The day I went into labor wasn’t much different than any other day…I wasn’t working because I was a teacher and having my baby in September so I didn’t go back to school in the fall. (Wyatt was born September 24th.) I don’t remember too much about the actual day, but it was a Friday and two days before my due date. I guess I technically went into labor the next day because my labor started at 12:30 am, but we’ll start with Friday night to give the whole picture.
That evening Tim came home from work and we went out for a walk. We were living in San Francisco at the time, and on a pretty big hill, so a “walk” wasn’t just a walk. We also purposefully walked up and down some pretty big hills, I had been trying every old wives’ tale at that point to get Wyatt out, bouncing on a birth ball, eating pineapple, drinking red raspberry leaf tea, eating dates, and doing hills. So we went for a nice strenuous walk, and picked up a pizza on the way home…a ghost pepper pizza from our favorite local spot Gioia (yes, the spice was intentional) and I also had to pick up some Ben & Jerry’s on the walk home, because duh.
When we got home, we consumed all of those calories and then watched Dateline…wild Friday night. We went to bed sometime around 11 pm (Tim had been asleep on the couch long before that) and I was having Braxton Hicks. This was pretty normal for the last week or so at this point, so I wasn’t thinking anything of it. They weren’t painful, but I definitely couldn’t fall asleep through them. At around 12:30 am I got out of bed and started timing them. I remember not thinking this was labor AT ALL I was just timing them to see if there was any kind of a pattern. My contractions were 2 minutes apart, which if you know anything about labor, is super close. In all of our birth classes they told us contractions would probably start 10-15 minutes apart and once they got to around 4-5 minutes apart, you would need to make your way to the hospital. We also had heard a lot about false labor, so with my contractions so close together, I just assumed that was what this was.
They started getting progressively more painful and looking back it seems so silly that I didn’t realize I was in actual labor, but it wasn’t how the books or classes made it sound like it would go, so I just assumed it wasn’t really happening! Regardless, I figured I might as well hop in the shower while I still could in case this was the real deal. So at about 1:30 am I showered, and that’s when I remember the contractions started to hurt for real. (Again, still didn’t think I was really in labor.) So after breathing through my contractions that were 2 minutes apart and lasting about a minute (giving me only one minute of rest between), I managed to shower, blow-dry my hair, and put makeup on.
I had made cookie dough balls that I froze so I could pop them into the oven when I went into labor to bake for our nurses and had made little tags to go with them, (some blog I had read recommended doing this), but I again didn’t know if this was real and decided if it was I didn’t really have time to be baking. Needless to say I will not be recommending this strategy if you want to thank your nurses. For baby #2 I bought various snack packs and bars that wouldn’t go bad and I didn’t need to prep other than putting them into a container with a note, which I could do and have done well in advance.
I woke up Tim at about 2:30 am with a tap and, “I think it’s happening,” when the pain was pretty bad. He shot up out of bed and said, “Let me call the hospital.” So we called and Tim described my “symptoms” as I paced around the house and bounced through contractions on the birth ball. The nurse instructed us to come in right away. Tim, knowing me too well, asked if I wanted him to shower “for pictures” and I obviously said yes because what’s an extra 5 minutes of the worst pain of my life.
At this point my pain was pretty terrible. I would be telling Tim to start the contraction timer app (I was still timing the contractions like I needed to or something, or maybe it helped give me something to focus on) and stop it while tip-toeing from one room to another. I don’t know why I was tip-toeing, but that somehow felt the best to deal with the pain. I always hated those videos of women moaning in pain while they were in labor and I was like, “I’ll never moan like that, gross.” Again, somehow that felt better to do too. So here I am, tiptoeing around the house while Tim follows me around like a puppy dog not knowing how to make my pain better. In all those birth classes we spent so much time practicing what the dad could do to help the mom in labor…rub her back, get her things, giving her an arm to squeeze through the pain. Meanwhile, Tim ended up with the wife who wanted nothing to do with any other human beings, if he so much as looked at me, I was pissed. I remember him following me into the family room during a contraction and turning the lights on behind me, and I screamed at him like he had done something terrible to me. He had no idea how to help me, and I didn’t want any help.
