Monday, April 22nd: We had my 40-week appointment with my midwife and I was 1 centimeter dilated and 50% effaced. We decided to sweep membranes to hopefully get something going.
Tuesday, April 23rd: I woke up with some cramps and they continued throughout the day.
Wednesday, April 24th: I was officially four days past my due date. Nick and I had stayed up late the night before watching TV (my last day of work was April 18th so I had been a bit lax on my bedtime… not a good idea since statistically a lot of women go into labor in the evenings!) I remember waking up to a contraction at 1:19 in the morning. The feeling of a contraction was familiar for me because in May of 2018 I had a “mini” six hour labor when my body passed our first baby after he/she passed away at 9 weeks gestation.
This contraction was very manageable and short and I was able to easily lay in bed through it. I didn’t get too excited yet because I was told that once contractions started that I needed to 1) Rest/sleep and 2) Labor at home as long as possible, but within a minute or so I felt my water break. It wasn’t a “gush” but I knew that I was not peeing the bed and it was, in fact, my water breaking! This obviously made me get out of bed and sure enough, it continued to “break” and I knew that this was the real thing. I had prayed that my water would break because, in my naivety, I thought that this meant labor would go quicker and I also wanted a sure sign that labor was starting. At that point, I knew I needed to rest but I also knew I wanted to shower before going to the hospital and I didn’t know how long I had before we’d be heading there. I decided I’d gently wake Nick and let him know but I didn’t want to alarm him. But, I guess when you tell your husband your water broke that they don’t just say “okay” and go back to sleep.
Before too long I was done showering, we ensured our hospital bags were completely packed, and we started timing contractions. By 4AM my contractions were lasting anywhere from 1 minute-1.5 minutes and were between 2-5 minutes apart, varying in intensity. I began shaking, which is normal, and felt like I was ready to go to the hospital fairly soon. At 4:30AM I lost my mucus plug and we got in the car to go to Mercy Hospital shortly after 5AM.
They admitted me into triage and at 6:05AM when the nurse checked, I was 2cm dilated and 80% effaced. Since my water had indeed broken, I was able to head to the Low Intervention Birthing Suite around 7:30AM. I was so thankful to have an amazing nurse whom I knew from a life group we were in years prior. She would be leaving at 7PM that evening and I remember laughing thinking, “Oh, I’ll definitely have this baby before then!”
My first experience with frustration came when they tried to put an IV in. It took 3 nurses and 4 sticks to finally get a vein (I have terrible veins!). At this point, my contractions had not changed much (still varying in intensity and were 2-4 minutes apart).
08:40AM: Eat breakfast of oatmeal (disgusting), bacon, and fruit from the hospital cafeteria
09:00AM: 3-4cm dilated
09:26AM: Nick texted our families to notify them we were at the hospital but also asked them not to come and sit in the waiting room because it may still be a while! Boy did we underestimate that!
At 10:20AM we decided to walk down the hallways and see if that would encourage stronger contractions and move things along. Once out in the hallway, I was disappointed to come to the realization that my body was taking too long (in my mind) to adjust to new positions/atmospheres and anytime I would try and change things up, my contractions slowed down. While out in the hallway I only had a few contractions so we headed back to the suite.
11:30AM: I took an unintentional 30 minute nap with intense contractions every 8-10 minutes. This was, again, disappointing because I knew the contractions needed to be closer together for me to make more progress.
12:00PM: My birth photographer, Lindsey, had left earlier since things had slowed down. At this time she returned and brought me a sandwich from Mama Jeans. Little did I know that this would be my last meal for quite a while (I wouldn’t eat for over 24 hours later!) so I am thankful she brought it because I HATE hospital food!
01:00PM: I decided to take a shower in the suite bathroom. I loved the birthing suite because it felt like a hotel room rather than a hospital room. Sadly, this didn’t do a whole lot to help my contractions speed up, and instead, my pulse began to get very high (140+) and this worried my midwife a bit.
