If you missed the previous posts, be sure to go back and read (and listen to our 911 call if you’re up for that!) Here’s the Introduction, My Pregnancy, and Part 1 and Part 2 of Emmeline’s Birth Day.

Choosing a baby’s name is such an enormous responsibility and this time around it was just as difficult as with our first. We kept a running list during my pregnancy of both boy and girl names in a shared Note on our phones. Every few weeks we would revisit it and see if we could come up with any new ones or could eliminate any from our list. 

A friend also recommended the app called Baby Name which is like the name version of Tinder and, while we didn’t find any of our names with it, it was still fun to see which names we had in common and it helped us narrow in on what style of names we tend to both like.

A few weeks before our due date we had finally landed on both a boy and a girl name.

Emmeline means hardworking and Alma (Tim’s grandmother’s name) means kind and loving, and it is also the Spanish word for soul.

Our hope and prayer is that she would become a woman who works hard to show love and compassion to others, that she cares for others at a soul level, and that she seeks to serve the Lord in whatever she does.

These are the two verses we had in mind when choosing her name and the meaning behind it.

Colossians 3:23-24 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Hebrews 10:23-25 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me this week! For any of you who have read her story, our story, thank you thank you thank you. It means the world to me. I’ve been working on writing the story of Emmeline’s arrival on and off since the day she was born and it has been such a process of remembering and writing and piecing everything together – the story, the photos, the call.

Both my babies’ births have had a profound impact on who I am and it has been amazing to write and read and reread their stories. Writing it down helps me to process it more fully. It just reminds me how important it is to reflect on and to share our stories. If you have a story you’re holding on to today – share it with someone. It’s important. You’re important. You need to be heard too.

If you missed the previous posts, be sure to go back and read (and listen to our 911 call if you’re up for that!) Here’s the Introduction, My Pregnancy, and Part 1 of Emmeline’s Birth Day.

And just a reminder if you missed it before – if pregnancy stories are tough for you to read, or triggering for any reason at all, please be kind to yourself. There is no reason at all for you to read this story if it isn’t helpful for you. Although it is a positive birth story in my eyes, it does include a very fast labor, a call to 911, and a birth at home. I’ve also included affiliate links in this post for The Birth Hour’s Know Your Options Childbirth Course. If you sign up via my link I’ll get a kickback at no additional cost to you. I so appreciate your support!

6:20:22am Our 911 call ended. I’m pretty certain I managed to say “welcome to labor land!” as the firemen walked in the door – I, for some reason, tend to think I’m hilarious when I’m in labor.

They asked me to lay down which, again, I physically could not do. I honestly really wanted to stay standing up and have them catch the baby that way. It felt the most natural and the most comfortable to me. Stalling, I told them to let me work through another contraction first. Before they arrived I’d been fully prepared to catch my baby in that position if I needed to. It was such a wild and sort of primal feeling listening to my body and doing what it told me to, knowing I’d do whatever it took to deliver our babe as safely as I could given the circumstances. 

Even with the firemen there I didn’t feel like I could lay down on my own, so they picked me up gently by my arms and laid me back on towels and pillows in our front hall. Tim says the baby was decently crowning at the time they began to lay me back and he was envisioning me sorta falling back into my bum (and onto baby’s head), so he grabbed my legs to help lift me up off the ground as two of the firemen grabbed my arms. I think I had one or two more contractions before the baby actually started to be born. I remember baby’s head coming out and then contractions pausing for a moment (they suctioned the nose and mouth a bit at that point) and then with the next one I pushed twice and the shoulders and then the rest of the baby came out with each of those pushes. I felt like I roared that baby out but Mom and Tim insist I wasn’t that loud. 

6:25:51am Baby made her grand entrance into the world (when we got to the hospital we found that they had recorded it down to the second.)

I remember Tim saying, “Babe, it’s.. it’s a GIRL!!” and responding “REALLY??” I definitely had been leaning toward thinking we were having a boy for most of my pregnancy.

