Telling Stories Tuesdays: "Back labor is ridiculous!"

Happy Telling Stories Tuesday! Today’s story is from Shannon at Mommy of One and Counting. Shannon is mommy to a wonderful little 18 month old, Maggie, and pregnant with baby #2 due the end of June.  She lives in MN with her boyfriend, munchkin and the two dogs.  Shannon works from home selling real estate, and blogging about her life while doing reviews and giveaways.  In her spare time she scrapbooks, makes cards, bow hunts, fishes and when she's not really pregnant, plays softball.  Follow Shannon’s blog or find her on Facebook.


Shannon’s Story


I was due on October 5, 2010.  My due date came and went, no big surprise there.  We had measured 5 days behind the entire pregnancy.  And truth be told, I was hoping for 10-10-10 since I was overdue anyways.  Baby had other plans. 


Thursday, October 7th, I went out to watch my softball team play ball.  Since I was told no more ball with 12 weeks left, I figured I’d still support them.  Earlier in the day, my mucus plug fell out; at least part of it did.  Yay!  I knew we were getting close, but wasn’t too  concerned.  After the game ended, I was talking to a few of the girls and felt something.  A trip to the bathroom confirmed that the rest of it came out.  The girls were all nervous, so I called the hospital to see what they had to say.  The hospital said, “most likely tomorrow night, but more likely Saturday morning.”  The girls kept offering to drive me home and stay with me.  I just wanted to go home and try to sleep since I knew the next few days would be busy.  I called my boyfriend, John, on the way home and told him what was going on.  He works out of state and was only one state away working this time.  The week before it was 4 states away, so we were worried then.  He asked if he should come home now or wait another day and work.  I said, “Oh, it’s fine, just work.”  He called before I went to bed to see if I changed my mind.  I hadn’t and I really wasn’t worried. 


Then an hour later, I had to call him back and told him to come home now.  I’m wasn’t worried but I would feel more relaxed if he was home just in case.  Well, he had just taken a pain pill that caused sleepiness. (Ooops!) So he drove for a bit, slept in his truck, and got home in the morning. 


Around 2 am I woke up with my first contractions.  Not painful; just enough that I knew what they were. I was so excited that it was finally almost time to meet our baby and find out if we were having a boy or a girl! 


We had an appointment in the morning with a doctor I hadn’t met before. We had to see an MD this time because we were past our due date.   Right off the bat the doctor starts talking about inducing me and was kind of arguing with me about it. When I told her, “No!”  Flat out, no, I wasn’t going to be induced and I really didn’t feel we needed it.  Finally I asked her to just do the exam and then we could continue discussing induction.  Upon checking me she said, “Oh, you are right, you look like you should be delivering this baby by tomorrow morning.”



We live 45 minutes from the hospital so I thought we should spend the day at my family’s house that wasn’t as far away. I’m glad we did. John slept all day long and I played cards, visited and kept busy. I wanted to sleep but I was so giddy! Around midnight, I finally started to zonk out between contractions. My contractions were very irregular so I didn’t really know when we should go to the hospital. 


Around 3 am on Saturday morning, I had to go to the bathroom but my back labor was so bad that I could only squat, I couldn’t even sit all the way down.  For an hour, I kept going back to the bathroom but as soon as I had left I had to go back. I had to get everything out of my body!  (TMI???)  At around 4:30 am John said, “Can we go now? I think we should go to the hospital.”   


We checked in at the hospital and my back labor was hideously bad!  I vomited and my water partially broke.  Through out pregnancy I had said I would not have any drugs; absolutely none. Back labor is ridiculous!  I finally gave in and got the epidural. It’s 18 months later and I’m still mad that I did.  By the time they sat me up do give me the epidural my water fully broke. If they had told me I was at a 9, I really would have toughed it out!  I’m not a wimp but the back labor was so awful. (Did I mention that already?)


Unfortunately, the epidural slowed things way down! I should have had the baby by 7:00am but it took longer.  My actual pushing was pretty quick; I think about 45 minutes.
I gave birth to the most amazing and beautiful little girl.  The doctor laid her on my stomach and told John to tell me if we had a boy or girl.  He stared at her for a full minute dumbfounded and mute!  Hello!!!!  Tell me!  (He had been so sure that we would have a boy that he was looking for the parts!)  That’s our story of the days before and the day that our amazing little girl came into this world.  She is so perfect!

Maggie at 18 months