02/17/2026 I became a mom
38 weeks and 3 days, I went to the hospital around 2-3pm Monday for high blood pressure and within 10 minutes of being there they told me I wouldn't be leaving until I had my baby
I never really had a set plan for how birth would go but nothing about it went how I hoped it would
Suddenly developing preeclampsia lead to what was supposed to be an induction into a natural labor, but that's not what the end result was and I'm still dealing with feeling like I was robbed of my birth experience
They had me on magnesium and I was induced with pitocin and for the first half of my induction things went smoothly. I was contracting regularly and little man was responding how he should. The magnesium had me rolling through waves of brain fog like I've never felt before.
Around midnight or so I was given morphine to help with the pain and that is where I believe things started going downhill
As the pitocin and contractions got stronger, little mans heart rate kept dropping. Dropping to the point that they decided to turn off the pitocin for a while and flush our systems before trying again.
I elected for an epidural at this point because the pain was becoming god awful and I was feeling front and back labor
No one told me I could experience front and back contractions
At this point we're several hours into Tuesday, I had been awake since 5am monday and hadn't eaten in over 24hours. This with the meds had me completely out of it coherent wise
Midway through getting my epidural, I hear them say my son's heart rate had dropped again and they were going to stop the pitocin and potentially start it again. At that point, gripping my fiances hand as a needle was being pushed into my spine, I started breaking down sobbing.
We had experienced so many miscarriages over the 6 years it took to finally get and stay pregnant I was terrified we were going to lose our son before we could ever meet him.
After the epidural was put in, I was laid on my side and was staring at the monitor with his heartbeat on it and was told during the last round of pitocin, his heartbeat dropped into the 60s/70s and my room was suddenly flooded with doctors and nurses.
I thought we were both dying for a moment, I was so scared
They said they wanted to do a c-section as he wasn't responding well to the pitocin, then came back 5 minutes later and said well we could put him back on pitocin and break your water as that hasnt happened yet
At that point I was so distraught and out of it that through sobs I asked for some time to process everything that had already happened and to think on what I wanted to do
My fiance and I decided we couldn't put him back on pitocin, clearly his little body wasn't tolerating it well, and we wanted to just do the c-section
We told the midwife and then told the surgeon, who still tried to push for the pitocin and natural birth route even though that could still lead to an emergency c-section at that point
02/17/2026 @ 5:12pm my son was born weighing only 5lbs 15oz
Our miracle rainbow baby finally made it to us and I cried my eyes out when I finally heard him crying for the first time
When I made it back to my room after being stitched up, I got to hold him and attempt to breast feed for maybe 30 seconds before nurses were taking him to the special care nursery for blood sugar issues
He'd spend the first week of his life in there and I still feel like, even though it was the best place for him to be, that I was robbed of early bonding time with my son
I didnt get to experience him in my room over night, didn't get to keep trying to get him to latch (I pump for him as I still haven't been successful with latching), had to wait for nurses to take me to see him as the magnesium I was on made me a fall risk.
Everytime I visited with him in the nursery I just wanted to take him back to my room with me, where he should have been to begin with
His placenta and umbilical cord were both small and had restricted veins, so he wasn't able to get all the proper nutrients he should have in the womb. His small size mixed with the meds they had me on are what they believe caused his blood sugar issues and I still feel like its somehow my fault he struggled for the first week of his life.
We've been home for little over a week now, hes 16 days old, and he's everything I ever hoped for a more. It took 6 years of trying and miscarriages before we got our miracle baby and even though being a new mom is exhausting, I wouldn't trade it or him for anything.
I love my little man like the ocean
Bigger than either of us can even conceptualizeđź’™
