1st: Birth & Postpartum

Hospital Birth: Vaginal Birth Medicated With An Epidural
Pre-Labor: 2 Hours With the Bloody Show
Active Labor & Delivery: 5 hours
Total Time: 7 hours

First Labor & Delivery

My goal was to have a vaginal birth medicated with an epidural. I mostly wanted the epidural, because I was worried about being in pain for a long time and for first time moms I always heard of mostly long labors. The thought of being in pain for 12, 24, or more hours was unimaginable, so I wanted pain relief options. When they started checking me at 36 weeks, I stayed around 1-1.5 cm for a few weeks. At my last appointment, I was 2.5 cm and I had my membranes stripped. The day of my due date I went to labor and delivery feeling irregular contractions.  After walking around for an hour with my husband, the contractions became more irregular. It was determined that my contractions, although painful were Braxton Hicks contractions and I was not in labor. The next day at 40 weeks and 1 day, I was brought in for an appointment with my obstetrician and had my membranes stripped for the second time. I also had to schedule an induction for 41 weeks in case I did not go into labor on my own. So the waiting game began.

Pre-Labor: Later that night after my unexpected appointment around 9:00 - 9:30 pm, while I was visiting with my family, I ask my mother to cut me a pineapple. My mother in law suggested it would help start labor. Prior to the pineapple suggestion, I was walking, as well as doing the one foot on the side walk, one foot on the street walk to help induce labor naturally. I only got a chance to smell the pineapple, when I told my mother I needed to use the restroom for a second. To my surprise after using the restroom, I saw one drop of bright red blood. As a first time mom, I didn't know if that was normal, so I called labor and delivery. The nurse believed it might be from getting my membranes stripped and / or having my cervix checked. Several moments later, I called the nurse to inform her that the drop of blood I saw was turning into streaks of bright blood. The nurse said to put on a menstrual pad, monitor if the bleeding was soaking 1 pad in less than an hour. If so then I needed to come in right away. Some time later, I called the nurse for the third time. This time, to say it was indeed a lot of blood, but I was also in pain and feeling cramps. The nurse suggested that the bleeding was most likely the bloody show. It was also said that the bloody show is not an indicator that I would go into labor that night. Since they can not tell over the phone or not if I am in active labor, I was told to come in whenever I was ready and they would check whether I was in labor or not at labor and delivery. I felt pain coming over me in waves. They came and went, which is how I knew they were contractions. By the time my husband and I were driving to the hospital 2 hours had gone by since the painful contractions had started. My husband timed the contractions and they were now coming 2 mins apart.

Triage: I arrived at the hospital where I was sent to triage to be observed. I was still 2.5 cm, the same as I was at my last appointment. I was hooked up to monitors that recorded my contractions. I was having regular contractions. As soon as the nurse left, I unhooked myself from the monitor and went to sit on the toilet. I wasn't completely sure I was in labor.  But the pain was too unbearable to lay flat on the bed not moving. The nurses would gently remind me they could not monitor my baby while I was in the bathroom instead of the bed. I asked for a Lortab if they were sending me home. I was in so much pain, I was crying. I knew from the pregnancy books that active labor is considered to start at 4 cm. Finally, we got to a point, where they decided to check me again. The nurse checked me and during her check ended up pushing me the last part of the way to 3 cm. I had dilated half a centimeter in less than an hour. They told me they were admitting me to labor and delivery. I was relieved to know I wouldn't need an induction and I was on my way to getting some pain relief for my contractions.

Early Labor (Dilation of the cervix from 0 to 4 cm): Before I could receive an epidural, I had been given an IV that needed to be finished. Once I had finished my IV bag, I received my epidural at 3 cm. Throughout my experience, I had a nursing student shadowing my nurse, so I ended up with double the checks, which didn't particularly bother me since I had my epidural in place. It was also the nursing student that put in place my IV with the nurse observing and checking her work. At the time I was in so much pain, I didn't particularly care that receiving an epidural at 3 cm is considered very early and some of the risks could be labor stalling. The epidural took about 10-15 minutes to work before the pain was gone. I was a little worried about getting the epidural, because of the stories of it not working correctly or only one side being numbed and being so numb you are unable to push. However, my epidural worked fine. There were no issues. I was equally numb on both sides of my body and legs and feeling zero pain during my contractions. I did have to get a catheter placed after receiving my epidural. Side Note: I did not have any spinal headaches after having the epidural or back pain, although I know for some people complications like that can occur.

