Briella’s birth on August 1, 2015
Justin and I welcomed our beautiful baby girl Briella Katherine-Anne into the world on August 1 at 2:08pm weighing in at 7lbs 4oz and 19 inches long.
It definitely wasn’t the birth I was planning but it was perfect in the end with a healthy baby and a great memory – I now tell people how amazing my birth was and how I can’t wait to experience it again!
My labor began on Thursday July 30th after I went in for my weekly prenatal visit and they sent me straight to the hospital with high blood pressure to be induced, I was hoping for an all natural birth so needless to say I was disappointed. They started the induction with cervadil and 24 hours later I was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced so they told me they would try another cervadil and then the plan was for them to induce me further with pitocin which I was hoping to somehow avoid. After the second cervadil my water broke; it was about 3 am on Saturday at this point, contractions started at about 7 am and were pretty intense with no breaks in between, the doctor did a check and I was about 4 cm at this point so they were going to give me another hour to see where I was at before proceeding with pitocin, an hour later I was 8 cm dilated so they decided to let me progress on my own. Unfortunately my blood pressure sky rocketed at this point and they told me I needed an epidural otherwise there was a risk that I would have a stroke or a seizure so at 8 cm they gave me the epidural. Luckily it was late enough that it didn’t stall my labor at all and an hour later I was ready to start pushing, the epidural definitely made it more difficult to know when to push because you don’t feel anything but somehow I managed to get through it with no tears. An hour and a half later my beautiful baby girl entered this world and was placed on my chest, there were some challenges afterwards but the birth itself was amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience, I can’t thank Rhonda enough for giving me and my husband the tools necessary to work through labor and delivery and she really stressed the fact that even if interventions are necessary it can still be a wonderful experience and an optimal birth.
