The Luna Bin: My birth story with my first born Lilly

When we found out we were expecting with our first we were so excited! We were in love with the fact that our family was about to grow. We were even more excited when we found out we were having a girl. My husband I both secretly wanted a girl. However, with my first pregnancy it was far from easy. I found out early on that I had gestational diabetes and had to prick my finger 4x day, which I hated because I am deathly afraid of needles and hate being poked! I also had to change my diet drastically to make sure my baby didn't get too big. At 29 weeks I was admitted to the hospital because of high blood pressure and upon release I was put on strict bed rest. I made it to 39 weeks and was induced.

We joke around now saying that I was the "lab rat" because it seemed that I was the patient all the students were practicing on through my delivery. Right when I got to the hospital my midwife introduced me to a midwife in training and asks if it would be ok if she could be around and basically be a shadow of my main midwife for my labor and delivery. Since it was my first time, I agreed. I will explain later why this wasn't a great idea, probably the worst decision.

There was a lot of people in the room for this birth: my mother, my mother in law, my doula, my husband and the two midwives and all the nurses that were coming in and out to check on me. They were all trying to help me to remember to drink water, but I have a hard time forcing myself to drink water when I am not thirsty, so because I wasn't drinking fast enough, they ended up hooking me up to an IV to flush fluids through my body. I was so puffy and swollen for days after delivery from being on the IV for more than 20 hours...thats a whole different story in itself!

Since I was induced it took a while for me to progress. With the help of my doula, Ellen (who I must say was godsend) I progressed a good amount, but because I had been laboring for almost a full 24 hours and was so tired, I asked for an epidural. Like I said before, I am deathly afraid of needles and shots so I was nervous about the epidural. I was lucky that I was able to have my husband in front of me to hold my hand. Remember the "lab rat" thing? Well, when the anesthesiologist came in he came in with a trainee who performed the procedure. I didn't think anything of it because of all the pain I was in I was actually excited to get it because I was going to be out of pain...so I thought. Well, when she poked me I could have sworn I heard the main Dr. say "no" and when he said that she had to take the needle out and poke me again, when she told me this, I basically buried my head in my husbands lap and broke down and cried because I had to endure another poke, I was so mad! When the epidural started to work I was able to sleep for about 2 hours with no pain and enjoy a kung foo movie IP Man my husband had brought.

Unfortunately, the epidural wore off and no matter how much more I asked for it didn't work. I once again could feel EVERYTHING. Since this was my first pregnancy and didn't know what to expect I didn't know anything about breathing techniques or what not so I basically screamed the whole time through my contractions. Which made my midwives and everybody upset. They were yelling at me and telling me quiet down and breath...hee hee who. LOL, I mean really? You're going to sit there and tell me to breath when I am the one in pain? I was deliriously in pain and trying to do what they said and breath, but was doing it more to shut them up so they would stop yelling at me. I think i managed to say no actually, scream "she she woo"which to this day we still laugh about.

When it was time to FINALLY push I ended up falling asleep during the breaks because I was just pure exhausted from having to go through everything I had already went through. I didn't think I could do it and was getting so mad that she wasn't coming out fast enough. I think I pushed for about 30 min and finally when her head came out my midwife shouts to me "STOP PUSHING"! I literally thought I was going to die at that point. I think I might have said it to my doula. My eyes were rolling back into my head and just couldn't take the pain of just her head being out and not letting me push! After what seemed to be like forever they gave me the ok to push her out and oh what a relief!

I wish I could say I held her and it was bliss from then on, but sadly that wasn't so. Remember that trainee midwife, well when it was time to stitch me up, she was the one that did it while the main midwife was coaching her and teaching her!!! I promise it took about 45 mins for them to finish. I ended up giving my baby to my husband in fear that I might drop her if I jumped out of pain. It didn't matter that I had gone almost a day and a half in labor, now they were using me to teach a student.

In actuality it took me about two weeks to bond with my baby. Right after I was released from the hospital I went back the next day to the ER because I had pneumonia, but was released that same day. Then I went back 2 day later because my blood pressure was still high and my swelling hadn't gone down. I had to stay at the hospital for 2 days on a magnesium drip to control my blood pressure.

So when I say that my first birth was a roller coaster ride I mean what I say. However, even though it was crazy I wouldn't trade it for the world. Because now I have a story to tell. Not to mention a BEAUTIFUL baby girl.