At around 3:00 am Tim went to get the car. We had been packed for weeks, see what I packed here (I will post what I packed and used for this round soon). Our original plan was to Uber to the hospital because we didn’t have a car in SF, but we had borrowed my sister’s car that night because we wanted to go hiking the next day (instead we had a baby.) It was such a blessing that we had her car, I can’t even imagine how many times I yelled at Tim during the 5 minute drive to the hospital. He was either going too fast, too slow, or over too many bumps. And in the short time it took to get there, I had 3 contractions (again, they were only 2 minutes or less apart) so I think if we had Ubered, I would have gotten a 1 rating for that ride because the poor driver would have gotten an earful.
We got to the emergency entrance because it was the middle of the night, we just left the car running in the front while Tim walked and checked me in. I remember thinking everything was taking SO LONG at this point. Tim then had to leave me in the E.R. waiting room while he went to park the car, and some nice gentleman said he noticed my husband had to leave and to let him know if I needed anything. I wanted to punch the man in the face for even looking in my direction much less talking to me as if felt like my baby was stabbing me with 1,000 knives from the inside, but I managed to muster up a smile and a “thank you” because I really do appreciate the kindness of strangers.
Finally, Tim made it back and they put me in a wheelchair to go up to the room where they checked to see how much I was dilated. Again, somehow we weren’t sure if I was really having this baby soon (seems wild, I know) so we waited to call our families until we had an actual answer. I was 5 cm dilated, which had happened in the three short hours of my labor so far. (As a little back story, I had my 39 week appointment 3 days before I went into labor and I was 0 cm dilated and not at all effaced. There was no progress and I remember feeling disappointed I couldn’t get a membrane sweep to get things moving along because I wasn’t dilated AT ALL. However, that changed very quickly clearly.) The doctors told us this baby would be coming soon with how fast my labor was going.
Our “birth plan” was to see how my labor went and decide if I wanted an epidural. Part of me thought, my body is made to do this, I want to try to see if I can without one, and another part of me was like, um they invented epidurals for a reason, don’t be an idiot. At 5 cm and contractions that lasted a minute with one minute of rest in between I was doing nothing short of DEMANDING an epidural. I had puked at home from the pain and also again in the hospital, I’ve never puked from pain before. There was no question in my mind that I wanted to stick it out any longer if there was another option. I also was just exhausted from the constant pain, there was basically no break between my contractions. I remember the doctors ordering the epidural and me making blatantly loud comments to Tim about how it was taking so long and they weren’t moving fast enough, as if that would speed along the process…I felt so rude, but I was literally losing it.
While we waited, Tim called our families. Both sets of parents live on the east coast, so it was luckily basically morning there. The plan with my parents was they would just hop on a plane from Boston to SF as soon as I went into labor and come spend some time out here. So they did just that, freaked out a little that it was actually happening and then booked a flight and packed their bags. Tim’s parents had plans to come out to SF in a few weeks for his 30th and when we knew the baby would definitely be out, so they stood by for updates! My sister and her now husband live in SF, so they more or less hopped in an Uber and came to the hospital to be with us. They had been out pretty late so they were operating on about an hour of sleep, but they came nonetheless!
Finally after what seemed like ages, which was I think in actuality more like 30 minutes, I got the epidural. I could have cared less about the needle or anything at that point, and like everyone says you’re able to stay surprisingly still to get it when you know this will help your pain. I forget how long it took to kick in, but when it did I remember feeling like a whole new person. Tim asked if it was affecting my brain because I was SO happy and SO relaxed, but I was just genuinely in such a better place without the pain, it was so magical. I was officially on team epidural and will never look back. 
