Birth story

I gave birth to my first child, Moses, a week ago, and wanted to write down my experience while it was fresh, both for my own memory and in case it's helpful to anyone out there.

Background

I am grateful that overall, I had a good pregnancy - I had some heartburn and headaches in the first trimester and a little insomnia in the third, but I was able to stay pretty active until the very end. Baby consistently looked good so I didn't have to go to the doctor that much and there were many days where for hours on end I forgot that I was pregnant.

I didn't follow any of the food prohibitions and continued to eat cold cuts, sushi, etc. The only thing I didn't consume was alcohol.

The night before

The night before I went into labor, I had not felt the baby kick in a few hours, from around 7pm on. He had also been very still during the day and I suddenly got very concerned. I went on Reddit, which is probably not the best idea, and read stillbirth stories where the babies had not been moving towards the end of pregnancy, and sort of panicked and made David drive me to the hospital. They put a baby monitor on me and he was completely fine. My OB did a cervical check and said I was 1 cm dilated and that the cervix was soft (effaced). They let me come home, with David laughing at me for hallucinating that something was wrong. But our theory is that the baby was sleeping happily, got woken up, and decided that it was time to come out 🙈

Labor - beginning (7 am - 7 pm)

I woke up at 7 am the next morning with light contractions - at first I thought I just needed to pee badly, which is common when you're 9 months pregnant. But even after I peed, the pain continued. I downloaded an app and the contractions were coming regularly every 7 minutes. I figured I was probably in early labor.

I had an OB appointment scheduled for that morning anyway, so I called and they said to come on in. The doctor checked and I was 2 cm dilated at that point. She said to call and go to the hospital when contractions were 1 minute long, 5 minutes apart for at least 1 hour (the 5-1-1 rule).

I went home and David went to work. I told him to wrap things up because we were having a baby! I went and got a pedicure because I wanted to look my best meeting my son. Then I had a big lunch at a Chinese restaurant, remembering people telling me to eat a good meal before labor since you can't eat much at the hospital. Then I went home, cleaned up the house, finished packing my to-go bag, and took a long shower, since I figured I wouldn’t be able to take one for a few days. Throughout this time, I was having regular contractions that I could still breathe through. They were uncomfortable but manageable. The people at the pedicure place were extra nice to me and gave me a great neck massage because they could tell that I was super pregnant.

Around 4 pm I took a nap and was able to sleep through the contractions until about dinner time. By then, David was home, we ate, and then the contractions started getting really painful. It was a strange experience, feeling completely fine in between waves of intense pain. I would chat with David about politics and then be hit with contractions. It felt a lot like intense menstrual cramps in the lower back and hips. By this point I’d been having them fairly regularly for about 12 hours, and I was getting pretty tired.

Labor - middle (7 pm - 12 pm)

My initial plan had been to labor at home as long as possible, since I figured no matter how nice a hospital is, that it’s more comfortable at home with all my items. But by 11 pm-12 am it was getting really painful. I was laboring on my hands and knees, regretting we hadn't gotten a doula since David didn't know exactly what to do to help me (probably nothing). The contractions weren't getting more consistent though, still more than 5 minutes apart.

Around 1 am we decided to go to the hospital again to see if I had progressed and could get an epidural. When we got there, they checked and I was still only 2 cm dilated. They said they could admit me but I wasn't that far along.

I was so dispirited at this point, because I was in so much pain and had barely progressed and the prospect of the most difficult part still being hours and hours away was overwhelming. I kept going back and forth on whether I should stay at the hospital, but we were both so exhausted that we ultimately decided to go home to get some rest (haha). By then it was 3-4 am, and when we got home, my parents had arrived from California after an all-day flight. We all went straight to bed, but I couldn’t really sleep, and was moaning and groaning every 5-6 minutes. That stretch from 3-7 am was probably the hardest.

Around 7 am I told David and my parents that we had to go back to the hospital and see if they could give me something for the pain. So we went. The nurse checked me first and I was still only 2 cm, but she said that they might be able to give me some morphine through an IV. I then waited for the OB to check me. (Something to note about hospitals is that you spend a lot of time waiting around.) OB/Gyns typically work in practice groups, and it was actually a different OB (not my usual one) on call at that point. She checked me, and while I still had not progressed that much, I had progressed a little more (3 cm).

Labor - end ( 12 pm - 10 pm) (I ❤️ epidurals)

I think Dr. Grano (the OB) could see that I was absolutely miserable, took pity on me, and admitting me with a diagnosis of “labor”, authorized the epidural.

I remember her saying "we're going to have a baby together" and just bawling in relief.

