My Birth Story

I wanted to share my birth story of Elijah Samuel. Things went a lot differently than I pictured…

Throughout my pregnancy, I was trying to mentally prepare myself to have a natural childbirth, meaning without an epidural or other pain medications. This is because I have had bad experiences with medications in the past, and I wanted to avoid any risks or side effects associated with an epidural or other medications. I also had heard that some medications can be bad for the baby, so I wanted to avoid any harm to my baby as well. I knew that it was going to be really painful, but I was hopeful that I would be able to tolerate the pain for the majority of labor, and that any period that didn’t feel manageable would be quick and I could push through it. I had experienced a lot of painful things in the past and so I thought my pain tolerance was relatively high. This made me feel somewhat confident I could give birth naturally without an epidural.

2 Days of Prodromal Labor

My labor started on Friday night/Saturday morning around 12:30 at night. Ryan and I had fallen asleep around 10pm after watching a movie and I woke up to some mild to moderate contractions. They were happening every 15-20 minutes. I woke Ryan up and let him know my labor was starting. The contractions continued the rest of the night and I didn’t sleep much that night due to the contractions and also because I was excited labor was starting. I was thinking we’d meet the baby later that day or early the next day at the latest.

Unfortunately that day my contractions didn’t get any more intense or closer together. By afternoon it was clear that labor wasn’t progressing. I was confused why it would start and then not progress. Since I was confused and was also having some bleeding, we decided to go into the hospital to make sure everything was ok that Saturday evening. My contractions were happening anywhere from 15-40 minutes apart at this point. At the hospital, I found out everything was fine but I was only 1 centimeter dilated. That was discouraging since I spent the whole day having contractions, and I was hopeful I’d be at least a few centimeters dilated.

We went home and decided to try to get some rest. I went to bed around 11pm and woke up again around 12:30am, but this time the contractions were way more intense. I was yelling out in pain with each one and holding on tight to Ryan’s hand. These contractions were happening every 10-15 minutes. I definitely couldn’t fall back asleep after they started. I spent most of that night in the bathtub trying to work through the pain, with Ryan laying on the bathroom floor next to me. I would try to sleep in between contractions, but it was obviously hard to. I was hoping the contractions would get closer together this time, and we could head to the hospital and have the baby soon. But once again, the contractions never got closer together.

I continued on the rest of the day (Sunday) trying to work through the extremely painful contractions every 10-15 minutes. Each one was excruciating pain and I was yelling through each one. I tried different exercises and positions, such as bouncing on a birthing ball and doing the miles circuit, to try to get labor to progress, but the contractions really just weren’t getting closer together. I remember feeling so depressed and exhausted. At this point, I had gone about two nights without sleep, and I was really fed up with suffering through the contractions without progress. I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had vaguely heard of something called “prodromal labor,” and I guessed that was what I was experiencing. Google didn’t give any reassurance – it said prodromal could last several days or even weeks. I couldn’t imagine going through another night of painful contractions, so I decided we needed to go to the hospital regardless, and hope that I had dilated more and that labor was progressing.

When we got to the hospital again that Sunday afternoon around 5pm, I found out I was still only 1cm dilated. I couldn’t believe it…something was wrong. I shouldn’t be having contractions that painful and only be at 1 centimeter. Even though I had wanted to have a natural childbirth, I was realizing that I needed to face the fact that I was going to need to be induced and most likely get an epidural as well. I never wanted to try to do childbirth naturally with an induction since I knew pitocin made contractions more painful. And after having labored for almost 48 hours with little to no sleep, I had a feeling that an epidural would be likely. But I was terrified of being induced and getting an epidural. I was worried the induction would be painful and the epidural would cause damaging side effects I didn’t want to experience. But my contractions were unbearable at this point and they had no end in sight.

