Real Birth Stories from Moms: My Honest Induction and Epidural Experience with Thalia (My First)

As I’m preparing for the end of my second pregnancy I’m reminiscing on the birth of my first and I wanted to share real birth stories from moms. I have to say, that of all the milestones you’ll have in your life, giving birth is by far the most impactful and life changing (at least I think it is)! I find it very interesting how everyone’s experience is different and beautiful (most of the time) in its own way. One of the things I spent a lot of time doing before Thalia arrived was reading birth stories on the Glow pregnancy app I was using.

Some of them were terrifying in that their labour was painful and long, others talked about how quickly their baby arrived, and some even had surprise baby arrivals! The one thing they all had in common no matter their labour situation? They talked about how when the baby arrived it all seemed so worth it, painful labour and all.

If we haven’t met yet, I’m Brittany — a mom of five, home renovation enthusiast, and a business owner who’s all about keeping life real and doable. I know firsthand how messy, beautiful, and overwhelming motherhood can feel, and I share from that space of “in the trenches” right alongside you.

Here, you’ll find encouragement, practical tips, and honest conversations about balancing family, work, and your own sense of self. My hope is that you’ll walk away feeling a little lighter, a little more seen, and a whole lot more equipped to create a life that works for you and your family. Follow me on Instagram @brittanynmiller_ for more.

Now back to Thalia's birth story. Her arrival will always be so vivid, I’ll never forget it. Thalia’s original due date was October 5th, 2019. It later changed to September 25th after one of my first ultrasounds. People kept saying, you’ll go late with your first and although I was hoping they were wrong, I told my employer I would work until September 20th, the Friday before my due date. I did anticipate that she was going to be a little late so I figured that would probably give me a week in between finishing work and when she actually arrived.

Friday came to a close, and I went home excited that in the next week I would have my baby girl in my arms. I spent the weekend before her arrival relaxing and nesting, trying to get Thalia’s room ready (it barely had drywall so there was lots of ‘supervising’ for me to do). Sunday night Grayson and I stayed up late, close to 1am. We were playing Stardew Valley (which is crazy addictive but a lot of fun) and I remember thinking I was lucky that I would get to sleep in the next day and poor Grayson had to get up in a few hours to go to work (he had a 7am start at that point in time). We went to bed and it was one of those nights where I had trouble sleeping.

I dozed on and off until around 3am when I got up to use the washroom. I was rather uncomfortable and was hoping that would help me sleep better for the rest of the night. I got up off the bed and I swear, Niagara Falls appeared in our bedroom! It was just like in the movies when all of a sudden there’s a giant puddle on the floor at your feet. I was so startled! I was expecting contractions to indicate labour not my water breaking since I’d read only a few women have their water break before contractions. I woke Gray up with my startled cry. I told him my water broke but to go back to sleep for a bit since I hadn’t felt any contractions and didn’t think I needed to go to the hospital right away.

Poor Aurora was sleeping beside me and was in the splash zone. Once she checked that I was okay she started licking up the puddle trying to make it go away. I went to get towels to clean up the mess, but while I was gone she had made herself sick licking it up. Turns out, when your water breaks it’s like a slowly leaking tap. You only get one big gush but then it keeps trickling out little by little. Aurora kept following me around licking up the drips and whimpering as she tried to figure out what was wrong with her Mommy. After I cleaned up the mess, I decided I would try and lay back down and get some sleep before the baby arrived.

Sleep sounded like a great idea in theory, but I was too excited that my baby girl would be arriving soon to actually get any. I gave up not long after and decided I should start getting ready to go for when we needed to head to the hospital. It was around 4am then and I still wasn’t feeling any contractions which I thought was odd. I hopped into the shower to try and distract myself and get rid of the Niagara Falls smell that was still lingering even after I had changed clothes and put a pad on to catch the leaking water. I got out of the shower and still hadn’t felt a single contraction. I decided to call the maternity support line at the hospital to make sure everything was okay. They told me I needed to come in soon so they could check on me. The nurse explained that once your water is broken you have a higher chance of getting an infection. It was likely that I wouldn’t be admitted when I got there but that I should come prepared to stay until after the baby arrived, just in case.

Since I hadn’t expected to be going into labour for over a week, I wasn’t prepared. I had semi picked an outfit for Thalia to come home in but I hadn’t packed much else for my hospital bag. I gathered some clothes and snacks while failing epically at being quiet so Grayson could sleep. He eventually got up and watched me scurry around the house gathering postpartum supplies and baby gear before driving us to the hospital.