They started an IV for hydration and the anesthesiologist came to do the epidural. I had been nervous about it, imagining a giant needle stuck in my back for hours and having to lie still. But it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared:

They numb the spot on your back first. This was the worst part and I definitely cried, but I'm kind of a wuss with needles. Others may not find it so bad.
They thread a soft spaghetti-like tube in through the epidural space, where the medication goes. Then they tape it down and you can't feel it at all when lying on your back.
Your legs start to tingle. You still have some sensation and pressure but the bottom half of your body feels like dead weight. Nurses come to turn you every few hours with pillows.
Once you get the epidural, you can't walk, eat or pee. They put in a Foley catheter which sounds scary/disgusting but you can't feel anything waist-down so it doesn't bother you. And then you can finally rest!

I got the epidural around 1 pm and the relief was immediate. The only side effect I had was a slight headache, which is normal. (David informed me that epidurals are basically fentanyl, and for the first time, I understood the fentanyl epidemic). I napped from 1 pm to 7 pm, woozy but comfortable. My recommendation is to bring an eye mask, ear plugs and your own pillow since it may be daylight and the rooms can be loud with people in and out. During this time, my parents went home for a nap, and David came in to relieve them.

When I woke up, it was 7 pm, and I felt much much better having gotten some rest. Unfortunately, I still had not progressed. The OB decided to break my water. She used a small hook, and while this sounds scary, I couldn’t feel it happening at all. It was more like water flowing out of a water balloon than air popping out of an air balloon. After they broke my water I could tell the contractions were getting stronger because I could feel some pressure in my middle section, even through the epidural.

The doctor came to check me around 8-9 pm and I had progressed to 8 cm dilated in the hours after they broke my water. She said we would definitely have the baby that night or early morning. They checked again at 10:30 pm and I was fully dilated and ready to push. The nurse prepped me for delivery and gave instructions on how to push - curl up in a shrimp position, bear down like you're pooping, hold your breath and push with the contractions.

Basically, my conclusion after the labor and delivery is that you should get the epidural ASAP, as soon as they will give it to you, even if you are barely dilated. Even if it does elongate the labor, who cares? They’re not billing you by the hour. You’ll be pain-free and can watch a movie or something.

Delivery (10 pm - 12 pm)

Around 11 pm it was go time. They put my feet up in the stirrups and the nurse held one leg while David held the other. The doctor was in between them. I couldn't feel any pain at this point. They tell you when to push based on monitoring the contractions since you can't really feel them. They turned the epidural down a bit so I'd have more sensation but it still took hours to wear off so I was basically numb.

What ended up hurting the most during pushing was my neck, shoulders, and upper back, from being curled up in an awkward shrimp position for 45 minutes. Another issue was that I couldn't really tell if I was pushing effectively due to the numbness. But all three of them, the nurse (Rachel), the OB, and David, were super encouraging, reassuring, and cheering me on. They kept telling me that my baby had a full head of hair. There were points I worried about needing a C-section. But after about 40 minutes of pushing, the widest part of his head emerged. The doctor told me to stop pushing and she quickly grabbed him and pulled the rest of him out. Apparently, he had the umbilical cord wrapped once around his neck (nuchal cord) and the baby was blue as he came out, but I wasn’t aware of any of this. As soon as the doctor saw the nuchal cord, she cut it immediately. Luckily nuchal cords are fairly common and not a huge deal. He ended up being completely fine.

My most vivid memory of the delivery was the doctor pulling him out of me, and then, seemingly as soon as he was out, telling me to grab him. He was this squirming bundle of dark hair and dark skin (I thought he just had a tan but it turns out he was a bit blue initially!), covered in streaks of blood and bodily fluids. At first I hesitated to grab him - he seemed more like an alien animal than a baby and I was kind of scared, both of him and of hurting him. But everyone kept yelling “grab him”, and I did and put him on my chest, and he was so tiny and soft and perfect. He had a ton of dark straight hair on his head, blond eyebrows, no eyelashes, and black fuzz on his body. Unlike a lot of babies, his features were already so well-formed. When I finally got a good look at him, I thought, “oh, he’s so handsome.” The entire time I was pregnant, I had no conception of what he was going to look like, especially because he’s three-quarters Asian, and that’s not a super common mix. It took me a moment to process, oh, this is my son, he’s alive!

Then after a few minutes of skin to skin, they took him over to the side to be wiped down and weighed and assessed. They had had a resuscitation expert on standby but thankfully he didn't need it.

I can't say I had an overwhelming surge of maternal love right away. I didn't cry, and neither did David. I think we were both in shock. I was mostly relieved that it was done and I had successfully given birth. The placenta came out, which I sort of felt. The nurse cleaned me up, but I was surprisingly not that dirty, just a few streaks of blood, and I didn’t feel that gross - I didn’t shower at the hospital for the next two days and it was completely fine.

