If you’ve missed my previous two posts, you can read the introduction here and part one here.

At this moment I couldn’t have been more grateful that we’d already packed our hospital bags. It was hard enough for me to focus and tell Tim to grab our toothbrushes and my toiletries bag. I can’t imagine if I was also trying to make sure I packed clothes, snacks, our camera bag, and baby’s car seat as well. 

Tim loaded up the car, we gave our puppies a little love (Bentley was clearly freaked out at my distress) and told them we might bring them a new brother or sister soon, and hopped in the car to head to the hospital.

I remember shuffling across our front yard in the dark, the wet grass under my feet, the thunder still rumbling in the distance, and looking back at our house with an intense feeling of change and transition ahead of us. It was sort of a bizarre feeling, looking back at the house I grew up in – the one my husband and I now rent – thinking that this might be the last time I step out that front door before becoming a mom. 

Now, the doctors office we’d been visiting throughout our pregnancy is in the same hospital building as the Labor and Delivery wing where we planned to have our baby, so we had practiced the drive to the hospital dozens of times. We had assessed the traffic situation at different times throughout the day and we knew detour routes if it became necessary for us to go a different way. The one scenario I hadn’t imagined was driving to the hospital at night, on empty streets, in a lightning storm.

The rain had all passed by, but the roads were still wet, the power was out in many of the buildings we passed by, some of the stop lights were also out, and there was lightning in the distance all around us as we got on the road and drove the 35-40 minutes to our hospital. It was a surreal and beautiful experience.

As we got on the highway, Tim commented on how extraordinary it was that the same God who was responsible for the powerful lightning storm has also been knitting together the tiny life in my belly. Again, one of those moments that’s always going to stick with me.

When we arrived at the hospital we entered through the emergency entrance and the lady behind the desk already knew my name when we walked up. She got on the phone to call transport and announced to them “We’ve got another one!” Apparently we were the third couple in a row that had checked into labor and delivery that night. 

I settled into a wheelchair and was taken up to the second floor, given a room and a hospital gown, and hooked up to monitors and an IV with fluids. I remember feeling pretty uncomfortable when we arrived and I was made to sit in the bed for quite a while before I could move around. I was 2.5 cm dilated when we arrived and that’s when we realized we were definitely staying the night at the hospital and likely having a baby the next day. 

I hadn’t come up with an official birth plan, or even written anything down. If I had, it would’ve said something like “I want to participate in labor as long as possible. If I can deliver my baby without medication or an epidural, that would be wonderful. Epidurals freak me out. However, I want to leave the door open for that if I decide later that I have to have one. And if the baby is in danger, do whatever it takes to keep him or her safe.”

That’s pretty much what I told my nurse, and when I shared this with her, she looked a little nervous. Maybe that was just my interpretation of the look she gave me, but she did tell me that 98% of women get epidurals. Or maybe she said that only 2% of women deliver naturally. I forget the details. Either way, her lack of enthusiasm for my “birth plan” was not terribly encouraging. If she was trying to convince me to not go “all natural,” it didn’t work. I was even more determined to try and work with my body, focus on my breathing, and to “participate as long as possible” in my own labor and delivery of our baby.

Read the next part of the story here.

If you missed it, be sure to read the introduction to our birth story here.

It was a dark and stormy night… That’s how all good stories begin right?

But first, let’s rewind. Thursday afternoon, July 7th, 2016, I had my regular weekly checkup with my doctor and he told me I wasn’t dilated at all. In his words I was “thinning a little bit” and the only thing he could guarantee is that I wouldn’t be having a baby that day. I was honestly a little disappointed since I was just a few days away from our due date and was hoping for a bit more of a sign that Baby Kroll was about to make his or her appearance. 

My parents were arriving back from a three week road trip that Thursday afternoon and Tim’s parents had the following week off of work and would be arriving on Friday around lunch time. I had my final commitment before our due date scheduled for that Friday morning – teaching a handlettering demo with Skillpop at Charlotte’s Creative Mornings gathering.

When I woke up Friday morning for our event I was feeling so good that I decided it wasn’t necessary to pack our hospital bags in the car. I had a feeling it was going to be another week or so before baby was ready to meet the world. Oops. Tim and I set our alarms for 5:45 am on Friday and drove into Charlotte early for Creative Mornings.

That afternoon, around 5pm, I started noticing a low backache along with my regular Braxton Hicks contractions. I’d been having Braxton Hicks for several weeks, so this new ache wrapping around to my back definitely felt different to me. It got stronger as Tim and I prepped dinner for our families, and he was great about stepping in and chopping all the veggies for the dish we were making (it was this pasta salad if you want to know! It was completely delicious!!) Even though the discomfort I was feeling felt different, I had a difficult time deciding if my back was just achey because I’d been on my feet all morning, or if the feeling coming with my contractions was actually something different. 

I began timing my contractions around 6pm and found that they were pretty sporadic. I played it cool and tried not to let everyone know what was happening. Tim was in the loop, but he and I both thought it might be a false alarm. I felt like it was a little dramatic to tell our families, “Woe is me! Now that you’ve all arrived, I’m suddenly going into labor!”

As we sat down to have dinner, however, I started getting more and more uncomfortable. We were a little short on chairs at our dinner table, so I opted to sit on a yoga ball so no one else would have to – it just helped that it also made me a lot more comfortable than sitting on a stationary chair. Looking back now I’m sure that was a good move to encourage baby to keep moving in the right direction. 

In the weeks leading up to our delivery, I kept wondering what our birth story would look like. I imagined a few scenarios, but really couldn’t picture how it might turn out. One idea I’d had for months involved our parents praying for us as I was going into labor. In my head I imagined us being at the hospital, Tim’s parents and mine gathering around my hospital bed as I experienced some minor contractions, and praying for a safe labor and delivery for the three of us.

Our parents had prayed over us at our wedding rehearsal and ceremony, so I thought it would be really special to have them do that again at this new life transition. When we finished dinner that Friday evening, I decided I’d rather have them pray for me right then and there. It seemed to me that things were progressing rapidly enough that if I waited for my idealized hospital room scenario, it might not actually happen.

A massive thunderstorm had rolled through as we were finishing dinner and cleaning up, and we could hear the remnant rumbles of thunder as our parents laid hands on us and prayed for our baby’s safe delivery. That was truly a moment I’ll never forget. It was extraordinary hearing words of truth and peace spoken over us as we were on the edge of so much change.

We said goodnight to everyone, told them we’d let them know if we decided to go to the hospital, and sent them on their way. I decided to lay down to see if my contractions would subside at all. When they didn’t, and instead felt like they were getting stronger, I decided it was time to call the hospital. At this point my contractions were still fairly irregular – lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to one minute, and coming every five minutes to every minute and a half. Since it didn’t quite fit the 5-1-1 model (contractions arriving 5 min apart or less, lasting at least 1 minute, occurring for 1 hour or more) for when you’re supposed to head to the hospital, I figured it was best to just call in. 

Here’s where I need to stand up on a little soapbox. When you’re in labor, and are having contractions that are strong enough to take your breath away, the last thing you want to do is listen to a lengthy automated phone menu. I was ready to curse the makers of the automated messaging system by the time I finally reached a real person on the other end of the line. And unfortunately the poor girl I got first probably thought I was crazy. “What is your pain, on a scale of 1-10?” Me: “Right now? I’m feeling pretty good right now. Maybe like a 1? I figured I’d call in between contractions. Oh wait, do you mean when I’m having a contraction? Because those are getting pretty strong. That would be like a 4 or 5… What are you asking me again?”