I was then brought to my delivery room and shortly after my sister and her husband arrived. We just hung out for a few hours, they checked me to see my progress every once in a while, and I actually was enjoying labor! I could still feel my contractions, but they weren’t painful, it was amazing. My mom was freaking out about me being in labor (she’s had 4 children), so we FaceTimed her to show her how I was having just a grand ‘ol time! She was throwing stuff in her bag because they were hopping on the plane soon hoping they could make it for the birth (spoiler: they did not), and basically in tears she just kept saying, “But you’re MY baby!” We unsuccessfully assured her I was TOTALLY FINE and she should just be excited not so nervous for me.
A few hours passed and by 7 am I was 10 cm dilated and they told me it was time to push! Tim and I had talked about if we wanted anyone else in the room when our baby came out (like my sister) and not having gone through birth before I had no idea what I’d want. I left it up to my sister, and she decided that she’d let Tim and I have this moment for just us, but that’d she’d be right in the waiting room. In retrospect, I loved that that’s how it ended up. Especially as our first child, it was such a special time for us as a couple and I’m glad we didn’t share it with anyone else (except for all the doctors and nurses and residents in there with us!)
The pushing was weird, with the epidural it was a little tricky to know if I was doing it right, but the nurses and doctors in there were SO supportive, I felt like I had a whole cheerleading squad down there. It was also good they were so vocal because I think it helped Tim know what to say too. I had requested a mirror so I could see what was going on too, which kind of sounds gross, but was really helpful with pushing and seeing him crown was pretty crazy. A few times, the baby’s heart rate would drop and I’d have to go onto my side, but other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing. After just 30 minutes of pushing, our little man was born! They pulled him out and told me to reach down and grab him. The doctors helped me put him right onto my chest and it really was the best moment of my life. (I am crying writing this…damn pregnancy hormones!)
He was just screaming on my chest, all that lovely birth gunk and blood all over both of us, while Tim and I were both crying. Shortly after, Tim cut the cord, they delivered the placenta and stitched me up. After the baby was born, I really wasn’t paying attention to the rest and didn’t seem to mind those parts. After some skin-to-skin they measured and weighed the babe, and whatever other tests they do and returned him quickly to us. We were in awe. It is such a surreal feeling to finally meet someone that has been living inside you for 10 months, like “oh YOU were in there!” I was just SO happy.
We went to the hospital with two names: Tim (my husband’s name) and Wyatt. We wanted to make a game-time decision when we saw our son. (Read about how we picked and narrowed down our baby name list and made our final decision here.) It took us about an hour of deliberation before he was named. He didn’t really look like Tim (although they are twins now) so we went with Wyatt.
Our little Wyatt William Hughes was born at 7:38 am, weighing in at 8 lbs 14 oz and was 21 inches long. He was the most perfect thing we had ever seen and couldn’t believe that he was ours.
After about an hour of bonding time, my sister and her husband came in to meet our little guy. We had been trying to text all of our family and friends, but we made the terrible mistake of sending a caption of his name WITH a picture, and the service in the hospital was terrible so with the picture no messages were getting through. We ended up calling our families and sharing the name news because we couldn’t even tell if any messages were going through. My parents luckily knew we had the baby and everyone was healthy before they got on the plane, but didn’t find out the name until they landed. They made it for his birthday, but not his actual birth, because he came into the world pretty fast & furiously.
Shortly after, we were brought up to our recovery room where we just soaked up every second of newborn-ness that we could. Our stay was pretty short & sweet, we stayed that night (Saturday) in the hospital and were cleared for discharge the next day at noon. Luckily we had an uneventful birth & both of us were healthy after so we got to take our little bundle joy home pretty quickly.
I am so thankful for smooth our delivery went. I feel very lucky my labor only lasted 7 hours and I only had to push for 30 minutes, that I went into labor naturally and had my baby a day before his due date. Birth day was truly the best day, I became a mama that day and my life forever changed for the better because we had our Wyatt William.
What do you think?