02:10PM: I was given IV fluids to try and drive my pulse down and they also used this time to monitor my contractions and the baby. I had found a position on the bed using the “peanut ball” that I noticed gave me consistent contractions that were intense. Although I hated it, I knew I needed to stay in that position to keep the contractions coming. Pain equaled progress and with it being over 12 hours in, I knew I needed to encourage the pain in whatever way I could.
03:50PM: My midwife checked me again and I was 4-5cm dilated, 95% effaced and baby girl was at -1 station (i.e. getting low!) This was encouraging to me because although I was exhausted (running on less than 2 hours of sleep), I was happy to hear “5 centimeters” and that she was in a good position. Thankfully, I never had any back labor!
06:14PM: I was checked again. Normally it’s not encouraged to check dilation often since my water had broken, but I was desperate for updates and I think my caretakers were too. I also hated the feeling of them checking dilation because it was painful for me and usually made me have a strong contraction. I was still 5cm dilated, 95% effaced, and baby girl was at 0 station. Two hours had passed with what felt like consistent and intense contractions and yet I had not dilated. I held on to the fact that my baby was dropping lower, and I suppose that kept me going. The mothering instinct kicks in and a determination overcomes a laboring woman! BUT, I cried. I cried hard and wanted so badly for progress and felt like I was doing something wrong. But, labor takes time. First babies take time. Every body and baby is different. So I held on. Nick would later say that he knew I felt awful and was in pain because I was willing to lay on this dirty looking exercise ball without wanting to clean it off first, haha!
06:40PM Shift change was coming up at 7PM and my amazing nurse prayed over me and Emery before leaving. It was amazing and made me cry. Really anything could have made me cry. I felt like I was failing and I couldn’t have made it through without my incredible husband, nurses, and midwives. At 7:00PM, I met the nurse that would take care of us until 7:00AM. I once again thought that this would be the nurse who would deliver our baby! She’ll definitely be here by 7AM!
09:00PM I tried showering again and it just made me frustrated and more uncomfortable. I was already shaking intermittently throughout the day due to hormones, and the shower made me cold and made it worse. I also had an annoyingly placed IV and couldn’t bend my right arm comfortably so drying off from a shower wasn’t worth the energy I had to expend. I did have some contractions but decided I liked being dry more than I did being in the water so I was not in long.
10:50PM: At this time, I was sure that I had dilated as my contractions were really painful, consistently 1-2 minutes long, and happening fairly close together (2-3 minutes). How did we remember all of this? Weeks before I went into labor I had Nick download a contraction counter app on his phone and we also started a “Labor Timeline” note on our phones so we could remember these details.
Nick was exhausted because he was working hard doing pressure points on my back and toe (he learned those in our birthing class! Shout out to Julie White with JuJu Babies!) since everything started, not to mention just the stress of the day. So, we had my birth photographer who is also a doula come back in. She helped do pressure points on my back while Nick would hold my hand during contractions.
Thursday, April 25th, 12:30AM: I was checked again and I could tell on the nurse’s face it wasn’t good news. I was still only dilated to 5 centimeters. No improvement. If I thought I felt defeated earlier, then this was one hundred times worse. We were coming up on 24 hours of laboring naturally, on two hours of sleep, and I didn’t want to “give up” but I was fading fast. I broke down in tears into Nick’s arms there in the birthing suite, an entire day of daylight spent in that dark room. For the very first time, I considered an epidural.
I have wanted to have natural labor for as long as I can remember. I wanted to prove to myself I could do something hard and oddly enough, considered out of the ordinary for most people. I wanted to be holistic in my approach to birth and what I felt God leading me to, and I had prepared for natural labor in every way I knew how. I had come to terms with the pain because I knew my reward would be worth it. I felt like getting this intervention was “giving up” (this was a personal decision of course. In no way did I minimize anyone else’s birth decisions). My other midwife was on duty at this point and came in the room and I cried in her arms too. I needed my team to let me know I wasn’t a failure and that’s exactly what they did. I wasn’t giving up and I had already proven my strength at that point. I took another 15 minutes to decide what to do. Between contractions Nick and I discussed it. I decided I wanted the epidural. Once I made that switch in my mind, I wanted it right then and there.
