My First Labor: the Story of Teddi’s Birth

Approaching my very first labor, I really wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, so I wanted to go in with an open mind! I knew that I wanted to try pushing and having a vaginal birth, but because my mom had two c-sections, I had a feeling that a c-section was in the cards for me!

WEDNESDAY:  INDUCTION DAY 

At our 4:45 pm OBGYN appointment, my blood pressure was reading high. I was taken straight into the labor & delivery wing. In this moment, I was so glad we had already packed the car with our hospital bag and car seat! I felt like we were prepared and ready to welcome our sweet girl to the world at any moment!

Heading into the labor & delivery wing, I felt calm and ready to begin. Little did I know, having a baby is a lot of waiting around! I waited in the labor waiting lounge with seven other pregnant women while Nick popped out for boba and Thai food. While waiting, I learned that our hospital delivers 1000 babies a month – pretty much a baby an hour! Unfortunately, there is a shortage of delivery nurses, so moms in labor typically wait 2-4 hours to be escorted to their delivery room. We were taken to our room at 7:30 pm.

I wasn’t having any contractions at that time, so I had to be induced. I was told that I would be given three rounds of medication every 4 hours to kick start contractions, then take Pitocin in the morning to strengthen labor contractions and dilate the cervix.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT:  FIRST ROUND OF CYTOTEC

Cytotec is a cervical ripener that begins the induction process and is meant to gradually begin the labor prep work the night before taking Pitocin. Women in labor who need to be induced at the hospital usually arrive without being dilated, so the Cytotec is meant to slowly help your body grow from 2 cm dilated to 10 cm dilated. At 10 cm dilated, your body is ready to push and you have the option to take an epidural before your Pitocin medicine. Sometimes Cytotec is so effective that women go into active labor without needing an IV of Pitocin at all, which will help kick-start contractions in the body if you are not having them on your own.

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I was given my Cytotec medication at 10 pm, 2 am, and 6 am. Let me tell you… my body was very unique and it actually didn’t take much at all to get labor started!

10 pm – I barely felt contractions and was able to sleep for four hours until the next round of medication. I used this time to rest up and conserve energy for the big day!

2:00 am – At only 2 cm dilated, they started me on the second round of induction meditation, and just like that the contractions started right away! It took an hour and a half to really start feeling pain, but I was sweating, moaning, and feeling pressure in my pelvis. It honestly felt like having SUPER intense cramps every couple of minutes. By 5 am, in tears from contractions, I had woken up Nick. He was so sweet and rubbed my back to calm me down, but what really helped was calling my mom, who is a nurse. She talked me through breathing techniques, which helped a lot.

6:00 am – This time, when they checked my cervix I was 7 cm dilated, ON MY OWN! Usually they would expect you to be about 3 cm dilated and need Pitocin, a stronger medication, but my body was READY to have this baby and on a mission to get her out on its own!

After taking the 3rd round of induction medication, the pain from my contractions was at a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale! I wanted to avoid taking the epidural as long as possible though, since I heard that it slows down contractions and prevents the cervix from becoming dilated as quickly. Instead, I focused on my breathing techniques, even through severe cramping! I might have cursed at my husband a few times too, but I was ready to do whatever it took to try and last until 8 am before getting the epidural!

8:00 am – By this point the pain was UNBEARABLE and my contractions were lasting two minutes each, instead of one minute. I felt like the pain was never ending! That’s when I knew it was time to get the epidural party started!

It took about an hour to prep the epidural, but once it was in, I felt immediate relief!  I can’t believe how long I waited. It made a night and day difference instantly!

THURSDAY MORNING – EPIDURAL

10:30 am – I get my epidural. My body finally feels like it has a break after 4.5 hours of excruciating pain! My nurse advised me to use this time to rest, so I took a long nap before the long road of pushing began.

12:30 pm – They checked my cervix to see how dilated I was, and it measured 10 cm!

“Wait, did I hear that right?” I asked. “Did you say 10 cm?!” When I heard a “YES!” from my nurse, I burst into tears. I was overwhelmed with happy emotions, and couldn’t believe it was time to start pushing! I had made it to 10 cm without even taking the Pitocin!

1:00 pm – I was still pretty comfortable because of the epidural, so the nurse said we could start the “intense labor” part and begin pushing whenever I wanted. She suggested taking a little time for us before getting started though. We loved that idea!

With about an extra 45 minutes before we started to push, Nick and I soaked in our last few minutes of it being just the two of us. He played our acoustic cover labor playlist on his mini speaker and we teared up just having a moment to think about all of the great moments in our story together. He is going to be the best dad in the world! He held my hand while giving me the kindest words of encouragement. I couldn’t help crying!

2:00 pm – Time to push! In between tears, pushes, and position changes, we squeezed to the count of 10 as a team! Centimeter by centimeter, with Nick and my mom holding my feet tight, I pushed and pushed until my eyes popped and the nurse could see the baby’s hair peeking out!

3:00 pm – After an entire hour of pushing, I was hyper-focused, pushing down and out. I told Nick that I didn’t want music or anything in the room – just silence and the baby’s heart monitor on loud, so I couldn’t get distracted.

Through lots of purple squeeze faces and painful pushes, we slowly made progress, and she moved down a little. As Nick put it to me later, “It felt like I was running a marathon while being in the worst shape of my life!” My tummy was in the way the whole time, and with each forceful push I had to do a crunch, while having no tummy strength left!

