Aria’s Birth Story

How it all went down…

Over last weekend (Nov. 2) I hadn’t been feeling fantastic so we booked an appointment first thing in the morning on Monday with my doctor. It was the start of week 38 of my pregnancy. We found out that I had already dilated 5 cm, and I was 90% effaced! But the doctor cautioned us to not get too excited, since that could mean that labor could start that day, the next day, or could potentially be another week. There was no way of knowing when it would happen, so Rudra went back to work and I went back to work that day… Talk about not being able to concentrate on ANYTHING! 

Then Tuesday (Nov. 6) rolled around and I was still not feeling fantastic but went to work, came back and the whole day just felt kind of “off” . Something just didn’t feel right. I decided I would take a walk around the neighborhood around 3 PM, since I had heard that helps women go into labor. I then came back, and took a nap from about 3:30 – 4:30 PM. Little did I know that was the last sleep I was going to get before Aria was going to arrive! Around 6 PM I still felt pretty blah so I decided to get out of the house and just get some outside time. Went to Hobby Lobby and Target and just walked around. Came home around 8 PM and just made dinner while Rudra was on his work call. Still seemed like a pretty regular day to me aside from the fact that I wasn’t feeling 100%. 

THEN, around 11 PM, I felt this horrible pain which I thought could potentially be a contraction but since this was our first baby, I had no idea whether or not it was an actual contraction. Then about 30 minutes later as we were slowly falling asleep I felt something even more intense and woke him up huffing and puffing. I knew, this had to be it. This had to be that god awful pain all mothers talk about since everyone I knew had said “trust me, you will KNOW when it’s a contraction versus just regular pain”. So of course we turn on all the lights and decided to time them. The next showed up 8 minutes later. AND THEN, it went to about 3-4 minutes apart. I looked at Rudra and just said “call the doctor NOW”. He called and she was like yes, leave NOW. So we hopped in the car and Rudra got me to the hospital in record time. Walked, yes walked, into the hospital and got to labor and delivery at 12:50 AM. Was in a room 5 minutes later being told I was 9.5 cm dilated and 100% effaced and there was a chance I had to go at this without an epidural. Of course epidural was part of my plan so I was totally freaked out. I looked at my doctor and said “get me the epidural”. Of course that involved bloodwork and labwork, so they started on that and it took about an hour and a half before the anesthesiologist showed up. That load of time that I labored without an epidural was by far the worst pain I have EVER FELT in my life. KUDOS to all the women out there who do this with no drugs.
Anyway, epidural arrived, and I was given about 1 hour to let it do its thing. At 4 AM, the doctor came in and said it was time to push, and about 49 minutes later, we had become parents. PARENTS. And I can honestly say it was the calmest, most serene delivery I had ever imagined. My doctor was awesome, and whole thing was an amazing, life-changing experience. Our little angel had finally arrived…

Truly one of the best days in my life.