We made it to the hospital shortly after 5am. I was a bundle of nerves and even though I wasn’t expecting that I would be staying long, I was still excited to see how far along I was when they checked me! We left our stuff in the car, since we figured we’d only be there for a bit, and made our way to the maternity ward. We were put into a room right away which I appreciated because I wasn’t about the waiting game given that I had nothing to focus on and was getting impatient to see how my baby girl was doing. I was hoping for an ultrasound but instead got a lot of questions about how far along I was, how I was feeling, when my water broke, how far apart my contractions were etc. They checked her heartbeat which was strong but they seemed concerned that my water broke over 2 hours ago and I still hadn’t felt any contractions. Between that and their concern over me getting an infection, they decided to admit me but said they wouldn’t have a delivery room available until after the next shift change at 7am. I was so excited! Being admitted meant that my baby girl was arriving soon! I was glad I spent a few minutes packing my hospital bag before we left because there’s no way Grayson would have packed all the things I thought I needed! They suggested that I go eat something light since I would be strictly on a liquid diet once I was admitted. I was happy to have something to do to fill the time, like I said earlier, I was so excited that any amount of waiting was frustrating and felt like much longer than it actually was!

Since I wasn’t able to leave, my food options were limited to hospital food, which mainly was Tim Horton’s given that it was barely 6am. Grayson looked like he was going to fall asleep standing up and spent most of our waiting time trying to sleep on one of the tables in the Timmies cafeteria. I wandered around hoping to induce more active labour and called my mom. Under normal circumstances, I don’t think she would have appreciated a 6am wake up call but Dad had just left for work so she was slightly awake already and when I told her that her grandbaby might be arriving soon, I think she pretty much jumped out of bed! She started getting ready to head to London as soon as I told her. I asked her to stop at our house to let Aurora out and let my painter in (the nursery was set to be painted that day and I was supposed to be home to let him in) and then head to the hospital. I wanted her to be around for the birth for emotional support knowing that’s not Grayson’s strong suit and because I knew how excited she was to meet her Grandbaby, I don’t think I would have lived it down if I told her she couldn’t be there!

The hour wait for my room felt like an eternity! I was giddy that I was being admitted thinking it meant that I was going to meet my baby girl soon! By the time it was 7am I felt like I was wearing holes in the floor walking laps of the lobby and cafeteria and was looking forward to wearing down on the floor in my delivery room instead! Grayson was just excited that there was a couch for him to lay down and sleep on and he spent pretty much the remainder of our stay sleeping. In terms of birthing partners, he wasn’t a great one. I was so excited, I wanted someone to keep me company and help me pass the time, and he did neither. I passed the time reading, spent some time on social media, called mom a few times asking when she was coming to the hospital and chatting with the nurse that was assigned to me. If you’re anything like me I suggest bringing several things to do, books, laptops, video game handhelds, cards etc. I was so excited that my attention span was short and I needed to keep switching up what I was doing to pass the time which felt like it was moving at snail pace!

After I was officially admitted to my room I was checked again: no progress and no contractions. They started me on oxytocin around 9am to help start my contractions, but then had an emergency which called my nurse away. It wasn’t until 1pm that they restarted me on it, at which point I still wasn’t really having contractions and I hadn’t dilated at all. By dinner time, I had reached the max oxytocin level they could provide without doctor’s approval and I still was barely contracting. Subsequently, mom also had not arrived. She was at my house ‘getting it ready’, I’m glad I was able to return home to swept and steamed floors, no dishes and zero laundry! Grayson was still sleeping so I was bored out of my mind! I expected that I would be holding my baby girl by this point and I was incredibly upset that my body seemed to be incapable of doing what it should. The doctor came in and approved an increased oxytocin limit for me but said that if I made it to the max the second time and I still hadn’t dilated much or my contractions weren’t getting stronger, that they were going to consider a c-section to avoid infection. They had an external heart rate and contraction monitor hooked up to me the entire time I was receiving oxytocin so they knew that baby and I were both okay so far, which was comforting but I was really hoping to avoid having a c-section. I had heard that the recovery is very time consuming and painful and results in a longer hospital stay. I didn’t understand why my water would break if my body wasn’t ready to actually give birth. I was frustrated with my body, upset that my daughter still hadn’t arrived, and still very anxious and excited to meet her! Oh, and I was hungry! Eating popsicles and soup all day does nothing to curb hunger. I know it’s not Grayson’s fault that he wasn’t in labour but watching him eat food during his very brief awake periods was just making me hangry. I also wasn’t very impressed that every time the doctors came in to check on me they told me I was still too happy to be nearing the end of labour. Gee thanks! I don’t really want the contractions getting stronger thanks! I also didn’t like that they were implying it could be much longer until Thalia arrived.

