Aaron Levi's (very intense) Birth!

I started having just a few irregular contractions on 10/18. Me and josh and Jonah were up all night. Josh wasn’t feeling well and jonah was just up. Josh didn’t go to work because I was still kinda crampy as well as he wasn’t feeling well. My next appointment with the midwife wasn’t for a week but josh was persistent about me calling the midwife to get checked out because something was telling him that we needed to go, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt. Well I called the birthing center and they had me come in to get checked, and his heart beat was crazy irregular. Like it sounded all jumbled up and like horses galloping. So they sent me over to L&D at their local hospital to get monitored. After a couple hours into the NST, my midwife let me know that his heartbeat was still super irregular so they sent in their OB in there who did a quick ultrasound on their machine. They couldn’t see anything at that point while he was inside me, and they couldnt do anything to find out or fix it while he was in there, so we all decided that it was probably best for him to come sooner rather than later but didn’t want to jump into an induction that second and gave it a few days to sort itself out like these things do a lot of the time. They set me up with an appointment for when they opened two days later on 10/20.
On 10/20 we went into the office and got the same irregular heartbeat and again, we all decided that he needed to come out. They broke my water at 9:30am after a failed foley bulb catheter because of him being posterior (the back of his head was facing my tailbone) and my cervix being extremely high. After they broke my water, (around 10:30) they let us go home and drop the kids off and get a few things from the house for our hospital stay. We got back to the hospital around 2-2:30. I was 2cm dilated. They couldn’t get a good constant read on his heartbeat. They attempted to attach a monitor to his head, and failed because of the position of my cervix, which meant that they couldn’t start the induction because they just didn’t know his heart rate. My midwife was able to get a read on the monitor by holding it a bit firmer on my stomach which was okay with me as long as I could hear him and know he was safe (as they could as well) so my amazing midwife stayed by my side almost the entire time.
I started having regular contractions around 4:30 and they brought me something to eat at about 5. I got on the ball about 6:30 to see if we could get him to move down more. Around 8:30 things were getting pretty intense so I requested a cervical check for my own curiosity. I was only a three. So we labored on for a good while and things started getting more and more intense. We kept focusing on the time “10:20” on 10/20. Around 9:45- 10, I believe I started going through transition and I could feel him moving deeper into the birth canal and I was having the urge to slightly bare down. It had just got 10:20 and I knew I was close to having him. The pain started becoming unbearable and at this point I became a beast (kind of not kidding 😅) I requested my midwife to feel where his head was because the pain was just unreal and realized his head was stuck behind my tail bone and my cervix was pinching. She asked my permission to manually move my pinched cervix in order to see if it would help get him through- I declined and literally screamed and pushed through it while using the squatting bar as leverage. At 10:35 I could feel him coming through the birth canal and just bared down as hard as I could and pushed him out and he was born at 10:37pm. My midwives caught him and I grabbed him and brought him up to my chest. A few moments had passed and they had asked permission to cut the cord because it was done pulsating and was white. I suggested to wait until the placenta was delivered.
His apgar was 9/9 at 1m and 5m but then started grunting and making funny noises so despite the placenta not coming out yet, they needed (I agreed) to cut the cord and they needed to take him to get checked out. The second they took him away for en EKG and a few other tests, my body refused to relax and release the placenta. They had scheduled with the OR to have me put to sleep to get it out, but the second they let me see Levi for one last time before he was transferred and I was taken to the OR, the literal second my hands got on him- my placenta FELL out. No pushing or anything. Levi had to go back into the nursery to be monitored for a little while longer until they got the results from the cardiologist at brenners. About two hours later- it was 2am and they came in and let me know that the cardiologist at brenners had said an immediate transfer was not needed and he will be brought back into the room with me and josh to stay. I was beyond ecstatic but surely overwhelmed. The rest of our hospital stay was pretty average, uneventful but the staff and everyone else was amazing. He has been diagnosed with PAC (google it) and he is doing GREAT!