Just before Thanksgiving, Danny and I welcomed our baby girl, Lainey, into the world.

Thankfully, both my pregnancy and labor were smooth and without complications. While her birth didn’t go exactly according to plan, we are both safe and healthy, and that’s truly all I could ask for. Since bringing her home, we’ve been soaking in the newborn bubble with lots of skin-to-skin, contact naps, and endless cuddles. I already love being a mom so much and am beyond excited for this next chapter.

Her birth is something I want to remember forever. It’s one of those milestones I know I’ll look back on decades from now. Before being pregnant myself, I never paid much attention to birth stories, but now I understand how meaningful they are. I want to share Lainey’s birth story while all the details and emotions are still fresh.

Lainey’s Birth Story

Pregnancy

My pregnancy was thankfully pretty uneventful overall. Initially, I imagined going with a midwife and delivering at a birth center. However, Danny wasn’t completely comfortable with that plan, and I couldn’t find a birth center that transferred to a hospital I trusted in case of an emergency. I would have loved a birth-center-connected-to-hospital option, but that isn’t available in our area. Since this was my first pregnancy and there were so many unknowns, I ultimately chose to go with an OB and deliver in a hospital for peace of mind.

Early Pregnancy

Early pregnancy came with some strong symptoms—mainly food aversions (coffee, water, and chicken were the worst), nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and constant acid reflux. The vomiting eased up around 12–14 weeks, just before we left for a trip to Denmark. I’m convinced the Texas heat made everything worse because as soon as I was in the cooler weather of Denmark and Washington, my nausea completely disappeared… only to return the moment we got back.

Late Pregnancy

Later in pregnancy, around 30 weeks, I developed severe swelling that didn’t fully resolve until a week postpartum. I also dealt with nonstop shin splints, leg cramping, carpal tunnel, and trigger finger.

Overall, I would say it was a fairly easy pregnancy despite those symptoms. I’m still dealing with the trigger finger and carpal tunnel, but all my other symptoms have resolved, and I would do it all over again to have my baby girl!

My Birth Plan

For context, I want to share what I originally envisioned for my birth. I know birth rarely goes exactly as planned, and I went into it understanding I needed to stay flexible. In the end, all I truly wanted was a safe delivery and a healthy baby and that’s exactly what I got. But going in, I hadn’t imagined myself getting an epidural, and I really hoped to avoid Pitocin since I knew it could make contractions more intense.

Ideally, I wanted the option to labor in a tub, but the hospital where I delivered didn’t offer water labor or nitrous oxide. My available comfort measures included a squat bar, a peanut ball, a yoga ball, the shower, a TENS unit, a heating pad, and aromatherapy cooling towels. A lot of these were helpful, but none came close to the relief an epidural ultimately gave me.

I also pictured myself laboring at home for as long as possible to avoid feeling pressured into early interventions. I hoped to stay comfortable and in control before heading to the hospital.

Labor

Cervical Checks

Leading up to labor, I chose to have the weekly cervical checks. At 36 and 37 weeks, I was only 0.5 cm dilated. By weeks 38 and 39, I had made it to 1 cm, but nothing was really changing. At that point, I was exhausted from work and stressed about timing; I desperately hoped the baby would come during Thanksgiving break since my mom was in town, and I really didn’t want to return to work after break at 40+ weeks pregnant. But I still wasn’t feeling any real signs of labor, just occasional cramping and a bit of pelvic pressure. Overall, I felt the same as I had for most of my third trimester.

Membrane Sweep

At my 39-week appointment, I decided to get a membrane sweep to try to encourage things along. That night, just after midnight, when I was 39w6d, my water broke. Everyone tells you it won’t be like the movies, but for me, it absolutely was. I got up for yet another middle-of-the-night bathroom trip, and it felt exactly like a water balloon burst inside me.

Because my water had broken, my provider recommended that I head to the hospital even though contractions hadn’t started yet. When your water breaks, you can be at an increased risk of infection if your labor does not progress.

Active Labor

Once I got to the hospital, my contractions were irregular and did not start on their own. It can take time for contractions to start if your water breaks, and I didn’t feel like I had the time since I was already at the hospital. The on-call doctor wanted to start me on Pitocin, but I knew that if I did, contractions would be much more painful. Instead, I tried to pump. I pumped 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off for several hours. While contractions would occur while I was pumping, once I was 30 minutes off, they would go back to being irregular.

Pitocin

After 12 hours in labor, I was only 3 cm dilated, and my contractions were still irregular. My doctor recommended the Pitocin at this point, and since I wasn’t making much progress, I decided to try it. The contractions with Pitocin were manageable until it reached 4- 6. At this point, it had been 5 hours, and I was contracting every 1- 2 minutes for around 90 seconds. Every time I moved,  it would trigger contractions, and my pain relief methods were not doing much to help with the pain. Since I was in so much pain, especially with movement, I was very tense and didn’t want to move at all. When they rechecked me at this point, I was still at 3 cm.

Epidural

At this point, I was feeling really defeated. I hadn’t wanted the epidural, but the pain and tensing were preventing me from progressing. I had been having around 5 hours of consistent contractions and had not dilated at all. I decided to do the epidural to try and prevent a bigger intervention, such as a c-section, if I continued not to progress since I had been in labor for 17 hours at this point. Making that decision was hard, but it ultimately felt like the right choice for my body and my baby.

Delivery

Dilating

After getting the epidural, I immediately started to dilate. Within 30 minutes, I had gone from a 3 cm to 6 cm, and there was no pain at all.  I adjusted my position, and when they rechecked me next, I was at 8 cm. Around 22 hours into labor and just a few hours after the epidural, I was fully dilated. Once I was fully dilated, I labored down for an hour. I think this really helped make the pushing phase go so much faster!

Pushing

Around 25 minutes before midnight, the nurse came back into the room to try practicing pushing. After three contractions and pushing for less than 10 minutes, she was already ready to be delivered. They called for my doctor and had me “hold” her in since my doctor was not yet on the floor. After 10 minutes, when my doctor finally arrived, I couldn’t “hold” any longer, and the fetal ejection reflex kicked in. My doctor didn’t even have time to put on gloves and had to catch her with her bare hands. Fortunately, my baby girl was healthy, and I didn’t tear! She was 7 lbs 3.9 oz, and 20.5 inches long.

Recovery

Thankfully, my recovery was much easier than I anticipated. Since I didn’t tear, I wasn’t in too much pain. I was sore for a few days, but my pain was manageable with just ibuprofen. My recovery was pretty standard, and I love soaking up all the time in our newborn bubble! My mom also flew to Texas for the first few weeks, which was a lot of help. It is not easy adjusting to life with a newborn! The only hiccup we have had so far this postpartum is a tongue and lip tie that our baby girl had corrected. Otherwise, this postpartum period has been a sweet time for me and my husband to bond with her.

Final Thoughts

I am so grateful for how my pregnancy, labor, and delivery went! I felt very at peace during the whole process, and I am so thankful to have a healthy baby girl. Honestly, this experience has me wanting more kids than I originally anticipated, and I am already missing the early days of having a newborn! She is about a month old now, and I feel like the days are passing too fast. But I know that every age and stage is going to be even better than the last.

Thanks for reading! 🙂 If you want to follow along on my new journey in motherhood, you can find me on Instagram @maddie_deer here. You can also follow me on my Facebook page to be alerted to any new posts here.