It seems unreal. My baby is here. It has been two weeks since his birth and we are haggard, but he's amazing.

It is sort of customary to write a bith story, so here it is. At 38 weeks and 5 days I started having occasional contractions and a bit of spotting in the evening. The next night I had intense contractions, all night long, but sporadically, ranging from 10-40 minutes apart. I had an already scheduled OB checkup with Non-Stress Test the next morning (just as a precaution to make sure the baby still looked healthy, because I am over 40). I felt things might be moving along, so I tossed our bags in the car and had my husband drive me, just in case.

The previous week I had a check and membrane sweep, and I was at 3 cm and 50% effaced. At this appointment, 39 weeks and 0 days, I was at 6cm and 100% effaced. The non-stress test looked great, so no worries there. However, my blood pressure was at 122/90 and I had a similar reading the previous week, so I was officially marked as gestational hypertension (the cut off is 140/90 - either number). I don't know if I believe it, because my blood pressure always spikes when I go into the doctor, especially if I am nervous. I for sure have white coat syndrome after medical trauma the last few years. But anyway, I understand their desire to stay on the safe side, so my OB said I should go straight to the hospital for induction.

I texted our doula and my sister in law who was going to look after our dogs, and off we went, with a stop for burritos on the way. Looking back, it is a bit funny that I showed up to Labor and Delivery and calmly ate a burrito in the waiting room at 6 cm dialed and 100% effaced before heading in to deliver.

Contractions had pretty much stopped, and at the hospital we were walking around, pumping, doing circles on the yoga ball, and not much was going on. They broke my water around 1:00 to get things moving, and I had occasional contractions. Walking around the ward was giving me stronger contractions, so it might have been ramping up, but I'm not sure. I was not worried about my blood pressure at all, but they thought it was important to nudge things along, so at 5:30 we started a pitocin drip at the lowest level. I was afraid of pitocin making things too fast and intense, since I hoped to go unmedicated, but I was getting impatient too, so I agreed. Maybe a half an hour onto the pitocin, it shifted right into transition - really painful contractions, about 90 seconds apart, but still at 6cm.

I tried nitrous oxide, and found it helpful only for the contractions that I could breathe through. It did nothing for the strong ones. I went and stood in the shower and that helped. My husband sprayed the warm water on my back as I complained that it hurt and was too much. Mostly I had heard of women being in labor for hours and hours and I did not think I could handle that level of pain for that length of time. I knew the general progression of labor, but since nothing was going according to the expected pattern, I didn't really know what stage I was in or what to expect.

But it wasn't long before I had an increasing urge to push and I couldn't stop it from happening. My doula said to try to blow it out through the breath instead, and when I couldn't do that she asked them to check me again, and I was at 7.5 cm. I kept going with super painful, hard contractions and could not help pushing. My doula fetched them to come back for another check, and they said it was go time. This was probably an hour and a half after starting the Pitocin. I went from that 6cm to 10 cm in probably half an hour. Thank goodness for my doula - she was guiding and advocating for me, which I needed, because my brain was in primal mode, I did not want to use words or have to make decisions, at all. The midwives figured I had a while to go, which was not the case!

It helped me to lean over during contractions, so I was on the bed draped over a Cub inflatable support thingy, on my knees for pushing. The pushing was better because I felt I was accomplishing something, and the pain wasn't as bad. It still surprised me how hard and long they wanted me to push, so that was hard work.

After about half an hour of pushing, Our beautiful boy was born. The feeling of him emerging was the craziest thing I have ever felt! It was painful, and then such sudden relief that I was done, and then I felt amazing, just to not be in labor anymore. He was crying straight off, and they passed him right to me to hold. My doula took a video of that moment and it still makes me cry to watch.

I had second degree tearing, the worst of which was a labial tear, so I had stitches and a little blood loss from the tearing. The recovery has been good, I have had minimal pain and I have been tired, but healing well. The worst part was that they wanted to keep me in hospital for 72 hours to monitor my blood pressure. I think that was overkill, and I started to get really stressed just from being cooped up with people pestering me and taking my blood pressure all the time. It never did anything alarming, but they said it can spike on day 3, so they wanted to be sure. They said things like "if we let you go home..." and that made me mad, as though I didn't have a choice in the matter. I really should have insisted on going home sooner, and just monitored my blood pressure with the cuff I have at home, it would have been better for my mental health. I have been monitoring it since I've been home, and in touch with my OB about it, and it's been totally fine.

The first few nights were really tough. I was so exhausted and could not rest, between the baby crying and the nurse pestering me about my blood pressure. I wanted my baby to be with me, but I really need to sleep. My husband was with me, but since I was trying to nurse and he was not sleeping or eating well yet, I was up every hour or two around the clock. They say newborns sleep a lot, but ours did not!

I was frustrated with the lactation consultants I saw in the hospital. They said our baby's latch looked good, in spite of it being painful and then we realized that he wasn't gaining weight. So we got a bit of donor milk to tide us over and I started pumping along with nursing and to get my supply going (which is working), and he's now back up to birth weight and growing well. I have another appointment with a different lactation consultant this week, and hopefully she'll be more help than the hospital ones.

It feels miraculous to have our baby here, after five years of infertility, IVF and losses and finally working with a wonderful egg donor to achieve this pregnancy. The newborn life is physically so taxing, but emotionally I am beginning to heal from the struggles of these last years, and that feels hopeful.

It has been really helpful to read everyones' stories, and it blows my mind how intense it all is, and yet this is how we all got here. It's wild.