Pretty sure I could hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone line. Luckily she transferred me and the second nurse I talked to was so friendly that he made up for my annoyance with the phone menu and the confusing questions. I explained to him that I was having contractions that were stronger than the usual Braxton Hicks. His response? “Riiiight onnnn!” I had to smile. When I told him they were lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute and arriving 5 minutes to a minute and a half apart, he got quiet for a moment and then firmly said, “Don’t panic. I want you to get in the car and come to the hospital right now.“

You can read the next part of the story here.

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to share Beckett’s birth story, and how I wanted to share it if I did. I’ve gone back and forth on how I felt about it – not sure if I wanted to keep it to myself, as a story for just our family, or if it’s one I wanted to share to somehow encourage other moms-to-be.

So many of the birth stories I’ve heard or read are difficult ones. They’re often told with an undertone of disappointment because things didn’t happen as planned. Even many of my friends have really difficult pregnancy and birth stories, ones that didn’t turn out the way they expected or hoped. I know those aren’t the only stories out there (in fact, just this weekend I heard a very joy-filled birth story!), but the difficult stories are often the ones that stand out the most.

I’ve hesitated to tell my story – Beckett’s story – because it’s not one of those. My pregnancy went as smoothly as it could have, and labor and delivery was an incredible experience. I look back at his birth day with so much joy.

That’s not to say the process of bringing him into this world wasn’t painful, or that everything happened exactly as I expected it to, or even that there aren’t a couple things I wish could have been different. But overall, that afternoon, night, and morning that I was in labor are some of my favorite hours of my life. I’ve never felt more present to a life experience before. Never felt more in-the-moment, or more alive. I know that’s a weird thing to think, and I assure you it’s an even weirder one to try and put into words.

Birth stories are a funny thing – they’re deeply personal, told with pride, terror, or some combination thereof, and sometimes they’re told with entirely too many details. When I was pregnant, I felt like every birth story I heard was meant to scare me. Anyone that saw my round belly suddenly felt inclined to share with me how their aunt’s half-sister’s friend’s cousin was in labor for 30-someodd hours, or how the mom that was hellbent on having a natural birth ended up with a C-section (spoken, of course, like a curse word), or the mom who needed three epidurals because the first two didn’t work, or any number of stories involving words like foreceps, vacuum extraction, tearing, and stitches. YALL. STOP. These are NOT the stories a soon-to-be-mom needs to hear!

We need to stop telling birth stories like 13-year-old boys at camp telling scar stories, each trying to one-up the last one. I should pause here to say – if it’s your own birth story, you have every right to share it. Please share your story with someone. And while you’re at it, write it down so you always remember your own story – it’s amazing how quickly the details fade if you don’t put words to paper. But please please please, think before you blurt out the worst details of other mom’s stories, or even the worst details of your own story to an expecting mom. It’s not kind and it’s certainly not helpful. Once she’s had her baby, or if she asks specifically, by all means, share all the details if she’d really like to know them. If she’s anything like me though, she’ll want to be spared those details till after she’s experienced labor and delivery for herself.

Truthfully I’ve been afraid of sharing Beckett’s story at the risk of coming across like another scar story, or seeming like I’m wearing our story like a badge of honor. That’s not my intention at all. I know now that I needed a little time for myself to make sure I was in a good place to share our story of bringing him into the world.

I wrote the story of Beckett’s arrival in the weeks after he was born, mostly typing it on my phone while nursing him in the middle of the night, but I haven’t shared it till now. The past few weeks (okay, months – I’ve been stalling on posting this) I feel I’ve been hounded by the idea that sharing our own stories is important. So, in an effort to fully embrace my story, especially my birth story of bringing Beckett into the world, I’m sharing these words with you now. I hope my story can encourage even just one mom-to-be.

A note – If birth stories are a sore spot for you, feel free to skip on over these posts. If you’ve struggled to get pregnant or stay pregnant, I won’t be the least offended – nor will I know – if you choose not to read. I pray healing over you if that is your story. But if you’re in a spot where you need to hear a happy, encouraging birth story – especially if you’re an expecting mom – then read on.

You can find the next part of our story here.

And I’ll leave you with a photo of a very-pregnant me with our pups.