5:00 pm – As time went on and we moved into hour two, I could feel myself weaken with each push. I tried as hard as I could to hold the pushes and put pressure in my butt during each contraction, but I kept losing my breath. At 2.5 hours and 5 positions later, baby just had too big of a head to get through my canal. The nurse said it was like pushing against a brick wall!  My doctor came in to consult, and we all decided a c-section would be the best way to get her out safely, with her blood pressure indicating that pushing was causing her stress. I might have teared up for a minute, feeling not like a failure, but like I could have done better and not wasted all of that energy stressing her out.

5:30 pm – It’s c-section time! As soon as we decided that was our course of action, it felt like dozens of people were swarming in our room prepping for surgery. It’s like in the movies when someone shouts “code blue!” and the whole hospital floor knows what to do. And just like that, in a span of 30 minutes, I was in the operating room staring at the bright white ceiling lights with Nick gowned up.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON – C-SECTION TIME

6:00 pm- BABY GIRL IS HERE! It took less than five minutes for them to get the baby out during our c-section! Our sweet baby girl weighed 8 lbs and 4 ounces, with a peach fuzz back and a full head of hair! The doctors said that the size of her head was actually proportionate to a 10 lb baby, which explains why it was so hard to push her out!

My doctor delivers eighteen babies a day herself and specializes in c-sections, so I was SO happy with the entire experience. I didn’t feel a single thing and before I knew it, I could hear our baby girl crying on the other side of the blue curtain and Nick cutting her umbilical cord! They cleaned her up and brought baby girl right over to me to show me her purple and blue toes and head FULL of hair. All I could think was that she was beautiful! I could not stop staring at the tiny human Nick and I created. She was finally outside of my belly!

6:20 pm – By now we were in post-op golden hour, and it was time for skin to skin. They rested her on my chest and I cradled her soft skin close, taking time to breathe and let my heart rate soothe her. I just stared and stared at her, and we had our first girl chat just the two of us!

Our parents had been in the waiting room all day waiting to meet her, but due to Covid, our hospital only allowed one guest in at a time. So Nick stepped out and let each of our parents pop in to meet her for a quick three minutes, before they went back to their hotels for the day. Each one of our parents came in with their eyes welling up with tears, full of joy! It was so nice to be a part of their first moments with their grand-baby.

7:00 pm – After a bit more time doing skin to skin and seeing all of the parents, a lactation consultant came in to help me with my first breastfeeding. “These girls” (aka my juicy melons) had been full for 9 months and I was pumped to use them! Our little girl honestly latched on the first time and was so hungry!! It’s like she always knew what to do. I was not only impressed, but so grateful that it was easy for her.

8:00 pm – After a very full day, I was EXHAUSTED and could barely keep my eyes open, so they rolled us over to the recovery wing to get settled for the night. It was so sweet to spend the evening watching Nick take care of our girl while I rested.

Before I fell asleep, the kind nurse got me all settled in with a giant two-foot-long pad and a long ice pack in my new disposable hospital underwear. I was told that I wouldn’t be able to do much for a few days since I was sewn up from the c-section. All I could think was “Aye-aye captain!” I have no interest in prolonging recovery, so I will be using zero percent of my stomach strength!

By now, the anesthesia had worn off, but I still couldn’t feel my legs. They had these leg massagers on me to prevent clotting, as well as a catheter, and they gave me some more medicine to help prevent pain.

One thing I will point out, was that after the anesthesia wore off, my skin was itching EVERYWHERE, especially around my vagina and face! It felt like I spent hours wanting to scratch like I had chicken pox. There was even a point where I requested a plastic disposable spoon to lightly scratch in areas I couldn’t reach! I don’t know if this was normal, but all night long I would wake up every hour or so and find myself with an intense urge to itch my whole body!

12:00 pm – A few late-night feedings put baby girl right to sleep. And just like that, on Thursday, March 30th, 2023, our family was complete!

WHAT I PACKED IN MY HOSPITAL BAG & ACTUALLY USED

• comfy clothes (2 sets of front button pajama sets for 2-3 night stay after c-section)
• toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, face wash, hair brush, hair ties, deodorant, lip balm, eyeglasses)
• extra long cell phone charger chord
• bag of snacks
• 2 pillows + shower towel (1 pillow for me, 1 pillow for Nick, and the hospital towels are normally like sandpaper)
• comfy blanket (they have blankets, but this was just to help me feel a sense of home and calm my anxiety before going into labor)
• blue tooth speaker (this was nice for the 2-3 recovery days and when we had guests visit us after the baby was born)
• car seat
• 2-3 baby outfits (1 special going-home outfit)
• iPad (this was mainly for Nick to watch tv shows and movies as I napped)
• Mama + Dad sweatshirts for Nick & I to wear on hospital discharge day!

I didn’t end up using the robe I packed or slippers. I stayed in pajamas since it was a full outfit and I spent most of the time recovering in the hospital bed. I also didn’t end up using any of the Frida baby postpartum recovery items like disposable underwear, peri bottle, or ice packs as the hospital provided these items and I loved the quality of theirs! I did end up using all of the Frida recovery items when I got home, so I would recommend them, I just don’t think it’s necessary to bring them to the hospital with you.