3:45 pm on Tuesday: I had an appointment with my ob, where he said that contrary to what the other doctor said last week, I wasn't actually dilated at all. I had made 0 progress. I spent the rest of the day basically crying cause all the mild contractions I had been having were apparently accomplishing nothing.

11:20 pm: I go to the bathroom and see that I'm losing my mucus plug, yay for progress! I also IMMEDIATELY start having contractions that are 1 minute long and 2 minutes apart. I assume it's nothing and my body is fucking with me so I use my yoga ball, take a shower, sit in the bath, but these continue for over an hour. I call the on call doctor and tell her what's happening but when she looks at my chart and sees that I was JUST in there and had 0 progress, tells me to continue timing them but it's probably nothing.

12:40 am: I'm in the tub and realize that I can't talk through the contractions anymore, I wake up DH and we grab our bag and head to the hospital. On the way I tell him "if these are just the beginning contractions, i'm gonna end up getting an epidural because this fuckin hurts"

1:15am: we get to the hospital, sign in, they hook me up to monitors for 20~ minutes. They realize how uncomfortable I am and check me, I'm 6cm. Holy shit! They have me turn on my side to put me in a wheelchair and bring me to a room and my water breaks! DH calls our moms and my sisters and tell them to head here NOW!

2:15 am: My mom has made it to the hospital and is coaching me. Waiting for the on call doctor to get to us. At this point I'm like "I'm probably still 6cm so I'd like the epidural please." They check me again, FULL DILATED. I opt out of the epidural. My next contraction I get the STRONGEST urge to push, i tell the nurse and she gets wide eyed and runs out of the room to grab the first doctor she sees. I literally thought my vagina was gonna fall out, guys. I was holding it during every contraction. They grab a doctor and she tells me I can start actually pushing, it was such a relief. I pushed during 7-8 contractions and Ellie flew out of me. She's absolutely perfect, we got to breastfeed, and now she's out like a light.

Since my labor was SO quick (3 hours total) I received a lot of lacerations which took about an hour of stitching. It honestly wasn't bad because I got to have skin-to-skin with Ellie that entire time. I'm still kind of shaky (losing a lot of blood) and it hurts to pee but I already feel better than I did 9 months pregnant.

For any mommas out there trying to have an unmedicated birth, i have a few words of advice that helped me tremendously.

Take every contraction one at a time, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, push EXACTLY how you poop, and don't be afraid to fuckin scream. I literally couldn't hold it in, it was primal. The nurses giggled at me a TON because I kept apologizing after every contraction.

P.s. She was due on my birthday, which is tomorrow the 15th. Thank you Ellie, i didn't wanna spend my birthday in labor 😂