A labour of love

So JC is almost 3.5 mths old.  Probably a good time to write down his birth story before my labour amnesia gets too bad.  My liitle guy was due on July 28, but that day came and went without any movement.  So did the next 3 days after that, during which time I tried every old wives' tale I heard to induce labour.  For those who believe in these things, the night before I went into labour I had spicy Indian food, drank raspberry leaf tea, and had sex with my husband.  Then, at around 7am on aug 1, I started to feel cramps and I just knew this was it.   Once I started timing them though, they were coming every 4 minutes, and lasting for at least a minute, which was the criteria my doc had said I should go to the hospital with.  After a couple hours of this, I started to worry that maybe I'd be one of these women who progressed really quickly and don't always make it to the hospital.  I was not in the mood to be one of those stories so we decided to get checked out at the hospital.  Turns out when we got there that I was 100% effaced but only a fingertip dilated.  So my husband and I walked to Starbucks and came back to the hospital 2 hours later.  By that point I was 2 cm, so we decided to go home to labour there.  My doula came over, and I have to say that the contractions were painful but nothing unbearable.  I just used yoga breathing through each one and before I knew it we were off to the hospital at 5 pm.  I was 5 cm at that point and in two short hours I was at 9.5-10 and was ready to push.  Honestly that time flew by and I was thinking to myself, "hey, I'm through transition, and now I just have to push this baby out!".  I thought it would be done in 30 min!  Well, 3 hours of unmedicated pushing later, the baby was still stuck inside me!  His head was too big for me to push out. At this point the doc suggests that they use a vacuum to help get him out, but to do so, I'll need an epidural.  So I finally say yes but can't believe after laboring for 15 hours with no drugs that I would need them for the homestretch...or what I thought was the homestretch.  Turns out the epidural didn't take for over an hour but I was still having pitocin strengthened contractions that I now had to breathe through!  Finally after an hour I tried pushing again and after two more hours the doc came in, gave me a huge episiotomy and yanked for 30 min, and my beautiful son was finally placed on my chest.  If you're keeping track, I started PUSHING at 7pm and delivered him almost SEVEN hours later!  I have never felt that exhausted but I also have never been that happy!  He fortunately took to breastfeeding right away and my bond with him was strong right from the start.  It certainly wasn't the delivery I had pictured, but the baby I ended up with is so much better than I ever could have imagined that it was all worth it!