They gave us some time with the baby in the delivery room and my parents came in to meet him. I was just holding him. Then they took him to the nursery for assessments and I was wheeled, for my first time in a wheelchair, to the maternity ward recovery room. It was a very nice, quiet, private room. The hospital serves you lobster before you leave - a perk of delivering in Greenwich!

By this point, around 2 am, I was starting to get feeling back in my legs as the epidural wore off. They kept the baby in the nursery overnight, and wheeled him in around 7 am. I was waking up, and he was waking up too. He opened his eyes, staring out at the new day ahead, his first day of life.

‣

TMI section (read at your own risk!)

Ok, so this is the section where I talk about the stuff that people don't usually discuss because it's very private/disgusting/inappropriate for polite conversation. But I remember being morbidly curious about it before and during pregnancy, and I know many other women who cite "body changes" and "tearing" as top reasons they don't want to get pregnant. So here goes:

Pooping: Something people don't tell you is that a lot of sensations around labor and contractions are very similar to the sensations when you are pooping. For example, when I was in early labor, I pooped a ton, likely because of the muscular contractions. Another example is that when you get an epidural and can't feel anything waist down, they tell you to alert them if you feel "rectal pressure," that feeling of needing to poop, because it indicates labor is progressing. Pushing is essentially bearing down the same way you do to poop. The nurse said most women poop as they push. I asked my husband if I did and he said he actually couldn't see because the baby and my legs were in the way. They test you for certain bacteria beforehand and give you antibiotics during labor if you have then, to prevent the baby from being infected as they pass through the birth canal. Luckily, Moses was born face up!
Tearing: I ended up having a second-degree tear from the birth, which means it went through both the skin and muscle (first-degree is just skin). Second-degree tears are fairly average in terms of severity (it goes up to fourth-degree which I don't even want to get into). Because of the epidural, I did not feel the tear happen at all. They stitched me up right after delivering the placenta and I didn't feel that either. The stitches didn’t bother me for the first few days in the hospital, likely because they medicate you well (just over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen and Tylenol). But when I came home, I started feeling them more, especially when sitting and going down stairs (You realize you use your vaginal muscles for more than just sex!)

In terms of aftercare, they give you a little squirt bottle to clean yourself every time you use the bathroom. You just pat yourself dry and wear a pad, no touching the stitches. They are self-dissolving so you don't have to get them taken out. One recommendation is to not sit for long periods of time, because it puts a lot of pressure on the perineal area, and if you have to sit, to sit on a donut-shaped pillow. Hard desk chairs are bad. It's best to alternate between lying down on your side and standing up/walking around which is good for circulation.

The stitches bothered me the most on days 3-5 postpartum, but I turned a corner around days 5-7 and was in much less pain (I think the stitches started dissolving).

Postpartum bathroom: The first postpartum poop is a big source of anxiety for new moms. It was especially scary for me since I've always had digestive issues and took magnesium throughout pregnancy to help. I wasn't able to poop until 5 days postpartum, which was likely because I had done a lot of pooping when I first went into labor and then barely ate for the 36 hours of labor. The lack of movement in the days after delivery also didn’t help. Thankfully, when I was finally able to go, it was fine, I think due to all the stool softeners I had taken (miralax, calm). You just clean yourself with the peri bottle and pat dry, similar to after urinating. But other women have warned me that constipation can actually be more painful than labor if you don't stay on top of the stool softeners. So be warned and stay hydrated!
Postpartum body: In total, I gained about 25 pounds during the pregnancy. My exercise regime was weight lifting twice a week at the gym and some light yoga at home. Cardio was walking (I wasn't able to run at all). I've always had hormonal acne and eczema, and that cleared up during the pregnancy, so I felt decently attractive haha. Hopefully that sticks around postpartum!

When I weighed myself after coming home from the hospital, I had only lost about 7 lbs, which was kind of surprising given that the baby was almost 7 lbs and there was the placenta and blood. But I think I might have still been a bit swollen. By day 6, I was down about 12 lbs, maybe a little more, so about half the weight I had gained. When I look in the mirror, I'm definitely way softer than I used to be, especially around the middle. I still have the linea nigra (dark line) on my stomach. But overall, not too bad. I always had a bit of extra skin and fat on my stomach, which I think helped me during pregnancy because there was more skin to stretch and I didn't get any stretch marks. But now that I'm no longer pregnant, it’s just kind of sitting there. I'm hoping to lose it before I have to fit into my very tight wedding dress 6 months from now!