My birth story

Trigger warning: My labor is about 24 hours and ends in a C-section. I mention blood and pain and more. 

On Thursday October 2, I went in for a scheduled check up. My due date was October 5- that upcoming Sunday. I had an ultrasound and they tested to see if the baby took a breath. They waited 30 min and the baby did not take one. (I didn’t know babies could breathe in the womb!) So they sent me to a lab t

o do a “stress test” to determine if there were factors that could indicate the baby was stressed. Everything looked good and I went home. 

That night was the Salem Halloween parade, and since I could barely walk and it was silly to drive the .5 miles into town, we decided to sit this one out.  And  we’re so glad we didn’t go! It was also the release of Taylor Swift’s new album, and I decided not to stay up and I would listen to it in the morning. 

Well at 12:45 am (October 3), pretty much the time that I would’ve been done listening to Taylor’s album if I had stayed up, I was woken up from my sleep with a burst of liquid coming out of my vagina.. I guess my water had broken? It was a weird sensation and could only have been that. It wasn’t pee, it was literally a gush, and enough to wake me up. I looked over at Matt who was sound asleep, debated if I should wake him up, and went to the bathroom. I examined the toilet paper and it was slightly green/brown. I went back into the room and turned on the overhead light and shook Matt awake. 

“I think my water broke.”

In typical Matt fashion he said, “You think or you know?” 

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know how it would be anything else.”

I called our doula, and she instructed us to call our OB. Midwife Ally, who I had seen earlier that day, answered and told me to come on into the hospital since there was meconium in my water. 

By the way, only about 10% of birthing folks have their water break before contractions, despite what Hollywood depicts. 

With all of our prep with our doula and birthing classes, I had expected to labor at home for a significant amount of time before we had to go to the hospital.

We gathered our hospital bags, which didn’t feel like they were fully together yet (I really thought I was going to give birth past my due date!) We left our dog behind, who seemed very confused. As we were gathering our items I started to feel contractions. We grabbed our pillows, had to put the carseat in the car, grabbed our phone chargers, and drove to the hospital. 

By the time we got to the hospital (just 7ish minutes away) my pants were already soaked. I felt like an idiot for not putting on a pad or something. But I didn’t think there would continue to be more liquid coming out of me. 

My contractions were getting stronger and more frequent. We had to enter the emergency room lobby as it was after hours. I remember sitting down on a waiting room chair and the chair getting wet. I waddled to the restroom to grab a paper towel to wipe down the chair. The person at the front desk said something like, “You don’t need to do that! That is the last thing you need to worry about right now!” 

An attendant came to grab us from downstairs and brought us up to the L&D floor. My contractions were getting more intense and closer together. They got us into a room and did some testing on me and the baby. It was 2:30 am and I was 3 cm dilated with contractions every 2 mins. The plan had been to do some laboring in the bathtub, so I did. 

This was the most painful part of the labor for me. The contractions in the tub were severe and getting more frequent. Matt sat nearby with me, contacting our doula, and our families, and making sure the dog was going to be picked up early in the morning. 

The contractions were wild, and I moved my torso forward in circles for each one, groaning (screaming?) for every one. 

At 4:30am, I was ready for my epidural. 

Jessie, my doula arrived.

At 5:10am  the anesthesiologist came in to put in the epidural. I had had a huge fear of the needle insertion and I barely felt anything. 

I was 5 cm dilated at 6:20 am. 

At that point I was exhausted and able to sleep, so I sleep I did. 

Jessie and the nurse would come in and rearrange me while I labored. It’s a strange feeling to not feel anything but have your body still do this internal laborious opening.

I was 8 cm dilated by 10am. They gave me Pitocin to help the labor along.

By 12:15pm I was feeling contractions again, and I was SO ITCHY. The staff ordered me hydrocortisone and I was literally just pouring it on my body. (Apparently this can be a reaction to the epidural)

By 2:20 I was 9.5cm dilated, and still the same by 4:45pm and 0 effaced. More Pitocin, more epidural and I was feeling some pain. 

At 7:55 I started to push, even though I wasn’t quite at 10 cm, and still not effaced. They asked if I felt like pooping, a sign that you’re ready to push, but I did not feel like pooping.

I was pushing, following the midwife’s, nurses’, and Jessie’s breathing cues. We tried so many positions. Around hour 3 they brought me a mirror. We could see the baby’s head (sorta? It was all just hairy). The baby was right there, but was just not coming out the whole way. 

The baby’s vitals were fine, so I continued to push. I had multiple staff’s fingers inside my vagina, trying to guide me to feel the correct way to push. They kept cueing “push like you’re pooping but relax your glutes, relax your butt hole.” (which feels truly impossible) They tried to reduce the epidural so I could feel this technique better. It felt unattainable.

At hour 4 of pushing, the OB came in and talked to me about how that 4 hours of pushing generally indicates there needs to be an intervention of some kind. 2 hours is average. 4 is generally the cut off. I asked if we could use forceps (like tongs) or the vacuum to try and get him out, but she said he wasn’t far enough down the birth canal. (Which made no sense to me, because can’t we see his head??) 

