Today I’m going to share my birth story for anyone who might have missed it on IG Stories or maybe you are just stumbling upon my account.
Iโm writing this blog post 6 months after giving birth to our perfect little babe, Demi Jade Taylor, who arrived on 10/26/2022 at 1:35am. My due date was 10/23 so I was just a couple days past it. I may or may not still be a little traumatized from birth to be completely honest buttttt the negative memories have definitely faded a bit! I would do it 10x over so that says something.
Two days before I gave birth I got checked by my OBGYN who confirmed my body hadn’t made much progress since my last appointment but I was slightly effaced and dilated. I forget the numbers but I think just 1 cm dilated and 3-4 effaced at 40 weeks. I got a membrane sweep, went for two walks, did some steps, and went to bed.
At the time we were temporarily living at my parents house while our new house was being built. Josh and I were sleeping in separate rooms at that point in my pregnancy because I required 99 pillows and wedges to get even remotely comfortable plus our dog, Bean, wouldn’t leave my side. So there was just no space for Josh who is a 6’7″ giant.
The night after my sweep I started having contractions at 2am. They slowly got more intense and closer together but I laid there alone for a few hours just timing them. The pain wasn’t too bad at this stage of the game but it was different than any other sensation I had felt before so I knew things were happening. Around 6am I woke up Josh, called my doctor, and she told us to head to the hospital. I took a shower, we grabbed our bags, and woke my parents nonchalantly to tell them we were leaving. Josh was yelling at me to move faster because I was taking my good old time.
We started in triage where they hooked me up and told me I would need to wait a bit to see if I continued to progress. They eventually moved me to the L&D floor because I was in active labor. Once we got admitted and situated, I remember looking around the room thinking *OMG this is it – the next time we go home it will be with our baby*. A surreal realization.
The doctor came in to check me and asked if I wanted her to break my water or start on Pitocin. She explained to me that my contractions weren’t very strong yet so we could do one of those things to speed things along. I was super hesitant, as I wanted to progress on my own and I had read all the horror stories. But I also didn’t want to be sitting there for another 12 hours and ultimately end up getting one of those 2 things anyway. I remember her saying “you came here to have a baby, right?”. She wasn’t wrong and there is truly no way out at that point soooo I opted for option A.
After she broke my water the contractions really ramped up in pain quickly. Like 20x worse than the ones I had been experiencing – LOL. I called the nurse for the epidural (I think I was 3-4cm at this point) and fortunately anesthesia arrived quickly. The epidural process was smooth as could be. I know that is not always the case so I feel lucky but I truly have no bad memories about it. I felt relief almost immediately.
After that we just hung out in the room and waited for my body to progress. I think it was probably 10 or so hours from the time we got to L&D until I started pushing. I never needed Pitocin, my body got to 10cm on it’s own. While we waited, I felt no pain whatsover. It was great. I napped, Facetimed, and we ordered a pizza when I was at 8 cm so we had something to eat when I was done. The nurses kept saying “Little Demi is having a pizza party soon!”
I started pushing at 10:30pm. Everything was going great until about an hour after pushing. Unfortunately I developed an infection with a fever and baby was in distress because of it. They made me breath through some contractions and refrain from pushing because baby’s heart rate was going up too high. That was torture honestly! Oddly, pushing feels better than not pushing.
At some point during delivery Demi also passed stool inside of me and the doctor said she “didn’t like what she was seeing”. Not the greatest thing to hear during delivery – ha! She said we were going to have to use the vacuum to get Demi out ASAP. That’s when the vibe changed, NICU staff showed up, and I was pretty nervous because the situation felt very overwhelming and intense. Pain was 100/10 during crowning. Not sure what happened to my epidural because the “ring of fire” is something that I will neverrrrr ever forget! I think at one point I screamed that I couldn’t do it anymore?! HAHA! Not like me to cause loud scenes with a bunch of strangers around me. They did eventually use the vaccum and Demi had to be swooped away to the NICU after we did skin to skin. She had a hematoma on her head from the vac and because of the infection (chorioamnionitis), she needed to be evaluated. Fortunately, she was able to come back to the recovery unit with us 4-5 hours later.
Demi was born on 10/26/2022 at 1:35am! She weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and was 20.5 inches long. We love her to pieces and she has changed our lives for the better <3
Demi’s announcement outfit and blanket are from Bowy Made.
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