Many of you who know me on here know I was one and done for a very long time. My husband and I had a little midlife crisis and changed our minds (eh hem.....he changed his mind). This is our second daughter's birth story.

Short story: Induced at 39 weeks because I'm in my 40's, pushed for 2 hours, ended up with a (traumatic to me) emergency c-section.

Long story:

At my 38 week appointment, I was scheduled for an induction. It is standard practice at the OB practices in my area to induce any mom who is 40 or older at 39 weeks. I decided to be induced on the first day of my 39th week because it worked best for my work schedule...

I got the call at 6:30am to come in to the hospital.

At 8am, I saw my OB and I had my pitocin started. It was started very slowly and I hardly felt anything for a long time. Throughout the day, the nurses kept upping the pitocin and I continued to have very mild contractions that weren’t too bothersome. I walked the halls, bounced on a ball and watched a few episodes of Below Deck.

At 5pm I still wasn’t feeling much but my OB came in and decided to check me. I was 4cm and she decided then to break my water. It gushed and gushed and soaked the nurses, my OB and me. Everyone was a little surprised by that, even though we all knew I had poly.

About an hour after my water was broken, I started having terrible contractions and a burning sensation through each of them. At that point, I asked for the epidural. Soon after that, I had advanced to 10cm and started pushing. I pushed for 2 hours, just like with my first. Everything was going great until the baby wouldn’t come down any further. At this point my OB started trying to do a few things to help the baby down.

They shifted me into different positions (hard with the epidural). Then she pulled out the vacuum to try to shift the baby’s head. At this point she told me the baby was stuck. She was trying to come out with her head facing the wrong way. Her head just wasn’t going to come out so, they decided it was time for a c-section.

I was very, very upset. My whole body was shaking and I was so scared. My OB was wonderful and the nursing staff could not have been better but I was scared and pissed and sad.

I was prepped for c-section and was later told that it was “a very difficult c-section”. After the OB made her incisions, the baby’s arm popped out so she had to shove it back in and then the baby flipped and ended up breech. She finally got her out and after they cleaned her off, they brought her to me (my husband was with me this whole time) before they took her away again.

I lost a lot of blood during the surgery and a second OB had to be called in to help sew me up. Thankfully I did not end up needing a blood transfusion but apparently I came pretty close.

Rory was born at 9:12pm, 6lbs 13oz, bruised up and down one arm, as well as on the side of her head where she was stuck. She had a myriad of health issues that we have been working through, but she is just a wonderful baby. Her big sister absolutely loves her to death.

C-sections are no joke. Recovery was awful. I spent 3 nights in the hospital and 3 weeks on a couch in my family room because I couldn’t get into or out of our bed. It took a full 6 weeks to finally feel better again, not only physically but mentally, as well. It didn't help that I was not prepared at all for the c-section and it hit me really hard mentally.

**If I had to do it all over again (hindsight being 20/20 of course) I would wait until 39.6 to be induced to hope she would come on her own and maybe change the course of events. I'm still very bitter about the c-section and probably will be for some time.