Welcome to the very lengthy and semi traumatizing birth story of Luke Taylor. I have left out some but not all of the details of his birth so if you’re squeamish this may not be a good read for you.
After showing zero signs of progress for 3 weeks, I was not optimistic that I would go into labor naturally after being 40 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I tried all the wives tales / natural ways to induce labor and nothing seemed to work. I was starting to feel depressed, I just wanted my little one here already.
The day before his arrival was a normal day. Dillon and I drove to Buy Buy Baby to return a few things and had lunch. The rest of the day I just relaxed. I was tired of bouncing on medicine balls, taking brisk walks, eating the spicy food, and dancing to get the labor process started.
At 4:00am on February 22 2020, I felt immense pressure in my nether regions. I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom and convinced myself that was all it was until about 6:00am. I texted my mom asking her questions to see if what I was experiencing was labor or not. Dr. Google said it might be and so did mom. I still wasn’t convinced.
After deciding that going to the bathroom wasn’t the issue (because after sitting there for 2 hours with no results), I started walking around the house. The pain would come and go. I finally convinced myself that there was a slight, teeny tiny chance, that what I was feeling weren’t constipation cramps.
I woke Dillon up closer to 7:00am to let him know what I was feeling. He popped out of bed quicker than anyone I have ever seen. The man was dressed in two seconds, ready to go to the hospital. I on the other hand, still needed to shower, curl my hair, and apply some lashes. So picture me, cool as a cucumber, still thinking I’m not in labor, while my husband is running around the house like a lunatic because I said I wasn’t ready to go.
I hopped in the shower, breathed through some uncomfortable cramping. Curled my hair through some more uncomfortable cramping, and most importantly, applied some lashes through some very uncomfortable cramping.
During all of this, Dillon was timing my (what I know now were definitely contractions) and they were 5 minutes apart. I STILL wasn’t convinced I was in labor. Dillon made me call the doctor and they suggested I come in.
So we packed up the car and headed for the hospital. Thankfully it was a Saturday morning and traffic was light, because the contractions were getting stronger and more frequent. It felt like forever before we got there.
Once we were placed in an observation room, I started praying they wouldn’t send us home. I wasn’t optimistic that I had shown any progression. A nurse came in to check me and said I was dilated to 4cm, my contractions were consistent and that the doctor gave us the okay to stay! Relief and panic struck me all at once, I was relieved we didn’t have to drive all the way home, panicked that I was having a baby!
We were placed in a delivery room and I was told I could get my epidural whenever I wanted it. I told myself that I wanted to wait as long as I could to get it, but these contractions were coming fast and hard. We started the epidural process almost immediately and might I just say, thank you to whoever invented it.
After the epidural, labor became a breeze. It basically just became a waiting game until he was here. The doctor came in to break my water, afterwards things started to slow down. I wasn’t progressing much for a few hours so they gave me a little push with my meds to speed up the process.
At some point during all of this, my epidural started acting up. I kept feeling shooting pains on the left side of my stomach. This happened twice even after the anesthesiologists came in to push some extra meds. Around 9:30pm my AMAZING nurse checked me and said, I was 9.5cm dilated and moments away from starting to push. Dillon and I looked at each other in disbelief that we were so close to having our baby boy here. (I brought my own hospital gown and it was the best decision, SO comfy!)
At 10:00pm, I started to push. I was adamant about him being born on 02.22.2020, what a cool birthday! we started placing bets Between Dillon, our nurse and myself on the time he would be born.
**this is where things get a bit traumatic for me **
I had been pushing for 45 minutes and was officially crowning when I felt my epidural wear off. The amount of pain I was in is something I cannot describe but it gets better. The doctor on call was not answering her phone. For 15 minutes, I laid there, crowing, with no epidural in my nether regions. I started to freak out just a tad. My nurse was trying to keep her cool as she called another doctor in the hospital to get this baby out of me!
FINALLY after 15 minutes, the doctor on call showed up and we started to push again. Mind you, I have the slightest amount of epidural left to get me through this.
3 pushes later and he was out! As soon as he started crying, Dillon and I looked at each other and lost it. He was perfect.
They took him over to get him checked out and weigh him. I was expecting an average size baby. Dillon was 6lbs when he was born and I was on the larger size weighing in at 9lbs 2oz. Our big boy weighed 9lbs 3oz and was 21.5 inches long.
I can honestly say I have never been more in love. I have never been more in love with my husband who was so attentive, compassionate, and involved during my entire pregnancy, delivery, and being a father to Luke. Our marriage is stronger than ever and I am so blessed to have such a wonderful man in my life.
Then there’s Luke. Where do I begin with my love for him? It’s like my heart lives on the outside of my body now, and looks exactly like my husband. I am so excited, nervous, and filled with joy when I think about the future as a family of three.
Shop some of my must haves / gadgets I took to the hospital: