so I figure I'll write my birth story now. so I woke up yesterday with terrible back pain. like awful. it wasn't in waves or anything, it was constant pain. around 2130 I started feeling the pain come in waves. I took a bath and walked around my apartment cuz my mom was convinced it was just early labor. well they started getting worse and I was timing them and they were about a minute long, 4 minutes apart. my friend called L&D for me to see if she could take her 7 months old in there so she could help me. they said yes and after another like 20 minutes (this is after 2 hours) I decided to go. we got to the hospital around 1215ish and they hooked me up to the monitor for half an hour. they checked me and I was still 1.5 but they decided that they wanted to keep me so my friend hung around for another hour then she went home because of her kid. so I laid down in this side room for a few hours and they felt like they were getting steadier and longer and my mucus plug was coming out so I asked the midwife to check and she said I was about a 2. I asked her if I could labor in the tub, so she hooked me up to the monitor while she filled the tub. I labored in the tub for maybe an hour and they were getting worse and the tub wasn't helping and she checked me and I was at 7 cm. so we moved me to the delivery room around 530. I labored while leaning over the back of the bed for maybe an hour and they periodically checked me when I'd have a contraction. I hit 10 cm probably around 630ish and they told me to start pushing to get him to lower the rest of the way. they let me lean over the back of the bed until he was low enough to really push. I pushed (probably too hard since I ripped) for maybe 20 minutes and voila he was here. also, when we moved to the delivery room I put my mom on a video call for the whole thing, and my friend showed up maybe 3 minutes before it was go time. they let me cut the cord and put him straight on my chest. he didn't get weighed or measured until my stitches were done. they kept me in the delivery room for recovery for about 4 hours, then took him to get cleaned up and tested and took me to my room.

and my mom thought the whole thing yesterday was a false alarm or early labor.