiny bit bigger than her head! (I could tell!). I was so glad she was out that I didn't know they hadn't taken her to the warmer yet. I watched the doctor cut the cord and they handed her off to clear her lungs of fluid and clean her off. I am still upset I didn't get her skin to skin right away. I was shaking so bad still, I don't know how the doctor stiched my one 2nd degree tear. I also have a varicose vein and owww it hurts. I don't even feel the stiches.

I finally get my little girl and start crying. I just kept staring at her little face and couldn't be close enough to her. She is so cute!! We are so smitten with her. My husband is entranced by her but feels bad because I am breastfeeding and he feels like there isn't much for him to do.

If my husband convinces me to go through this all again I will be going drug free again. I loved not getting the epidural! I was up about 15 hours after she was born taking a shower and I walked to my recovery room an hour after she was born. Besides my varicose vein recovery down there has been quite easy!