The only viable option, since his vitals were still ok, was to try pushing 30 more minutes and if he wasn’t out then we would have to do a C-section. 

After 30 more minutes, he was not out. I was exhausted and sobbing at this point. We were looking at a C-section. I was terrified. I had really wiped the possibility of a C-section from my mind since the baby was no longer breached weeks before. I was not mentally prepared to be cut up on a table. But when the doctors asked if I was ready, I nodded. There was no other option. 

I received more anesthesia, and I started shaking uncontrollably. Matt had to prep to go into the OR room so I kissed him goodbye and asked him to update my parents. I got rolled into the OR. The lights were so bright. There were so many tools and so many people. I got loaded onto the table and was just still shaking so much, my arms spread open wide. At some point Jessie and Matt came in to hold my hands, and try their best to stop me from convulsing. I was nauseous, I threw up into a bag someone held up for me. 

Matt said when he came in I was already cut open on the table. He has a clear view of my insides.  Seems wild that is the immediate view when entering the OR and the viewer does not get to opt out of that traumatic experience. 

Matt said when he was holding my hand and looked around he could see a mountain of rags soaked in my blood.

I didn’t feel pain, but I could absolutely feel being cut open and the pressure of the clamps that held back my skin.

I was pretty out of it and really was focusing on not throwing up and just was terrified about the amount of shaking I was doing.

(Apparently the shaking is from the adrenaline and/or the epidural. I’m not sure why I had never heard of this before!! So women are just all convulsing on the operation table as they get cut open???) 

They pulled Jack out pretty quickly, and told me he was healthy. There was some concern about the meconium, so there was a special team checking him out.

Jack was born at 1:38 am on October 4, 2025. He was 7lbs and 15oz and 20 inches long.

He was a relatively big baby, was “sunnyside up” with his hand by his face, and was getting stuck by my tail bone while I was pushing. 

Matt went to see the baby and cut the umbilical cord, but he said he was so torn because I was just there on the table shaking and the surgery was not over. Luckily Jessie was still there with me.

At one point the OB said, “There was a little cyst on your ovary, I just took it off.” I, half conscious, was like, “Uhh, ok, is that Ok? Is there anything I need to know or do?” She said “no” and that was that. 

They asked if I wanted to hold him, and I was like absolutely not, there is no way I can hold a fresh baby, I am literally convulsing. 

Matt went with the baby, while I was sewn up. 

Back in the original room, I started to finally calm down and I got to hold the baby. It didn’t feel like my so-called promised “golden hour” as I felt so traumatized. We tried to get him to latch and maybe he did a little. I still had so many wires attached to me. I was still on pitocin because the uterus now had to contract back down to its pre-pregnancy size. 

The nurses would come and press on my uterus very hard and I would literally scream out in pain. They had to do this every 15 minutes initially and this was probably worse than active labor before the epidural. 

I was sore, exhausted, and also sooo hungry. They wouldn’t let me eat for a few more hours and it had already been 36ish hours since I had eaten last. I think I didn’t eat something until morning–more than 48 hours since I had dinner the night I went to the hospital. 

At some point Matt helped hand out my uterus pins to the staff that had helped us. Everyone was really excited about them. (By the way, I'm more pro-choice now than ever!)

Early in the morning we got to go upstairs to the recovery floor. Since I had a C-section I would get to spend 4 extra nights in the hospital. I would be in the hospital 6 nights total. Luckily we got a double room so Matt could have his own bed. 

That first night post-birth, the nurses took the baby so we could sleep. I did not sleep. I had a panic attack. 

Our day shift nurse arrived, a blonde woman in her 60s,  along with Jack and a nurse from the nursery. 

The older woman was brusque and started asking questions while the nursery nurse was getting Jack ready for hand off. She asked me, what is your pain level, as she got my meds together. I was so out of it, I said “I don’t know.”

She said, “That’s not an answer, what’s your level?” As she gave her screen a semi eye-roll that Matt caught. 

I was so flustered and caught off guard, took a breath and tried to explain I hadn’t slept in 48 hours and was in a lot of pain. 

I ended up giving her a number that she recorded, and she handed me a worksheet that she said she needed filled out in 20 mins and then a social worker would come by to review it with me. 

That was all she said about this nightmare of a form. See the form here .

With questions like: 

Things have been getting on top of me:  (the most poorly written scientific question that has ever existed)

[  ] Yes, most of the time I haven’t been able to cope at all

[  ] Yes, sometimes I haven’t been coping as well as usual 

[  ] No, most of the time I have coped quite well

[  ] No, I have been coping as well as ever

I have been so unhappy that I have had difficulty sleeping:

[  ] Yes, most of the time

[  ] Yes, sometimes

[  ] No, not very often 

[  ] No, not at all 

With a time frame of 7 days - “answer that comes closest to how you have felt IN THE PAST 7 DAYS—not just how you feel today.” This form was so confusing! 7 days ago I was fine, just very pregnant. Today I am NOT FINE because I was JUST CUT OPEN ON A TABLE. What is the average of these two answers!?!?! 