Active Labor (Dilation of the cervix of 4 to 10 cm): After I received my epidural and was settled into my labor and delivery room, my husband left to get my mother and grandmother. At some point when the nurse checked me again, I was at 5 cm. I had transitioned into active labor. As the nurse was checking me, she accidentally broke my water. I felt a warming feeling, almost like I was going pee. At that point, I knew the baby was going to have to come sometime soon since there is a certain time allowed for baby to come after a woman's water breaks. I wasn't upset about my water being broken since I couldn't feel the pain of the contractions and it breaking did start speeding up my labor. When I was checked again, I was around 7 cm. I am not sure the reason for this, but when I got between 7 and 8 cm, I was put on pitocin for 10 minutes. I was having off the chart contractions I could not feel. Because of how off the chart my contractions were they stopped the pitocin, probably concerned for how the baby was tolerating it. When they checked me again, I had jumped to 9 cm. Not long after checking me, I began to feel pressure. I asked to be check again, although half an hour was probably all that went by since the last check. To the nurse's surprise, the pressure I was feeling was because I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push. At some point, I heard the nurse call for someone to page my obstetrician because he didn't know I had been admitted to the hospital and was 10 cm and ready to push. No one expected a first-time mom to go so fast. My mother in law and sister in law had just arrived at the hospital  when the nurse checked and confirmed I was 10 cm. We had to wait what seemed like an eternity for my obstetrician to arrive. It was during that waiting period, the nurse gave me the perineum massage. As I worked hard on not pushing, to everyone's surprise, my baby started kicking and making herself crown. And later to my dismay since in the middle of labor and delivery I did not care, the nurses exclaimed my baby had a full head of hair. And everyone, mother, grandmother, mother in law, sister in law, and husband stood behind the nurses to peer at the beautiful head of hair. It's odd to think there is a crowd between your legs. I would have preferred if I cared in the moment family to be at the top of my head, and the medical professionals on the bottle half on the other side of the blanket covering the view.

Delivery: When the doctor arrived I was ready to push. A nurse grabbed one leg, and my husband had my other leg. I pushed on my back, slightly elevated in the hospital bed, pushing against them. I was given instructions on how to push. The instructions were along the lines like take a deep breath, push, push. Release, rest. Okay, take another deep breath. I felt the epidural wearing off since the labor had gone by so fast. However, I was still worried I would be too numb to push effectively. So I couldn't really tell if I was giving effective pushes or not at the time. Baby seemed to come out after a few pushes and I did not require assistance from the forceps or vacuum. However, I did tear. They told me they were going to numb me and stitch me up. I had to ask how big my baby was? How long had I been in labor? My baby was 8 lbs and 2 oz and the nurses and doctor said I had a quick labor. Active labor to delivery had been 5 hours. They warned us for future children to make sure I got to a hospital in time.

First Postpartum Recovery

The advice that it takes time to get back in shape after having a baby is so true. It usually takes around 9 months to grow a baby, so give yourself about the same amount of time to get back into your  pre-pregnancy shape. I breastfeed my first child for 30 months. By 7.5 months postpartum, I was below my starting pregnancy weight of 120 pounds. I dropped to 110 pounds from just breastfeeding. The next advice is when your child is introduced to solids, such as rice cereal (can be introduced around 4 months) or baby food (can be introduced around 6 months), they are breastfeeding less and you are burning less calories. When there is a reduction in breastfeeding, because they are eating solids you do not want to keep eating the same amount of food and snacks that you were eating as when you were exclusively breastfeeding (breastfeeding and child is not being given solids). I did not exercise regularly and did not change the amount of food I was eating even as my first went from exclusively breastfeeding to breastfeeding and eating some solids. As my first got older, I was burning less calories from breastfeeding and overtime slowly started to gain the weight back. By the time my first was 26 months old, even though I was still breastfeeding her and I just become pregnant a second time, I had already gained all the weight I had lost to the point I climbed back to my starting pregnancy weight from my first pregnancy and gained 17 pounds over it. So between 7.5 months - 26 months postpartum (a total of 18.5 months), I had gained a total of 27 pounds.

Starting Pregnancy Weight: 120 - Ending Pregnancy Weight: 161 - Gained: 41 lbs

Months Postpartum	Weight	Total Weight Loss
1 Month	130 lbs	31 lbs
1.5 Months	128 lbs	33 lbs
2 Months	126 lbs	35 lbs
3 Months	125 lbs	36 lbs
3.5 Months	124 lbs	37 lbs
4 Months	122 lbs	39 lbs
Over 4 Months	121 lbs	40 lbs
5 Months	120 lbs	41 lbs
6 Months	118 lbs	43 lbs
6.5 Months	117 lbs	44 lbs
About 7 Months	116 lbs	45 lbs
7 Months	114 lbs	47 lbs
Over 7 Months	110 lbs	51 lbs