Birth story - Lindsey and baby boy

*Trigger warning* - Use of the word contractions as I don't find it negative

I had a typical, healthy pregnancy and at my 40 week appointment I mentioned that my feet and ankles had been a little too itchy, so the midwife offered to send me to the hospital for a blood test for cholestasis. My blood test results came back slightly elevated, and after asking a lot of questions and doing some quick research we decided to go ahead with an induction. I got my first cervical check of the whole pregnancy and learned that I was already at 4 cm and the monitor showed occasional contractions that I wasn't feeling. My midwife gave me a few different options to start my induction and we decided to break my water and see what would happen with the plan of starting pitocin if labor hadn't picked up in the next 6 to 10 hours.

They got the big tub room ready for me and I decided not to get the saline lock. I got back on the monitor for about 20 minutes after she broke my water and then I was able to stay off the monitors for the rest of my labor. The nurse or midwife came in and checked the babies heart beat with a Doppler every 20ish minutes. As soon as my water was broken the contractions picked up in frequency, but still were very mild. As they picked up in intensity I found a position that was comfortable (leaning over and resting my arms on the counter) and my husband started doing hip squeezes and reminding me of my positive affirmations. He also would place his hands on my shoulders between contractions to remind me to relax my body.

At some point I felt shaky and had the chills, but it was only about 2 hours into labor and the labor didn't feel very intense yet so I didn't recognize it as transition. It wasn't long until I felt like pushing so I called the nurses station and told them I was feeling pushy and asked to be checked, the midwife came immediately and told me I was 8cm. I still didn't realize how close I actually was to having my son and I asked them to start filling the tub, which she did, but told me I probably wouldn't make it into the tub. A few minutes later I was grunting and pushing with every contraction. We didn't have any of the things ready for baby in my room so we had to move over to another room and I had 1 contraction in the hallway.

As soon as we got to the room I leaned over on the counter again and my midwife suggested that I squat, I didn't feel like that would be best for me so I said no and stayed leaned over. She squatted behind me while my husband stood off to the side and continued to do hip squeezes. With the next contraction the baby's head was out, and the one after that his body was out. My husband held me up by my hips for a few seconds while I caught my breath and then I stood up straight and she passed baby to me between my legs and helped me walk to the bed to deliver the placenta. I immediately said "that was way easier than I thought it would be!" And everyone laughed and even the midwife was surprised to hear me say that so quickly after delivery.

I didn't tear at all, so no stitches. We chose to cut the cord before it went white because babies oxygen was low and I needed to hand him off to the nurse for a few minutes. He was just still full of amniotic fluid because he came out so quickly and needed to clear out his lungs a little. He was back on my chest in just a few minutes. We had skin to skin and time to breastfeed for about 2 hours before the nurse came in and helped me shower and we moved to the post partum room.

I totally credit the pbc course for my labor going so smoothly. My husband knew exactly what he needed to do for me because we had discussed it as we watched the videos together, and I was able to fully focus on staying as relaxed as possible. It was literally my dream labor and delivery and even though I had to be induced I was able to let go of that fear and allow my body to do what it needed to.

Also as a sort of funny, hopefully helpful part of the story, the most helpful "affirmation" was me thinking repeatedly "you have to be willing to poop your pants" because it reminded me that the only way to find relief was to fully relax my pelvic floor. I had brought some adult diapers to wear after my water was broken so that really helped me allow myself to relax even though I felt like I was going to poop (I didn't during labor. I just felt like I was going to) and the midwife just whipped them off of me as soon as we got to the room I delivered in.