It’s February 1st a day before my estimated due date of my little E! I wake up in full and complete thought that this baby is coming TODAY! Why?, because I’m tired and I don’t want to be induced so I’m doing all the things to get our baby out! I have a noon doctors appointment and I’m telling myself I’m going to squat until my appointment so that when I arrive the doctor will just tell me I might want to stay and h ead to the hospital side of the building (as my doctors office was located in the same building as the hospital). Noon rolls around as I am fiercely walking into my appointment,as if I am in absolutely no discomfort which was true for the most part, I think I kept trying to feel pressure on my cervix because I wanted to meet my baby TODAY! Fast forward to my appointment I’m only 50% effaced (which means the skin in my cervix has thinned half way to where it needs to be to release a baby easily) and dilated at a three (dilation is the opening of the cervix measured in centimeters, the goal is to be 10cm for baby to come out). After hearing this my thoughts were, well my husband and I are going to have sex like 20x tonight hahaha or I’m going to be doing curb walks, squats and sitting on that birthing ball doing hip rotations and what not all night! I just wanted to meet my baby!
Something about me is, at the end of my pregnancies I get super antsy and impatient, it’s like I want what I want, and I want it NOW! After what I consider to be a very disappointing doctors appointment because our baby had no intention of making an appearance anytime soon (well, so I thought), I drive home and wait it out, a few things you should know to understand why I was making specific decisions the way I did this time around: my first pregnancy I did OUT of hospital at a Birthing center (read about that birth HERE), since I was giving birth only 15 months after having my first I decided I wanted to do a hospital birth (I had gotten pregnant when my first was 5 months of age!), the insurance we started with during my pregnancy changed from 2022 to 2023 from covering maternity to Not, I had to apply for emergency Medicaid at 37 weeks & my original doctor changed at 37 weeks due to being unable to pay the cash price for the birth upfront by the next appointment. It was pretty disappointing not being able to see my original doctor that I had been with since my 8th week of pregnancy, since my insurance changed but I’ll go deeper into that in another post. Just so many things affected my decisions as you see, so that is why when I went home and waited to give birth I was in no rush to get to the hospital per se. I was ready to meet my baby but wasn’t sure how my first hospital birth would go.
Despite opting for a hospital birth I had a lot of concerns as this was another round of first time experiences once again. My concerns went as follows: I was concerned about how I would be treated as a woman of color off bat, I had read and heard many stories of discrimination which gave me heavy anxiety (Serena Williams story which I’ve linked here, not to incite fear but to create awareness for all women to know the importance of knowing your body and speaking up but also bring awareness to the heightened risks associated with women of color in the care of a hospitals due to discrimination), then on top of that going from having insurance that we paid for and going to “government funded” insurance I felt that would be another reason I might be treated poorly (I hadn’t ever used government assistance before and felt I’d be frowned upon for needing it), lastly I was concerned my wishes on how I wanted to birth wouldn’t be heard or respected. Due to all of my concerns I chose to labor as long as possible at home so that I would be able to deliver the baby as naturally as possible upon arriving to the hospital, but that plan came with quite a few twists and turns! By 10pm on the evening of February 1st, the pain in my back was excruciating, I mean I thought I was for sure in active labor, the pain was 5x worse that what I felt with my first pregnancy so I was SURE, it had to be time for this baby to make their debut. My husband and I grab our hospital bags, load up the car, kiss our oldest and thank my mom for keeping her while we go away. About 20min later we find ourselves at the hospital, I get checked in, they wheel me up to the 5th floor, I get wiped down placed into my hospital gown. So I’m like okay they must know it’s time too…NOPE! I lay down, the kindest nurse checks my cervix your girl (Me, I am your girl lol) is still 50% effaced, 3cm dilated :::insert face palm:::. To say I told her this couldn’t be true would be a lie, I straight up questioned this highly educated woman because the pain I was feeling was not a reflection of what my body was doing. She informs me my pain is high because our baby’s back is against my back which isn’t the ideal position for birthing. Although our little one’s head was down, the best position would have been head down and back against my stomach. After about thirty in the doctor comes in and offers to induce me, I had never had an induction but despite the amount of pain I was in my husband whispers to me that he supports whatever decision I make, but that he wanted to remind me of what I said I wanted. Which was for the baby to come as natural as possible without intervention if possible. I contemplate the doctors