the birth story

By all the doctor's calculations and ultrasounds I was due May 1st, but in my mind I was sure baby Shore would be coming April 26th. By lunch time on the 26th I figured it wouldn't happen that day as most first babies taken a long time to be born. As we were watching tv that night around 8pm I felt something weird that I hadn't felt before, turns out my water had broken!
We called the doctor and as I wasn't having any contractions we were told we could stay home for a couple hours but to come in by midnight.
Here is the final belly picture taken right before we left for Durham Regional:

We called our parents to let them know we were headed to the hospital as well as my doula, Susanne, who met us there.
I was hoping to have a natural, drug free labor. And for the first 7 hours I did just that. Susanne was a great help with focusing on what the goal was and to not think too much about the pain.
Unfortunately, 7 hours into it I was getting really worn out and my contractions were getting stronger and stronger and were really close together. I was getting maybe a 15-30 second break between them. So, I decided as I was going to need strength to push that it was time to give in and get the epidural.

For the next 5 hours nothing happened, I had no progress at all so we sent everyone home as everyone needed some rest and it was much easier for me to try to rest if Justin and I were the only ones left at the hospital. 20 hours after my water had broken the doctor decided it was time to give me some antibiotics to make sure no infections would happen. By this point I had been at 10 cms for several hours but my contractions weren't strong enough or in a good enough pattern for me to push. As I really didn't want petocin we decided to try pushing for a while. After 45mins-1 hr there was no progress. Once again I had to adjust from my original goal and focus on the main point which was to deliver a healthy baby and decided it was time for the petocin. They also turned the epidural off so I could feel the contractions and know when to push.
After what felt like days but was only about an hour and a half to 2 hours, 23.5 hours after my water broke Baby Shore finally arrived! In the time we were in the delivery room we had 4 nurses and 2 different doctors. I honestly had no idea it was possible to have so much pain! It was by far the most painful thing I have ever been through, but it was also totally worth it.


Justin got to tell me we had a little boy! They handed him to me right away. Justin got to cut the cord, and I was allowed to hold him the whole time it took for Dr. Cole to sew me back up (about 45 minutes).


He was born at 7:27pm, 7lbs 3.2 oz and 20.5 inches long. Labor didn't go how I hoped but we still achieved the main goal, having a healthy baby :) Jack is awesome and we couldn't be happier!