A Chaotic Start to Baby's Birth

I was convinced throughout my entire pregnancy that baby girl was going to make her debut early. But, I was so wrong. Right at the 38 week mark, I started getting contractions and thought she would be here by the end of the weekend. Nope. Baby girl decided to arrive 6 days past her due date, after nearly 3 weeks of prodromal labor.

The start of my labor can only be described as chaotic. The day before I went into labor, a wildfire started close by my house. As native Californians, we were no strangers to wildfires, but this was definitely the closest one I had experienced yet. Not to mention I was overdue at this point. Our car had been packed for the hospital for weeks, but now we had to consider if we should pack up extra, in case we had to both evacuate and get to the hospital at the same time. Also, we were worried about our dogs. To be safe, we took our dogs and a car packed with essentials to family.

By that evening, the wind had shifted and the fire was moving away. We decided to leave the dogs with family and go home for the night. Seeing the mountain lit with flames was a sombering experience. Being overdue and while monitoring a fire, it is an understatement to say I didn't sleep that night.

By mid-morning, I was so fatigued, I managed to fall asleep, while my husband continued to watch the fire. I woke up right around noon and had a feeling I possibly had a slow water leak. I checked in with my doula and we decided to monitor it. But, within the hour, the wind had shifted again and we were officially on an evacuation warning. This level of warning is for those that need extra time to evacuate, have pets, etc. As an extremely pregnant lady, this definitely applied to us. At this point, I was having mild contractions (but had been for weeks) and my focus was on evacuating. We went to my husband's grandparents' house, as it was the closest to us and our dogs were already there.

Once there, I was bouncing and rolling on my pregnancy ball, trying to deal with my low level contractions. I was still convinced I was experiencing prodromal labor. Then, I felt a very dramatic pop, but didn't have any corresponding water break. Well, that must have been something because within about 15 minutes the contractions ramped up and became about 3 minutes apart. It took my husband convincing me that this was actually the real deal and we headed to the hospital.

What followed was an absolute blur of chaos to me. Car ride from hell (I didn't anticipate sitting would be the most painful position for me), throwing up before even getting to labor and delivery triage, getting into triage and finally having my water start leaking all over the floor, my husband having to help steady my arm for blood draws and iv since I couldn't hold still, and a complete cloud over my mind. I vaguely recall answering questions, but it was a very detached experience. Later, my husband would tell me we were in triage for at least 1.5 hours, but it felt like maybe 30 minutes to me. It was such a blur.

When a delivery room was available, the anesthesiologist met us there for my epidural. I was already fairly far along and contractions were pretty intense. I knew I wanted an epidural and it was the right choice for me. It was painless and within minutes, the fog in my brain lifted. I was coherent again and remained so through the rest of my delivery. I do think that the epidural may have slowed down my overall labor, but it was 100% worth it.

Come the next day, I was still laboring way and baby girl was a tad stuck. Luckily, I had an amazing day nurse that fit my needs perfectly. Between her, my doula, and my husband, I managed to get into a variety of different positions (even though I had an epidural!) that helped baby girl get unstuck and into the perfect position. After that, it was time to push. The epidural allowed me to be coherent and limited pain, but still allowed me to feel in control and feel what I needed to push.

Baby girl arrived after 29 hours of labor! For me, it was an emotional and empowering experience. I felt confident in what my body achieved and my delivery experience was better than I imagined. Before being pregnant, I always envisioned a beautiful pregnancy experience and dreaded actual labor. In reality, it was the opposite. Pregnancy was not a joyful and glamorous experience, but labor was magical and empowering.

We finally had our beautiful baby girl.