Welcome home, Sunday Ford!

It's been two weeks since I delivered my daughter Sunday and I'm finally able to sit down for a few minutes to recap the best day of my life. It was sort of like a super intense sporting competition, and team Elshane's World came out victorious!! That's truly how I look back at my day in labor, and here's why...

Read on to take a journey through my complete birth story. 

Friday morning, March 25 (39 weeks and 1 day into my pregnancy), I woke up after having some mild to medium contractions all night long. I had been having minor contractions through my sleep for a few days now, so I wasn't overly excited or anxious about these cramps. 

I went to the bathroom and I noticed my mucus plug had come out in the toilet (sounds gross, and well, it is... it's this bloody mucus ball that releases from your body up to two weeks before you go into labor). Again, since this wasn't a tell-tale sign that labor was eminent, I just took it as a check mark in the box of steps closer to the big day.

It was Good Friday so my husband Taylor randomly had off from work all day. We joked in the morning that this could be the big day, but went on with our day plans as usual. I headed to do errands around town all morning as my contractions continued steadily for one minute intervals, every 30-45 minutes. Again, I wasn't alarmed because I was always taught that you're not in labor until the contractions are 5 minutes apart for one hour straight. These contractions were intense but not earth-shattering. They were a 4/10 on a high tolerance pain scale. Enough so that twice when I was at Bed Bath and Beyond that day (insert many, many mom jokes here), I was keeled over my shopping cart making very strange noises while the entire staff cheered for me! But the day went on...

My husband had a golf tee time at 1pm an hour away from our house. Again, insert wife of the year award here! I told him it was ok that he went to play, as long as he kept his phone glued to his body. And he did... and at 6 pm when he was on the 16th hole, he got the call...

My contractions were getting more intense and running anywhere between 10-20 minutes apart. They were not consistently getting closer together, but they were consistently not stopping, and getting stronger. I kept texting my New York best friends who just had babies, "am I in labor?" as I'd screen grab my contraction tracker iPhone app monitor (the app I used is called Full Term) and send them the updates. They all agreed, "yes!". But I still wasn't convinced.

Taylor got home from golf by 7 pm, and at this point the contractions were steadily the same as they were the past hour. Sometimes 8 minutes apart, sometimes 20 minutes apart. We ordered in dinner, put the final packing touches on our hospital bags, made arrangements for our dog Homer, and took some painful walks around the block to speed things up...

By 10:30pm the contractions hit 5 minute intervals and it was go time! The hospital is around the corner from our house, so we were checked into our labor room before we could blink. I cried from the walk in the parking lot into the hospital. I was so nervous. 

When we arrived at the hospital they checked us immediately into our labor room, skipping the preliminarily triage room where they check to make sure you're in labor. They could tell by my contraction pains, despite my ability to manage the pain, that it was go time. Now, the pain was a 6/10.

Within an hour of checking in, I got my epidural and Petocin to speed up the contractions. I was 4 cm when I checked into the hospital. Taylor and I had just watched the movie, The Business of Childbirth, and were extremely wary of Petocin to speed up labor. We learned so many cases where the introduction of Petocin caused emergency C-Sections and we wanted to do anything we could to avoid that scenario. It's complicated to explain, so I suggest either watching the documentary or googling it to understand more.

Luckily my water broke within one hour of the Petocin, which naturally sped up my contractions, so the nurses immediately took me off Petocin for the remainder of labor. The nurses told Taylor and me to take a nap for a few hours, which was shockingly easy to do, considering the drugs I was on, and the 3 am timestamp on the clock.

Less than two hours after I got off the Petocin, I was at 10 cm, my doctor arrived, and it was time to push! I was so amp'd up to push because I'm such a workout girl and I love my ab exercises! I thought I'd be the best pusher in the game. Breaking news? Pushing is HARD. Really hard. Keep in mind, I couldn't feel much because of the epidural. It felt like a ton of pressure, but nothing worse.

It took me under 45 minutes, and here's the best part of the story... 

Over half way through, once I got the baby into final position, my doctor proved his all-star status. (Side note, we love our doctor so much that we made custom baseball hats for him and Taylor that read "Coach Taylor and Coach Bobby" to cheer along the process. When my doc walked in, we gave him the hat and without hesitation, he put it right on his head and got to work!)

Instead of having me push the baby out, my doctor literally said "BLOW!" He told me to ever so gently and with such light force, blow as if I'm blowing out one single birthday candle. I lightly blew, and blew, and blew her head right out! This process allowed me to get her out without tearing at all-- WOW!

So, I blew the head out, and then had one big push to get the shoulders out. Then, my doctor grabbed my hands and put them on a slimy, wet something, and before I even knew what happened, I pulled my entire baby out myself.  I put her right on my chest and at 7:46am on Saturday, March 26, 2016, my little Sunday Ford came into this world. <3

{Ok, I know what you're all thinking... couldn't we have held her in for another 16 hours so she could have been born on a SUNDAY!?} Well, you can't mess with fate! :)

Disclaimer: My labor experience was so positive and filled with love. I know many women go through extremely traumatic labor stories which leave them never wanting more children. I am so sorry for anyone who has gone through a bad experience and don't wish it upon anyone. The truth is, my experience was so liberating and incredible that I can't wait to go through it again. I hope this story excites and empowers moms-to-be to have more children. <3

So that's the story... I'd love, love, love to hear any comments you have, below. Thank you so much!

Newborn photo by Diana Henderson. Hospital photos by my teary-eyed husband.