I tried to ask the nurse if I could have more time for the form. And she said she needed it shortly. I asked her if I could just have a minute and she left the room.

I tried to read the form but it was so overwhelming. I had somehow gotten into my head that Jack was in danger of being taken away from me, because my answers on this form were going to abso-fuckin-lutely going to say I had postpartum depression and anxiety. (And like would any person NOT have this 12 hours after birth?!?!?) 

I think her saying a social worker would come to "review the form” with me, made it seem like my parenting was in review. I was prepared to lie about how anxious I was just to “pass.”

While the nurse was out of the room, I asked Matt if he would talk for me, because my brain was not working well. 

She came back in the room, and Matt tried to explain my state and ask questions for me. And she said snarkily, “I’m not sure why you’re answering for her.”

I tried to ask her questions about if this would be on my record, but she didn’t really seem to be able to answer my questions or have any empathy. 

At one point she did say, I just feel bad I made you cry, but just generally seemed confused and removed from the situation.

Matt left the room, out of patience, to get us a new nurse. The nursery nurse had also seemed perplexed about the situation.

It was just a really bizarre experience, devoid of compassion, whereas all of our other interactions with staff had been so empathic and kind. Seems to me you would learn to be super sensitive to someone who had just given birth the night before? Seems like maybe she was in the wrong department. 

Instead we got a new nurse who was literally a saving grace, and her name actually was Grace! As Matt reminded me as I was writing this, “She was the best nurse on the floor!”

Grace calmly, and empathetically explained that this worksheet was just to give a benchmark of your PPD and for a social worker to come talk about resources for post birth. The piece of paper was even thrown out after. 

(Later my therapist friend explained that this form was just an attempt to give support for PPD as it had been so ignored before, but clearly fell flat)

I just think this form could really use a makeover and some empathetic explanation surrounding it. So if you get this form after giving birth with x amount of hours having not slept or eaten, fill it out with a little more kindness for yourself and know that it is an imperfect system. 

….

The rest of our time at the hospital was quite lovely actually. It was really comforting to be able to get support caring for the baby and caring for myself away from the real world with a compassionate staff. We learned to feed, to swaddle, to bathe, to track, to change diapers. It was truly a full educational experience.

I ordered in sushi, got my Italian sub, and the snacks and meals at the hospital were really fantastic. 

I had support with feeding Jack, and the nurses would take him at night so we could sleep. 

Several other things to mention: 

• The nurses would comment on the amount of pee in my catheter bag, because I was drinking so much liquid and disposing of so much liquid. When they took the catheter out, I was barely peeing, but I felt like I needed to pee all the time. The anesthesia can apparently confuse the signals in your head about your bladder needs. After some pee anxiety, my nurse did some sort of test to see if my bladder was releasing urine like it should. It was working correctly and that eased my anxiety 

• At one point I passed a blood clot the size of a GOLF BALL, which was the allotted bench mark for normalcy. At the time I was confused if it was blood or poop, and was going to proceed to use a cafeteria fork to try and figure out what it was. The nurse came in during this process laughing at me and said it was probably a blood cot and a GOLF BALL BLOOD COT IS NORMAL but anything bigger and I should let her know 

• My poop later was nothing to write home about. Maybe because I didn’t technically have a vaginal birth, but the first  poop was no big deal for me

• You’re not allowed to bring in your own meds to the hospital so they give you your normal meds plus pain meds doted to you on a time schedule. I was dealing with anxiety and not sleeping, but not didn’t feel comfortable to take ambien to sleep because of potential anxiety. The hospital wouldn’t approve of melatonin, but they would approve of Unisom which they didn’t have in the pharmacy but I had at home. So Matt brought in the Unisom but the pharmacy had to review the pills. 

Somehow, we never got the pills back, because the pills got stuck in the hospital walls’ tube system (like what banks had back in the day). They say our pills are still haunting those walls…..

• I was in so much pain. I was on a strict schedule alternating between Tylenol and Ibuprofen. You could take Oxy for breakthrough pain if needed. I really resisted at first. My advice–TAKE THE OXY

• They don’t tell you that breastfeeding actually signals the uterus to contract. So breastfeeding basically makes you have contractions and it hurts like hell. The nurses would also proceed to give me fundal massages on a schedule, basically pressing on the uterus to make it contract and also did the same to my C-section opening. Lots of screaming and grimacing was had

We also gave all the staff on the recovery floor my uterus pin. On the last day Matt went out to the car to get the car seat, we piled all of our things on a cart, and I got wheeled out (SO FAST) by a nurse with the baby the car seat on my lap as we zoomed past all sorts of guests in the hospital and out into the fresh fall air I had not felt in a week. And then we took our little Jack home.