AUBREE'S BIRTH STORY

I have to start this post with a very negative thing and I apologize to anyone that is offended by this - MY PREGNANCY SUCKED. I always hate to complain because I know there are so many women that cannot get pregnant or have a WAY harder pregnancy than me. BUT, I feel like I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell the whole truth, and the whole truth is that I hated pretty much every second of my pregnancy. I was sick as all heck. I'm talking about puking every day, needing hospital fluids every week, constant migraines and dizziness and nausea, etc. I would only eat things that would taste decent coming back up, ya feel me? Gross, I know. Horrible, yes. I had two false labors that forced me to be on bed rest for the majority of my third trimester. BUT with that said, Aubree's birth was easy as pie! Like, so easy that I was laughing through the pushing and trying to look down to see her coming on out. I'm well aware I sound like a psychopath when I say that, but it truthfully was so simple.

On Friday night, about two weeks before her due date, I started having contractions. First of all, remember I had previously had false labors, so honestly, I thought nothing of this pain. That night, my husband, my mom, and I drove up to our cabin in the woods for a little weekend away.

While we were playing cribbage (shout out to anyone who understands how obsessed Minnesotans are with this game), I started contracting harder. I drank water, brushed it off as typical pregnancy pains, and went to sleep. The next day, I was exhausted. I slept a full 12 hours the previous night, but for some reason I could not feel an ounce of energy. I napped pretty much all of Saturday. My energy came back that night, and of course, we played some more cribbage. Around 7pm, the contractions started again, but this time, with only 12 minutes in between each. My mom started to panic (as typical moms do) and began secretly counting my contractions and the minutes in between them. Supposedly, they were getting closer to 7 minutes apart. We decided to drive the two hours back home in case something was to happen. I took a shower (thank God), and drove home in an incredible amount of pain.

Around midnight, we made it home and rushed straight to the hospital. Of course, after being checked, I was told I was not in labor. The doctor gave me an Ambien and told me to SLEEP OFF THE PAIN. Have you ever seen a movie where the woman in labor wants to punch the husband? Well, I wanted to punch my doctor. I knew something was either wrong, or I was in labor. So, as a pregnant, hormonal, crazy-woman, I sobbed the entire ride home. I did not sleep a wink. Around 7am, I walked into my kitchen. (SIDENOTE- my husband and I were living with my parents at the time while we waited to move into our home, so my parents are sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee all bright eyed and bushy tailed.) I was not bright eyed and bushy tailed, I wanted to scream. No sleep, contracting, and angry as hell. My mom suggested we go for a walk, and without arguing, I agreed. Why? Because anything was better than sitting on the couch feeling the immense pain that was happening in my body. After what felt like the longest walk ever, I knew I was having true contractions. They were every 4 minutes almost on the dot. At this point, we went to the hospital, got checked in, and sure enough, I was in labor.

I chose to receive an epidural for my pain because (I hate to admit it) I'm such a wuss when it comes to pain. However, this was easily the best decision of my life because I did not feel a thing. A couple hours after my epidural, my doctor had to break my water for me because the contractions were not doing it themselves. Then, a couple hours after that, I was ready to push. During those few hours between epidural and pushing, I had about 15 people in and out of my hospital room hanging out, eating dinner, chatting, and goofing around. This sounds crazy, but I'm the kind of person that likes to share my life with absolutely everyone, so I wanted everyone around! It absolutely made me more comfortable. Once I started pushing, everything happened so quickly. My family and friends that were waiting in the waiting room had bets on how long it would take me to push her out and honestly, it went WAY faster than anyone could have imagined. About 30 minutes into pushing, I had this gorgeous baby in my arms and all of the pregnancy stress was finally over and BOY WAS IT WORTH IT. Xo, J