I really hope I get this right.

I originally wrote Luca’s birth story about a week or so after he was born. It was still very fresh in my brain. Unfortunately, I only saved that very LONG and VERY emotional story on my old website. I lost it and have tried everything to retrieve it, with no such luck.

So here I am, almost 3 years later, trying to write that story again. I wish I could say I remember it like it was yesterday, and parts of it, I do. But the exact timeline and all the little details, have kind of faded away.

Here we go.

I’m sure we all remember that I was diagnosed with GD around 30 weeks or so. Devastated is definitely an understatement on how I felt. Little did I know, it would be the best thing to happen to me for so many reasons. It kept me on a strict diet and exercise routine, which helped me keep the weight down and my body moving. And if you talk to anyone that has given birth, I guarantee you’ll get two responses: 1. Im so glad I stayed active during my pregnancy or 2. I wish I had been more active. It’s something that can help so much during labor and delivery. Your body is able to handle everything better.

GD also has a stigma attached to it for having “big babies”. Luca kept measuring ahead. Now, with that said, those measurements are just estimates. They are almost never accurate. Which really messes with your head honestly. I was so thankful to get extra appointments and ultrasounds to see our boy and check on him, but they always told me something new as well. He’s so big, his arms are short…blah blah.

I’m rambling.

Since he was measuring ahead, my Dr wanted me to be induced at 39 weeks. I was terrified to be induced but happy to get this baby out because I was so uncomfortable those last few weeks. I tried everything to get him to come out on his own, but he just wasn’t ready.

I was set to be induced on Monday, September 10th. Which really scared me because it was something that could last a full 24 hours or longer and I really didn’t want his birthday to be September 11th.

The plan was to have RC in the room, of course, and then my mom and sister as well. I wanted them to experience it with me and I felt like having them all there would help to keep me calm.

I was scheduled to show up at the hospital at 11pm Sunday night, the 9th. The hospital called me at 8pm and told me not to show up because they had no beds available.

Excuse me!?

As a first time mom, I absolutely freaked out. I started crying on the phone w the woman that called from the hospital. I tried to explain to her how my Dr and my high risk Dr told me how important it was to get him out by 39 weeks for both of our safety. Was it that big of a deal? Looking back, no it wasn’t. But I didn’t know or understand that.

The woman on the phone said if we wanted to just show up and get checked, that was my choice. If I was at least 5 cm dilated, they could move me right up to a room and skip the induction rooms. After crying for a couple hours at home, I insisted to RC that we leave.

(Of course, my mom and sister stayed home until we called them that it was time and they needed to head to the hospital. No need for them to also be up all night).

We grabbed our bags and off we went.

10 minutes later, we showed up to triage and I cried some more. They checked me and I was still only 2cm. They tried to tell me to go home but I refused. They hooked me up to the NST machine, and we stayed in triage ALL NIGHT. Poor RC had to try and sleep in a very stiff desk chair. I was way too wired to sleep.

The nurses came in every once in awhile to check me and nothing was going on.

Around 6am, they finally had a room for us.

This is where is starts to get a little foggy for me.

My mom and sister showed up around 12 and 2pm.

I’m pretty sure they gave me the first part of the induction medicine around this time, 6am. I asked them what I could do to help move things along and they said, “keep moving”. So RC and I walked ALL over the hospital. They had an outdoor patio on the 5th floor so I walked around in circles out there for an hour and then up and down the halls all morning long.

My contractions were getting stronger but I was determined to wait as long as possible for the epidural. I was convinced that if I could feel my contractions, that I would go into labor faster.

I do, however, remember very vividly, the moment I couldn’t take the pain anymore. We tried to walk around our floor one last time and I made it maybe 10 steps out our door. The pain was so bad. RC looked at me and said, “you don’t have to go through this anymore. Let’s go back to the room.” He could definitely tell that I couldn’t do it anymore. We turned around and they were in my room within a minute to give me the epidural.

I believe that was around 5pm. Just before 6pm, they came to check me and I was fully dilated and ready to go. When the midwife looked at me and said “it’s time”. RC and I both looked at each other in disbelief. Was this really happening?! Were we about to have a baby? After hours of being so impatient and wanting time to hurry up, we both suddenly wanted it to slow down.

Having a mirror was an option that I wanted during birth. I wanted to be able to see what was going on down there and hopefully it would give me the motivation to keep going.

I started pushing around 6pm. My sister was playing music from her phone. (Sidenote: we knew from our birthing class, that I couldn’t have slow or sad music during labor. It made me way too sad and I needed to be upbeat and ready to push! So, Drake was playing when I actually gave birth! ;)

The nurses explained to me “how to push” and it’s such a weird experience. You can’t feel yourself pushing but it’s apparently happening…very strange. I pushed for about 30 minutes.

Towards the end, I saw a weird look on my midwives face. They told me to do one last huge push and when I looked down, I saw her reach in and yank him out. I could have sworn, I saw the cord wrapped around his neck but she unwrapped it so fast. Maybe I was seeing things? I later asked my mom, and she confirmed my fear. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be hurtful to him so I had to just let it go.

Luca Edward Levell was born at 6:37pm on 9/10/18.

Instant tears. Instant love. Instant fear.

He was our everything and that was the best feeling and scariest feeling in the world. Our little Luca changed us. We are forever grateful to him for that.