My Ideal Birth Experience {In a Perfect World}

So all the books and websites tell you to write up a birth plan of how you want things to go during your labor and delivery when your pregnant. I guess since I'm nearing the single digit countdown I've been thinking about this a lot lately. But I'm not oblivious to the fact that most  some of the time things just don't go as planned. They sure didn't with Noah and I don't expect everything to go as planned with Isaac either. So all I can do is pray that everything goes well, and that he is born healthy and without any complications.

BUT....

If I did get to decide exactly how everything went during the labor and delivery this would be my ideal birth experience..

First I need to share a little bit of my birth experience with Noah. At 37 weeks my blood pressure started to creep up higher and higher. At 38 weeks they sent me home with a jug to pee in for 24 hours to check for protein in my urine and test for preeclampsia. They told me if I got a headache that wouldn't go away with Tylenol or if I started seeing spots or feeling shaky to call them right away. And I was to take it easy and rest!  Well the very next morning I woke up with a headache and Tylenol wouldn't touch it. I also started seeing spots. So I call them and they tell me to come in to check my bp. It was sky high!! So they sent me straight to the hospital to be induced! It was a long 22 hours of labor! My epidural stopped working right when contractions were one on top of each other, and it took them nearly an hour to get another one back (they kept poking me in the wrong spot!). I was hungry, exhausted, sick to my stomach, and in a lot of pain the whole time. Not the best birth experience. But Noah was born very healthy at 6lbs 4oz!

My number one prayer this time around is that I do NOT get preeclampsia. My doctor told me I have a 5% chance of getting it again, so I'm hoping it doesn't come back to haunt me!  Ideally this time around I would love to go into labor naturally. I would love to be able to labor at home for part of the time instead of being in the hospital for who knows how long, hooked up to machines and hardly able to move. When contractions get to be 4 or 5 minutes apart of course we'd head to the hospital. I'm a huge wuss when it comes to pain, but I've also heard contractions aren't near as bad when they are natural instead of pitocin induced, so maybe/hopefully I could do it all without an epidural. Ideally (of course) the whole labor process wouldn't take 22 hours again, and I could meet my sweet boy within a few hours of getting to the hospital.Ideally, I won't tear this time and have to deal with painful stitches!  Ideally, both Isaac and I would be healthy and we could both leave within a day or two, without having to stay for 3 days after the birth to monitor my blood pressure. Ideally little man will latch right on to my breast and breast feeding will be easy breezy!

I have big dreams huh?! I know this will probably not be the way things go. But I do pray every day that pre-e stays far away and that I can at least let me body go into labor naturally without being induced. Prayer is powerful so maybe God will grant me this wish.

(Just a disclaimer: I will be perfectly fine with being induced if there is a medical reason to need to be, such as pre-e. Just hoping there isn't a medical reason to be. )