LABOR STORY:

On Thursday of last week I began feeling mild cramp-like contractions that lasted the whole day and well into the night. I woke up on Friday and the pain got more intense to the point where I had to stop doing whatever I was doing because it was so painful. I still decided not to go to the hospital because they were too far apart. At this point though I knew I would be going into labor that night or the next day. I went on a half hour walk at noon (stopping at every contraction) and I took a shower around 9pm and tried to go to bed but the pain got too extreme and at a steady 7 minutes apart for two hours. At 11pm I decided to go to the hospital. They checked me and saw I was 3cm dilated. My contractions started coming every 2-3 minutes then. I asked for the epidural when I reached 8cm of dilation (at around 4am); the hardest thing I had to do that night was sit completely still through 2 contractions as I got the epidural. I pushed for a while and at 6:36am on Saturday August 29th (which is my husband's birthday) my baby boy Nathan was born. FYI, what really helped me deal with the pain was breathing slowly, relaxing my body and getting on my fours through the contraction while my husband applied pressure on my lower back. I chose to look at a light switch as a focal point and I imagined myself on a rocking chair holding my newborn every time. There were a few times where I wanted to scream and tense up but I knew this would make the pain worse so as hard as it was I always always did my best to relax my body and ride the contraction; letting it take over.

Active labor lasted 7 hours.