Unexpected Surprises

This was my third pregnancy and very unexpected. I have two other girls 9 and 8, and wasn't prepared for another baby, but little Lilah had other plans for this world. Monday evening started out like every other day at 38 weeks pregnant, I was tired and cranky and really wanted my baby, she had dropped very low into my pelvis at 33 weeks, so needless to say my waddle was pretty intense by 38 weeks. I was getting my girls ready for bed and my oldest needed some medicine and I bent over, apparently in such a way that it ruptured my water. I wasn't exactly sure because I had been induced with both of my previous pregnancies and I was planning on going all natural with this birth, but I had never experienced true labor before.  I really wanted an experience where my baby would come when she was ready not when I was ready. So I waited a bit to make sure I wasn't crazy and when I realized that I was sitting down and felt water but wasn't going to the bathroom, I knew my water had broken. I called my doctor and got all my things together waiting for my mom to come pick me up. We get to the hospital and get checked in at about 1:30am. My water had broken, but spontaneously by accident so I wasn't having any contractions. I started using a breast pump at about 3 am to stimulate contractions, and it worked to get me from 3 cm to 5 cm, but as soon as I stopped using the pump, my contractions would subside and I would almost backtrack in labor. I was so determined to not to have to use pitocin that my heart broke when they said it would be best option since at that point it was around 7 am, and I had been up almost a day already. My midwife was delivering another baby at a different hospital so I had to wait until she got back because my previous labors went very quickly and she was anticipating that with this baby as well. Begrudgingly I decided to start pitocin at 10 am, around 4 pm I barely had contractions and hadn't progressed at all, which is not like my body, but she wasn't ready to come out. I was so exhausted my this point. They increased the pitocin double time and I focused very hard through my contractions, by 7:30 it was time to start pushing. I had to previous births before this, and had epidurals with both, but nothing prepared me for how much this was hurting. After all the work and 22 hours of labor finally she made her way onto this earth at 8:03 weighing in at a dainty 6 lbs 5oz. I didn't know it at the time, but she is my little miracle baby. She was fighting for her life and I was completely unaware. Not only did she have the cord around her neck, but my cervix hadn't completely effaced in one part of my uterus which caused a hood, so as I was pushing, her head was stuck and she couldn't come down. They had to painfully pull up the inside of my body causing some of the worst pain I've ever experienced. But I did it, my first pregnancy without any pain relief. The most amazing part comes after I delivered the placenta. My baby was born with an abnormal placenta. Part of her umbilical cord wasn't attached to the placenta and there was a small sac that had it ruptured before they cut the cord, she would have bled out before anyone could have done anything. Against all the odds from not being planned to almost not making it into this world, my little peanut made it. The love I have for this miracle baby is unmeasurable. I can't wait to watch her grow with her sisters.