Looking back, the thought of “I wonder what we’re having?” did not even cross my mind while I was in labor. It’s funny to me when people use that as the reason for waiting to find out if they’re having a boy or girl – like it gives you “something to push for.” While I’m sure that is absolutely true for some people, I have to admit that with both my babies that thought was somewhere in the very distant corners of my brain, not at all at the forefront while in transition and pushing. Mostly it was just “baby, out, baby, out, baby, out!” then utter relief. A beat. THEN the question mark. What did we have?? I don’t even think I had time to wonder before Tim announced to me that she was a SHE! Everyone asked what her name was and we looked at each other – “Emmeline? Emmeline, right?”

Tim also got to cut the cord (with a scalpel) and I remember asking them if I could do skin to skin with her, them handing her to me, just holding her to my chest, and I just couldn’t stop laughing and smiling. It was such a feeling of elation. I remember looking up at my mom who had been standing behind the firemen just taking it all in – she had tears in her eyes and a proud smile on her face. I so wish we had pictures of her in all of this, but it’s a mental picture I’ll always carry with me. Through tears she had called dad right before Emmeline was born to let him know things had progressed quickly and we were having a baby at home, so he was even on the call while she was born and right after to find out she was a girl.

After Emmeline was born we waited probably 10-15 min before I had the urge to deliver the placenta which happened fairly easily. In the meantime I asked Tim to grab our camera out of the car because HOW COULD I NOT have photos of us and our new babe who had just arrived at HOME? Haha! 

While we waited I also remember chatting and laughing with the firemen and the two EMS guys who had arrived a few minutes after she was born. Mom remarked later on how hilarious it was that I was thanking them and carrying on a normal conversation after what had just happened. My adrenaline and endorphins must have been sky high because all I remember feeling was joy and relief, not pain. I remember asking them how many babies they’d delivered and the one who delivered Emmeline told me this was his fourth. (His name also happened to be Timothy.) 

After delivering the placenta they started to get me ready to get in the ambulance and they let me decide if I wanted to go to the closest hospital or Novant in Matthews (of course I chose Novant where we delivered Beckett, knew a few of the nurses, and hoped to see our doctor.) It’s known to be one of the nicer hospitals around for delivering babies and I knew I’d want to recover somewhere familiar. 

Beckett woke up right as we were getting ready to leave and Tim got him up and brought him out to say hello. He was still pretty sleepy and out of it but really didn’t seem too freaked out that I was on the floor with a baby in my arms and there were five strange men in our living room and flashing lights outside our house. 

After we took a few minutes to share Emmeline with Beckett, they loaded me into the ambulance, Tim grabbed our bags from our car, and we were on our way. 

(This was another clip we were able to get from our local 911 Services after the fact. My mom happened to know someone who worked there and when she found out about our story she made sure to include this quick clip with our full 911 call.)

 

One of the pieces of the Know Your Options course that really stuck with me was the segment on breastfeeding and how important the first couple hours are for establishing breastfeeding well. Because that course module was still pretty fresh in my mind, I watched Emmeline as I held her on my chest in the ambulance, and within a few minutes she started doing what’s called the “breast crawl.” She was already looking to nurse, and with a little help she nursed the rest of the way to the hospital, all the way out of the ambulance, and all the way in as they wheeled me up to our room. She basically hasn’t stopped since.

The two nurses checking us into our room were wonderful but at a bit of a loss as to how to check us in and what procedures they could skip over. They figured it all out, the doctor on-call came in and numbed me and stitched me up (I did have 2nd degree tearing), the tech got me cleaned up, and we settled into our room.

We had a wonderful nurse named Cynthia who took great care of me and we enjoyed hearing her stories of being an oncology nurse before she made the switch to being an L&D nurse. We loved that she took the time to sit and listen to our stories and share her own with us. 

I remember overhearing the nurses talk about giving me Pitocin shortly after I arrived at the hospital, and when I asked why they said it was pretty standard procedure to prevent hemorrhaging. They told me I likely had been given Pitocin with my first baby, but I truly don’t recall that with Beckett. They ended up not giving me anything and I remember one of the times Cynthia came in to press on my belly (one of those things no one warns you about ahead of time! Ugh.) and she remarked that I was “doing things the old fashioned way.” This time around I had a lot less bleeding afterwards but a lot more and much stronger afterbirth cramps following Emmeline’s arrival.

