Today I thought I would finally share my birth story with Riley. (Now that he’s almost 3 months ha!) Leading up to it I was nervous because the hospital stay after having Shane was somewhat traumatic. To be honest I feel weird saying that because nothing actually traumatic happened, but it just was a very hard time for me.
My birth story with Riley was exactly the opposite. We prayed every day that labor, delivery, and breastfeeding Riley would go well and God answered those prayers and then some! Here’s what happened:
39 Week Appointment
On Wednesday July 8th, I went in for my 39 week checkup and was 2 cm dilated. My doctor did a membrane sweep, which so surprisingly didn’t hurt at all. When I was checked at the end of my pregnancy with Shane, it was incredibly painful. This time was so different though. I had a little spotting right after and a little bit of bloody show later that night.
I thought because of all of that I would go into labor within the next 24 hours but I didn’t. The next few days were pretty mellow. I was having some contractions on and off but nothing intense or rhythmic. Every night though a few would wake me up in the middle of the night because of the intensity. I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before baby decided to make his appearance.
A Few Days Later
On Saturday night (July 11th) I had intense contractions that woke me up almost exactly on the hour all night. I finally got out of bed around 5 in the morning thinking it could be the last little bit of time I get alone for a while. The contractions ended up stopping around 6am though. Then a few hours later I had more bloody show. The rest of the day I had a few contractions but nothing consistent.
Later That Night
On July 12th, later that same day around 5pm I started having a little more consistent contractions again about every 10-15 mins. I wasn’t sure if it was real or not though. I started cleaning and getting things together in case we needed to go to the hospital. As I was moving around they started getting closer together and stronger. I was in denial for a little bit that it was really happening, but eventually realized they were really starting to really hurt so I called the on call doctor.
I called and the only male doctor was on call (which was the doctor I didn’t want lol) but he told me I could come in. I left the house around 8:30pm. When we left I was scared I wasn’t actually in labor. Once we were driving though the contractions were about every 5 mins and were very painful so I started not to worry about that so much, ha.
At The Hospital
We got to the hospital and I was 6cm! I was surprised I was so far along. I was scared about being that far because I knew I wanted an epidural and was scared it was going to get too painful before I was able to get one.
They started me on fluids so they could get me the epidural. Because I was delivering during the pandemic, they tested me for COVID-19. They actually never told me my results but because of that I assume they were negative lol.
As things were progressing, the contractions did get incredibly painful. I was in so much pain by the time I got the epidural around 10:30.
I remember thinking how crazy everything seemed and how different things were going than when I had Shane. After I got my epidural with Shane, the nurses turned the lights out and told me to get some rest. This time they stayed in the room and started prepping everything for the baby to be born, saying he might come before midnight.
This was super exciting! I wasn’t expecting things to go that quickly because things were much slower with Shane.
Fully Dilated
Around 11:30-12am I was fully dilated but the nurse said that he was still up high so she wanted me to wait a little bit for him to come down before pushing. She said that if I felt a lot of pressure to call her.
Another hour or so went by and the nurse still said he was still up high but she wanted me to try some practice pushes. We did maybe 3-4 rounds of pushes and they said they could see his head so they told me to stop and called the doctor…
Surprise!
But it was too late! When they told me to stop pushing I could feel his head was right there. He basically decided to come when he wanted and sort of just fell out! There were a lot of nurses in the room at that point sort of freaking out a bit. One nurse stepped up and delivered the baby though! Then right after the doctor walked through the door.
He came in and delivered the placenta and that was that. It was kind of funny how he ended up being on call since he was the last doctor I wanted but then didn’t even end up delivering the baby, lol.
The Start of Breastfeeding
Everything went so smoothly during labor and delivery, we were so incredibly thankful. After delivery, Riley latched on so well and I was amazed that it didn’t hurt!
This was probably the biggest difference between Shane and Riley. Shane had a stage 4 tongue and lip tie, as well as cheek ties, which made breastfeeding excruciating right from the start. When Riley latched on and didn’t hurt, I was almost in tears because I was so happy.
The Rest of the Hospital Stay
The rest of the hospital stay went so smoothly. Riley nursed really well. I was able to walk around and was not in very much pain at all and I even got some sleep. This was not at all how it went with Shane so I was literally on cloud 9. I was so thankful.
Because of giving birth during the pandemic I wasn’t allowed to have visitors. This actually made for a really peaceful hospital stay. We were able to rest and really bond with Riley.
So that’s my birth story of my second son! We are so thankful for him and for how smoothly bringing him into the world went. He has fit perfectly into our family and his big brother loves him just as much as we do! ❤️
