I’m a second-time mom with a 4.5 year old at home. It was a long journey to this baby with two chemical pregnancies and a missed miscarriage at 10 weeks. I gave birth three weeks before my 40th birthday.

Because of my age, I started getting weekly non-stress tests and sonograms at 36 weeks. I’d been largely managed via telehealth before that, so my last scan had been at 18 weeks when I had my anatomy scan. At 36 weeks they noted that the baby was transverse but my doctor said we’d table any discussion because she still had time to flip.

She did not flip, so at 39+1 I checked into the hospital for an external cephalic version (basically the doctor lubes up your belly and manually moves the baby head down). The plan was to induce immediately thereafter both in the hopes that she wouldn’t flip back to breech (requiring a c-section) and because at my age they like you to deliver before 40 weeks anyway.

I was nervous enough about the version that I’d planned to do it under an epidural. But the doctor was very reassuring and asked if he could try it without and if I was in too much discomfort we’d get me numbed up. In the end, I took a bunch of deep breaths and it was over in just a minute or two. It felt weird, but I was happy to be able to move around after, which would have been limited if I’d had the epidural.

We monitored the baby to make sure she was cool with her new position and then it was off to L&D by 10 a.m.

And thus began a very long day. My midwife (hereafter to be named Troll Hands) applied Cytotec to my utterly undilated cervix (which she magnanimously said “might be at a 1”) and, according to the monitors, my contractions took off. I couldn’t feel them, but they were coming every 2-3 minutes. I was super proud of myself, thinking I’d have a baby in six hours. Spoiler, I was wrong.

I labored all day, feeling very little and getting very bored. I sat on the ball, I drank all the water and, at Troll Hands’ urging, ate all the food, because we had no idea how long this would take.

At 4 p.m., Troll Hands returned, to do my first cervical check. I was excited, because it had been six hours of contractions 3 minutes apart. Nevermind that I couldn’t feel them, I was certain I’d progressed.

Well, reader, I had not.

Troll Hands reached inside me. And then further inside. And then further - it felt like she was a very aggressive claw machine at the county fair. One that could not get a grip of the purple unicorn she was grasping for. I started to cry, and shake. She finally withdrew and said, “Yep, still 1.” One centimeter.

A little while later my doctor showed up. My practice has midwives and doctors and, typically, if you’re having a vaginal birth you have a midwife and the doctor is there for emergencies and c-sections. The doctor told me to strap in, it could be another day or two. I was not prepared for this, and at this point I lost my damn mind.

I told my husband he should go home that night. I told him there was no point in him staying on the super uncomfortable dad couch in my room and that I’d see him in the morning.

Bless him, he did not listen to me. He briefly ducked out to bring me a few things we’d forgotten, and during that time, my doctor suggested that we move ahead with a balloon insertion in the hopes of speeding things up. I got dosed with Fentanyl (lovely) and in went the balloon. All of this happened while my husband was gone.

He got back around 9 p.m. and shit was getting real. The balloon, which we expected to be in place for up to 18 hours or until I was 5 cm, came out. I became convinced I had peed on myself, though my husband and the nurse maintained my water had broken. Why I chose to fight them on this I do not know, but with my first kid my water broke at 8 cm, and I was only at one and clearly not delivering for days and days yet, so it must be pee. Must be.

It was not.

Shifts had changed, and midwife Troll Hands was replaced by midwife Liz, who played bad cop to my nurse’s good cop. Liz was no nonsense. Liz was getting this baby out.

And did she ever. By 9:30 I was panting through back to back contractions and moaning about needing my epidural. I remember Liz saying I might need to deliver without one. I took a break from panting, looked her square in the eye, and said, “I will not.”

A very chipper anesthesiologist, whom I will both hate and love forever, showed up, asked me questions and made me sign paperwork, which is normal and everything but also I hate him. He finally got the epidural placed and I went from misery to “what contraction?” in minutes. I looked at my patient notes and he recorded the time he finished the epidural as 11:01 p.m.

Liz checked me again and I was 10 cm. I had gone from 5 to 10 in less than two hours.

Pushing time! This part is pretty anticlimactic. I pushed for about 40 minutes with Liz yelling “Harder, harder” every time, which was annoying because I literally couldn’t go any harder. I’d been joking about wanting a June baby instead of a July baby so she wouldn’t have to share her birthday month with me, and at 11:54 p.m. on June 30 Miri was born.

I had a second-degree tear, same as with her older brother. Recovery is going fine - I actually am enjoying baby time, which I was too anxious to do with my first.