Later that afternoon my parents, brother, and Beckett came to the hospital to see us and Emmeline. It was so sweet to see Beckett’s fascination with the clamp on her belly button, her little bassinet, and her tiny fingers and toes. 

This time around we only stayed for one night in the hospital. Those beds aren’t the most comfortable, so between that and all the adrenaline still pumping through my body I barely slept that first night. I was so ready to go home, sleep in my own bed, and start our transition to being a family of four. We also opted to not have the nurses bathe Emmeline – we wanted to wait and give her her first bath at home for a variety of reasons. That next morning when we asked if it would be possible to go home later that day, they chugged right through their discharge procedures and got us ready to go within a couple hours.

Most people’s first reactions when I share that we had a sudden unplanned home birth with Emmeline has been some variation of “oh my gosh that’s so scary!” I cannot express strongly enough how much this was not the case. I joke that I always wanted a home birth (it’s true!) but I never ever would have had the guts to plan one. For starters, home births are technically illegal in North Carolina, so my rule-following self would have stopped there. And the fearful side of me wanted to be in a hospital just in case, even though I know women have been successfully having babies at home since the beginning of time.

All the same, we planned on a hospital birth. But when everything happened so quickly there was no place for fear. I had birthed a baby once before, and both my mind and my body knew I could do it again. I had spent my entire pregnancy preparing, without realizing it, for what happened. I was filled up on positive birth stories, had been well trained via the Know Your Options course, and was unafraid to call 911 after having listened to that birth story the week before. I had Tim by my side throughout my whole pregnancy – a steady encouraging presence, and then unexpectedly but wonderfully had my mom encouraging me through transition, and when it came down to it, I trusted myself to do the thing. I felt so safe and so protected by the Lord through it all. I am beyond grateful that Emmeline’s pregnancy was an uncomplicated one and that her labor and delivery was just as uncomplicated. Fast. But pretty much a textbook birth – someone just hit the fast-forward button.

Come back tomorrow for the story of Emmeline’s name.

If you missed the previous parts of Emmeline’s story, feel free to go back and read the previous two posts: Introduction and My Pregnancy.

And just a reminder if you missed it before – if pregnancy stories are tough for you to read, or triggering for any reason at all, please be kind to yourself. There is no reason at all for you to read this story if it isn’t helpful for you. Although it is a positive birth story in my eyes, it does include a very fast labor, a call to 911, and a birth at home.

 

I think the story of our babe’s birth day is best told in a timeline because it all happened so fast. In the days after she arrived, Tim and I relived the details over and over, putting all the pieces together, checking the timestamps from the calls on his phone, and looking at the photos on my phone, my mom’s, and our camera to piece together when and how everything happened. 

“Rapid labor, also called precipitous labor, is characterized by labor that can last as little as 3 hours and is typically less than 5 hours.” – American Pregnancy Association

For reference, from the time I woke up with mild cramps to when Emmeline was born was 1 hour and 35 minutes.

September 19, 2018

4:50am I woke up to pee and noticed a couple crampy contractions in my belly. They were sort of similar to the Braxton Hicks I’d been having, but felt a little stronger. They were different from what I remember with Beckett though – almost like I’d eaten something that didn’t agree with me. I decided to try and get more rest in case I was going to go into labor later that day. I layed back in bed but couldn’t sleep and I counted 3 more contractions before getting back up. 

When I checked my phone again it had been 15 minutes since I laid down which meant one contraction every 5 minutes. The typical rule of thumb (depending on your doctor or midwife) is to head to the hospital once you’ve hit the “5-1-1” or once you’ve been having steady contractions that are 5 minutes apart, lasting about a minute each, and that has been going on for an hour. I’ve also heard some people say 3-1-1 or 4-1-1, but we live almost 40 minutes from the hospital where we planned to deliver, so we keep the 5-1-1 idea in mind, just to give ourselves enough time to get to the hospital.

Since my “stomach cramps” were timeable being every 5-ish minutes apart, I got up to go to the bathroom one more time to give myself a little more time to assess the situation and decide whether or not I should wake Tim up. I wasn’t going to share this detail but I heard similar things from women on The Birth Hour podcast (and had never heard it before then) so I hope it might help clue someone else in when they’re in labor as it did me. I got up and went to the bathroom again and the polite way to say it is my body cleared itself out. Apparently this is a sign that you really are in labor as your body is making way for the baby. Since I knew this already, it got me excited because I thought TODAY IS THE DAY! 