By late evening mom finally showed up to keep my company and help me work through my now much stronger contractions. I started having really mild contractions in the early afternoon, I only knew that because of the monitors they had on me. I didn’t start feeling the contractions until the evening. My original plan was to try and deliver naturally with no pain killers. I wanted to be able to push naturally and be able to move around after labour. What a naïve idea that was! To all the women out there that have natural births, you are my superheroes! I can’t even begin to describe how painful the contractions were once I finally started getting them, I’ve never felt anything like it before and knowing that they would just keep getting stronger and more frequent was like torture.

Around 11pm I was hungry, frustrated, and tired which really wasn’t helping the situation. I just wanted sleep and that was the absolute last thing that was going to happen with the pain of the contractions! I finally caved and asked for an epidural so I could try and get some sleep. I didn’t think starting my motherhood journey after being awake for almost 24 hours was a great way to go. They also say that epidurals can help women relax and dilate properly, which I was hoping for. Although my contractions were getting much stronger, I still wasn’t really dilating. I had increased a few centimeters but not nearly enough to actually give birth. I was also worried that I was approaching the max oxytocin level the doctor said I could have and I really didn’t want a c-section, so at that point I was willing to try just about anything to be able to meet my baby girl!

Trying to sit still in the middle of a contraction while the anesthesiologist rattles off the world's scariest side effects as they administer an epidural is the world's most stressful act of self restraint. I was basically crying hoping that I wasn’t going to paralyze myself while trying to decrease my current pain level. Giving birth is scary ladies! Thankfully, nothing bad happened, however the epidural didn’t take on the right side of my body and it was almost an hour before they finally gave me more and I was able to sleep. The nurse kept advising me to hit the button for more meds every 20 minutes because it’s hard to play catch up later when it starts hurting more, and that was the best advice I’d ever received! Since I was finally able to fall asleep, I wasn’t hitting the epidural button very regularly and when I did wake up I was in quite a bit of pain again. They came in to check me around 3:30am which is what woke me up. I hoped that I may be able to get some more sleep, since I was expecting to be told I wasn’t dilated enough as I had been all day. They asked if their student doctor could check me. He was male and pre-labour, and I was really leery about having an assortment of people checking me all the time, especially men, but after being in labour I literally had no fucks to give. You want to bring the janitor in to measure me? Why not! Need to videotape it for training purposes? Sure, whatever you need to get the baby out!

On the bright side, after I was done being checked they told me that I had dilated. Not only had I actually made a decent jump in dilation I was ready to deliver! That sounded like amazing news to me! I still wasn’t having regular contractions and was now maxed out on oxytocin but at least I wasn’t going to have a c-section! Turns out when they say it’s time to deliver it’s really not. It was over an hour before they rounded up the appropriate number of staff to be comfortable telling me we were going to start pushing. I’m pretty confident that 2 people would have been more than sufficient, the nurse monitoring me and the doctor delivering the baby (I think she was a student as well, her name was Brittany too and not who I’d seen as my OB) and truthfully those are the only two people I remember being in the room, but I think there were 4 or 5 in total. I’m not sure what the others did but at least I didn’t feel crowded.

Grayson managed to wake up for the delivery. I think I would have preferred he slept honestly, but he ‘wanted to watch’ and then started feeling faint. So while I’m trying to push, the doctors and nurses are busy asking him how he’s feeling and if they can get him pop or juice to drink so he doesn’t pass out. I kept thinking, please don’t, that will make it worse, since he has a really sensitive stomach and anything other than water makes him sick. He went and sat down again and I continued pushing with the verbal support and encouragement of my mom (which is why I wanted her there, I figured Grayson wouldn’t be very helpful, no offence to him). It was just after 4:30am at this point, the epidural was starting to wear off (which is apparently normal), it’s painful but it’s helpful to feel your contractions while pushing. The pain was slightly less noticeable since I was finally able to focus on my daughter’s arrival, and this time I was really, really, hoping it would be soon! The doctor helped me find a pushing rhythm, it seemed like 4 was the charm and we quickly made progress, although it didn’t necessarily feel fast. They kept asking if I wanted pictures or videos or a mirror to watch what was going on. Hell no! I don’t need to see a giant baby being pushed out my vagina thank you very much! It’s true what they say though once the head is out the baby just kind of falls out and at 5:05am my daughter was born weighing 7lbs 7oz!