By 01:00AM we moved to a regular Labor and Delivery room. It took another hour and at 02:00AM, after fluids, I got an epidural. It felt a little funny and kind of hurt, but thankfully I didn’t have a contraction during it and the pain wasn’t even close to the pain of my contractions. My midwife decided to let my body try to dilate on its own before administering pitocin (which I was thankful for). Unfortunately, by 04:00AM they decided my contractions were not strong enough and I wasn’t progressing much on my own so they began Pitocin.
06:00AM: The nurse checked and I was still dilated to 5 centimeters. WHAT!? I began worrying that I was going to need a c-section. They decided to increase my Pitocin. By 07:00AM, it was shift change again and I had the same nurse I started with the day prior (my friend). If you would have told me I’d be in labor through three shift changes I would never have believed you!
08:45AM: I was finally dilated to 8cm and baby was at +1! Still not where I wanted to be, but so thankful for some progress. During these hours, Nick, my photographer, and I were able to (uncomfortably) sleep. I needed to move from side to side every 30 minutes or so, but the rest was much needed especially in preparation for pushing soon! I began getting a slight fever, but as they monitored my contractions and baby, everything else was looking good. Something that was a huge nuisance during this time was the pregnancy rash on my stomach (known as PUPPS. I developed it around week 35 of pregnancy and it is awful!). It was extremely itchy and made me so uncomfortable, especially with the bands they had attached to my stomach to monitor. It was around 11:00AM that I put on some powder, lip gloss, and got to brush my teeth (while in the bed of course). Oh, how glorious! I also drank lots of water, Gatorade, and had a lemon icee and cranberry juice from the hospital cafeteria. I hadn’t eaten in a while so this was a treat.
By 12:05PM I was finally fully dilated to a 10! Praise God! Things moved very quickly from here and I started pushing at 12:07. I was incredibly excited to meet my daughter but I also had a lot of anxiousness coming upon me with what pushing would be like. This was finally the real deal. My nurse got a standing mirror and I was able to watch the progress and it helped keep me focused and motivated. I was still able to feel most contractions but it was mostly a lot of pressure rather than the pain I felt before the epidural. I remember asking often if I was having a contraction and if it was okay for me to push.
02:27PM: On hour 37 and after over 2 hours of pushing, Emery Britt Bacon was born! They laid her on my chest and I started crying. It was a surreal moment and the most beautiful moment of my life thus far. Words don’t really do it justice. However, it was a moment that was quickly disrupted as I began hemorrhaging and they had difficulty finding where the bleeding was coming from. I ended up losing 800mL of blood and also had some blood clots. My midwife, the nurses, and the doctor that came in did a fabulous job of disguising the seriousness of what was happening and I’m thankful for their quick response. I, of course, was preoccupied just looking at my baby the entire time and was so thankful she was healthy. Nick, however, said that the whole situation was a bit scary. My midwife would eventually tell me that this happened due to a very long labor and my water being broke for a long time, a big baby (8 pounds, 15 ounces!), and a lot of Pitocin. We spent the next hour just being together, having skin to skin, and then eventually breastfeeding at 03:36PM.
05:30PM: We got moved to the postpartum room that we would stay in until Saturday the 27th. We were blessed to be visited by many family and friends and we had great nurses who took care of Emery and I. I felt very weak during this time and this was obviously due to such long labor plus losing so much blood.
Nick’s family offered to bring us dinner and he asked what I wanted. Jokingly, I said steak. Within an hour, I was eating filet mignon out of a plastic container and with a plastic fork from Texas Roadhouse. What a reward after a long day!