I was praying and asking other people to pray, trying to discern what the right decision to make would be. Should I keep suffering for who knows how long or get induced/epidural and put an end to the suffering, but potentially have side effects or a c-section? Thankfully, I felt like God prepared me for that moment to make the right decision. During my pregnancy, I felt like God was telling me that labor would go differently than I expected, and that it would be ok for me to take a different route than I planned. There was one verse that spoke to me specifically one day at church during my third trimester:

¹³ No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

1 Cor 10:13

When I heard that verse in church, I felt like God was saying that labor would be similar to the temptation it was talking about in that verse – that it wouldn’t be more than I could handle or endure, but if it felt like it was more than I could handle, that I needed to look for a way out to endure it. I was at that point where labor was more than I could handle, and I felt like God was saying to take the way out, and that it would be okay. For me, the way out was getting induced and getting the epidural. And I’m so glad that was the direction I went.

Just say “yes” to drugs

As soon as I started to get induced, things started to look up finally. Within just a few hours of being induced, I already got to 6 centimeters dilated using the foley bulb catheter. They warned me that the foley bulb could be pretty uncomfortable or painful, but I didn’t feel any extra pain at all with it thankfully. At this point, it was about 10pm on Sunday night. I was still having the really painful contractions but I was encouraged that now I was progressing. However, for the next couple hours I stayed at 6cm and the contractions were getting even worse. I tried managing the pain naturally by taking a hot shower, but that wasn’t cutting it. I also had taken morphine at this point too, but that wasn’t cutting it either. The pain was getting unbearable, and I was exhausted and mentally done. I had a feeling labor could still last another several hours.

At this point, I realized if I wanted to have any more kids, I needed to make giving birth not such an unbearable experience, or else I’d never do it again. So at that point I decided to get the epidural. I prayed about it again and felt like it was the right thing. At this point it was about 12:30am, the morning of April 1st. The needle of the epidural didn’t even hurt going in, it just felt like a tiny prick. And from that point on, I finally had some relief for the first time in a couple days. I was able to get a couple hours of sleep and finally relax a bit, but I was still shaking uncontrollably for most of the night because my muscles were freaking out from tensing up so much from contractions for so long.

I was happy to lay in the hospital bed the rest of the night and into the morning. The nurses were so nice and took good care of me. The gave me pitocin to get my contractions to keep moving along, since the epidural slowed them down. Finally, at around 7am, I was at 10 centimeters dilated and ready to push. The epidural wasn’t working great on one side which was really painful, but they added fentanyl to my epidural which made that pain go away and allowed me to keep pushing without any pain.

A Happy Ending

It was a great experience getting to push out Elijah without pain. I pushed for about an hour and a half, which actually went by really fast. I remember when the nurses and midwife delivering Elijah said they could see his head, and I knew that Elijah would be here in just a few more pushes. It was such an ecstatic feeling knowing he was almost here, and Ryan was saying that he could see his head. I could see all the nurses and midwives gathered around, and it was such a sacred and beautiful moment watching as they all prepared for him to be born. I knew it was just a matter of seconds before he was here, and finally I could feel his head be born, and then the rest of his body. It was such a relief when they pulled his body out and I no longer felt pregnant and huge. Then, a few seconds later I heard Elijah’s cry, and then I looked down to see him laid on my belly, crying and grey. But that was my sweet Elijah who I finally got to see face to face. It was a very surreal feeling that I was finally looking at my son, who I waited for for what felt like an eternity during a long and difficult pregnancy.

Even though I was happy that Elijah had made it into the world safely and I could finally be done with labor, pregnancy, and enjoy him, deep down I was really scared and anxious still. Now I know that I had nothing to worry about or fear, but then I was worried that my life would be forever changed and that taking care of Elijah would be a huge burden that would be hard to bear. I was worried I’d never have peace again or be able to get a good night’s rest. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders knowing that Elijah depended on me and that it was my responsibility to ultimately take care of him.

The first week or so postpartum was difficult. I felt nervous, overwhelmed, and not like myself at all. I was struggling with breastfeeding, and had a case of the baby blues, crying for no reason, or feeling a sense of doom and gloom, even though I felt like I should be happy. Thankfully that went away, and by Elijah’s second week of being alive, I found myself settling into motherhood and really enjoying it. Elijah was such a sweet baby, and there was so much about him that was hard not to love. Yes he was fussy at times, and there were nights when I was tired and had a hard time getting him to sleep, but overall, once he was born, Elijah gently welcomed me into motherhood and was easy on me, and for that I’m very thankful.