offer but decide to return home to my bed and wait it out. By the time we make it home it’s about 2am on February 2nd, the pain hasn’t subsided a bit. I try to get comfortable on the birthing ball and begin hip rotation to get our baby to shift from on my back to my belly, after what felt like hours of this, I retire to my bed and insist on getting a good “nights” days rest. Who was I kidding, there was no way I could sleep through this pain, the only way I found relief was sitting on the ball, taking a hot shower & sitting on the toilet. I could not rest, my body ached badly, I tried pacing back and forth and I was nearly breathless. It’s about 10am at this point and I am so depleted I make a stack of pillows and try to get comfortable once again. I lay down in bed, shut my eyes and hear this faint but oh so familiar “pop” sound, I heard this same pop when my water broke with my first, only this time there wasn’t a gush of water. I call for my husband who is in the living room playing with our daughter, he comes in and helps me stand to my feet, as I get my footing I walk into the restroom as the water trickles down. Not long from that moment did I realize my body had gone from labor to Active labor. The pain became increasingly painful and more consistent, my contractions went from five mins apart to three minutes apart pretty quickly. Despite how close my contractions were I just was so exhausted I laid on the cool wood floor in our Master bedroom and told my husband I wasn’t going! Side note: my husband is the most patient, kind, gentleman I know but today he wasn’t having it! He firmly said “Get up, your contractions are too close, we have to go NOW!” So he helps me slide on his oversized sweatpants and thermal shirt as it was pretty cold that day. He finally gets me to my feet and I stumble through the house to get to the front door in between contractions. As I hold on tightly to the pillar outside our front door, my mom hands my husband his pocket knife and says “just in case you guys don’t make it, this will help you cut the cord”. At this point my husband is panicking more than ever, he finally gets me situated in the passenger seat of our car, and drives off. The hospital was about 22 min from our home, but I’m sure he intended on getting us there in 15 min. My husband, speedily and cautiously drives through the neighborhood and down the streets as I continually breathe and scream through contractions, when he hits the freeway, I feel this ALL of a sudden DROP and I say absolutely nothing because I don’t want to scare him. I just think to myself “we aren’t going to make it and I’m having this baby in the car aren’t I?” I must have been in at least ten minutes of internal conflict because he is finally exiting the freeway and I see the hospital once again. As he pulls into the parking lot, I ask him to slow down a bit and say these exact words softly, “ I need you to listen to me extremely carefully, I need you to pull in front of emergency, park there, go inside grab a wheel chair, come get me and put me in the wheelchair and then go check me in at the front desk, it must be done this way.” My husband says “okay”. He runs inside after parking in front of emergency, grabs a wheelchair that by the Grace of God was sitting right in the entry doors, helps me get in the chair and wheels me to the front desk.
As he is trying to get me checked in, the front desk person asks “what is her name?” and I turn to my husband and tell him very loudly that the baby is coming, he touches my shoulder says no, no and tells me to just take deep breaths. I inform him that if I take anymore breathes the baby will be out, as the front desk associate finally confirms my name as I was there earlier this morning (Remember!). All I recall is slightly standing up in the wheelchair & screaming “The Baby is COMING” as our baby girl’s head began to crown! At that moment the nurse from Labor and delivery came down from the 5th floor and was walking beside my husband towards the elevator as he pushed me in the wheelchair but quickly u-turned and redirected us into triage as she noticed my baby’s head was fully out of my body! Let’s just say everyone in the Emergency room probably thought I was being dramatic with my screams but after seeing our baby’s head coming out of my pants they surely realized I in fact was not overreacting.
After going beyond the triage doors, I stood up fully, and grabbed my baby girl and held her in my arms, at this point the inner doors of triage opened up to the nurses station, where the the nurses and doctors reacted quickly and fled me to a small room, got me into a bed, assisted my husband on properly cutting the cord and made sure the baby & I were safe.
Upon arrival to the hospital I fully intended to take part in any interventions, medication or alternatives offered to me due to immense pain I was feeling, but my baby girl had a mind of her own. For my first time ever in the hospital, I was pretty amazed, many of my fears were silenced by the kindness, and attentiveness of the staff, one thing this birth taught me is that, the body will do what the body will do when it’s ready.
If you enjoyed this post and/or are planning a hospital birth be sure to check out my What you should know about giving birth at a hospital post, where I go into detail about what I learned during my overnight stay.
With love,
Classically Faith