She was immediately placed on my chest and all I kept thinking was please, cry, please be alright! And she was! I did a quick inventory of her fingers and toes, they were so tiny, she looked like an adorable doll! She was so little and yet so big, women’s bodies are amazing things! I was so incredibly excited to meet her, but also incredibly tired. I wanted to be awake so badly to spend time with her but all my body seemed to want to do was sleep which was terrifying given that the doctors seemed somewhat concerned about blood clots in my uterus. Turns out it can be a side effect of the oxytocin but at the time no one was telling me that. I could feel the doctor scooping the blood clots out and stitching up the tear I had, which was a very weird feeling. The entire time, all I could think about was that I had to look at my baby girl and memorize how perfect she was because no one was communicating anything to me and I honestly thought I might be dying. Excessive blood clots sound really bad to someone without a medical degree. I was terrified I was going to fall asleep and never wake up again. That made it the scariest and most exciting few hours of my life. I was so excited to meet my daughter, but terrified that I wouldn’t be around to see her first smile or her first steps or to support her through her first break-up and to celebrate her graduation if the doctors couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with me. I just kept holding her, saying I love you and praying everything would be okay. I kept thinking about how much hair she had and how red it was, how little she was curled up on my chest and yet how she seemed so comforted being with me despite how different her world now was. I was very lost in my own little bubble of just me and her, it was a while before I even really acknowledged that my mom was there but I remember her talking about how adorable and perfect she was and how she looked so much like me which made me really happy to hear! I think it was a little over an hour before any of the doctors finally said I was going to be okay and I was finally able to take a breath and start to enjoy the fact that I was officially a mom!

They hadn’t even cut the umbilical cord while they were working on getting me stitched up so that was the next thing that happened. The doctors asked Gray if he wanted the honours and he looked terrified as he shook his head no so I asked if my mom could do it instead. She was so excited! I think she was also the first to hold Thalia as well, since Grayson seemed to be a little shell shocked but at least he didn’t look faint anymore so that was a bonus! Thalia wasn’t actually weighted until after all this happened, it was almost 8am when we found out her birth weight and height, 21 inches and overall, very healthy! I had tried breastfeeding a little bit while doing skin to skin time and it seemed to be going relatively well so I finally felt like I could relax! We took so many pictures until it was time to move to a different room for the rest of our stay. It was at that point I realized how hungry and tired I was! All I could think about was eating, I really wanted desserts, or like a hamburger, neither of which are hospital menu options. I would highly encourage you to bring extra food with you to eat after giving birth because as good as the hospital food is (I mean it wasn’t horrible) it just didn’t cut it for me after I went more than 24 hours without eating much of anything.

I took a nap and nursed some more, but Thalia wasn’t really having it (also apparently normal since they have baby fat reserves) and then I started telling friends and family that she had arrived! We intentionally kept Grayson’s family in the dark because his Dad is wicked impatient, and I didn’t want him around trying to rush the delivery process to try and reduce stress. They weren’t overly excited that we didn’t tell them, but they seemed happy that I gave the okay for them to visit at the hospital. Pro tip: tell visitors not to bring gifts! As sweet as it was that Kim bought me an orchid, we had so much stuff to leave with that we had to make two trips out to the car. It was kind of a pain in the ass, especially since an orchid is not exactly a small and portable gift. Aside from that, I was fine to have visitors. Going in I didn’t want any so I could spend bonding time with my baby and I figured I would be exhausted and feel like crap, but I’m actually glad I had people visit at the hospital instead of at our house because I think it ended up being a much shorter visit. Truthfully, it’s easier parenting in the hospital when the baby doesn’t need to feed as much and other people are cooking and cleaning for you. They say the first 48 hours at home are the hardest and I would have to agree. I was excited to go home when I was discharged but it was definitely a little bit of culture shock being home and by myself.

No offence to Gray but he wasn’t very helpful even though he wasn’t working and had spent 90% of our time at the hospital sleeping while I did all the hard work and didn’t sleep. He just kept insisting he was tired and that he wanted to sleep, so I was left trying to figure out how to nurse, adjusting to sleeping and waking when baby cries, seeing if she’s peeing and pooping enough and if it’s the right colour. The list goes on and on! Grayson was ‘tired’ and the crying really bothered him so I was trying to figure a lot of this out on my own and not having a nurse on all to answer questions is the reason the first 24 hours are so hard. You read books and try to prepare for how different your life will be and what you need to do to look after a baby but I had so many questions still, and just wanted to be able to call for help at 3 am when I needed help and answers.

Overall, it was a long labour in the sense that I was at the hospital for a long time. It was painful at certain times, but the other women are right, it all seems so worth it once your child has arrived! Preparing for labour a second time, I know that no matter what happens as long as my baby arrives happy and healthy it will all be okay. Giving birth during COVID does worry me a little, I’m crossing my fingers that the numbers in our area stay low until after the holidays are done and the baby arrives but other than that it sounds like not much has changed which is comforting! Share your birth stories with me, pre or post COVID!

Tune into the Go Get Great podcast for more motherhood content, or check out the birth stories for my other kids. Raiyah's birth story. Orion's birth story.