My Birth Story

If you were wondering where I’ve been the past couple weeks I’m happy to announce that we’ve been spending time with our baby boy! Harrison James Windle was born on July 13th at 5:39am weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long.

And I’m happy to say that the birth went really well and wasn’t traumatic at all! I was always hesitant to read birth stories before I got pregnant because they always seemed really long and painful. So if you are one of those people that are scared, you won’t get any horror stories from me!

I was officially due on July 8th but after 5 days of no baby and no active signs of labor my doctor made me go to the hospital for induction. He actually wanted to induce me the day after my due date but I thought that was kind of crazy so I kept trying to hold him off as long as the baby looked healthy. I kept going in for stress tests and to monitor the baby. At my appointment on Wednesday, the 12th he thought the fluid around the baby was too low and he didn’t feel comfortable letting me wait any longer. I was kind of disappointed because I had wanted to go into labor naturally but I didn’t want to argue with my doctor any longer.

I went home to grab my hospital bags and take a little breather before I headed to the hospital. I was kind of in shock that I was getting ready to have my baby! Luckily, my husband was working pretty close to the hospital that day so he was able to meet me at the house and we headed to the hospital together. Once I was admitted they hooked me up to the IV and started the pitocin. Honestly, getting the IV line put in and having blood drawn was probably the hardest part of the whole labor process for me! I hate needles!!

It was about 4pm when I was all set in the hospital and from then on the contractions started and gradually got stronger. At about 10:30pm I was getting pretty uncomfortable with the contractions so I decided to get the epidural. Luckily, at that point I was 7cm dilated so things were looking pretty good! I went into the hospital at about 2-3cm dilated and 90% effaced so at least I knew I was progressing.

(Photos by Bella Baby Photography)

After the epidural I felt soooo much better. I was able to get some sleep and around 4am the nurses said I could start pushing! An hour and a half later I had my little boy in my arms. I didn’t feel any pain while pushing – just a lot of pressure. And honestly, it didn’t even feel like an hour and a half. It went by so quickly.

Overall, I feel really lucky. I was really scared about the whole labor process but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Luckily, I didn’t have any complications and I delivered a healthy baby. So I feel really blessed.

So far the first couple weeks have been great. Besides the lack of sleep! Harrison is a really content baby. He sleeps a lot so I’m still able to get a few things done. Plus my husband has off for a couple of weeks so that is a HUGE help. I couldn’t imagine doing this by myself. My parents also flew in for a couple days which was also a big help. I do wish that my parents lived close because it’s nice to have the grandparents around to give us a break every once in awhile.

My husband actually starts work full time again tomorrow. And when he’s working, he’s gone for 12-16 hours a day. So sometimes it feels like he’s only at home during the week to sleep and I see him on the weekends. It will definitely be harder for me to take care of Harrison by myself. So I’m not really looking forward to that. Hopefully I’ll survive! Wish me luck!