5:18am I woke Tim up and let him know we were likely going to have a baby later that day. He took a quick shower and started to finish getting packed up. 

5:27am I thought I’d wait till 5:30 to call my mom to come over and watch Beckett for us. She’s usually up pretty early for work but I remember thinking I didn’t need to wake her earlier than necessary and that she might have an alarm set for 5:30am. My contractions kept coming pretty regularly so I ended up calling her at 5:27.

At this point I was still feeling totally fine through contractions. They weren’t painful but I was starting to focus more on my breathing throughout each one. I had one at the end of my short conversation with my mom and she was like “oh yep, I hear that! I’ll head on over!” She got ready quickly and hopped in the car to drive over. A side note here – because of the hurricane, the quickest route between my parents’ house and ours had a bridge that was closed due to water damage and erosion. What is normally a 15 minute drive would have likely been 5-10 minutes longer, but my mom paid no attention to the orange barricades, driving around them to get to us more quickly. 

Tim and I spent the next half hour finishing packing our bags and Tim loaded the car. Before he took the camera to the car I asked him to snap a few photos as we finished packing and I labored around the house, thinking those would be sweet to look back on. (Literally everyone has laughed at me when I tell them this detail, but you must know that I was still not in pain at this point – I was just feeling regular pressure/cramps and I was starting to close my eyes in order to focus through each one. I thought we had many hours to go.)

I ate a quick bowl of cereal because I hadn’t eaten all night and knew I wouldn’t get to eat again when we got to the hospital. I thought I would need some sustenance for “the long haul.” Each contraction was getting a little stronger and they quickly got to be 1-3 min apart. The app on my phone kept telling me it was time to go to the hospital, but my contractions in early labor with Beckett were pretty close together and sporadic in length too, so I didn’t think TOO much of it at that point. So far the timing of the contractions was pretty similar to my early labor with Beckett. 

Throughout that half hour I kept stopping to lean over the kitchen counter, dresser, bathroom counter, really anywhere I could bend over and rest my head on my forearms. I realized I was starting to vocalize a bit through one of the contractions which I knew as a sign that things were progressing. I had to vocalize to work through pretty much every contraction after that. I found a low “Oooo” sound worked best for me.

5:55am Tim snapped a couple more photos of me before running out to the car with the camera bag – the last thing to get packed up, and I suddenly started feeling the emotion of what was to come. Our lives were about to change in a big way and I was suddenly feeling it all. For a few seconds, that is. Then another contraction came over me and I got focused again.

I took one last selfie with my belly in the mirror. I was still smiling and feeling pretty good in between contractions, although mentally I was really scatterbrained. It was right around this time that I started asking Tim, “Where is Mom? We need to get going!” I was starting to get anxious about the car ride if the contractions were going to continue getting more intense as quickly as they were. 

All our stuff was packed up in the car and we were ready to head out the door by around 6. The drive to the hospital is about 35-40 minutes away.

6:00am Tim called my mom to check on how close she was – she told him she was about 6 min away.

At this point we were totally ready to head out the door to the hospital. I was standing near our front hall, leaning over the arm of our couch, working through a contraction when my water broke. Tim grabbed a towel to clean it up and asked if I wanted to change pants (I was still just in sweatpants and my bra at that point – somehow I never had gotten it together enough to find a shirt) but I was like “NOPE! No time for that! Just throw a towel on the ground here and grab a clean towel for me to sit on in the car!” He remembers thinking, “Really?? No time to change?”

6:05am I suddenly started feeling extremely anxious to get to the hospital, so Tim called my mom one more time to let her know we were just going to leave the door unlocked and we’d wave at her on our way out the driveway as we would likely pass her on our way out.

I made it to the front porch, and as I had another contraction I leaned against the column by our front steps. Tim bounded down the stairs, thinking he would start up the car so we could get on the road faster. I stopped him as he ran, grunting “TIM!! I need you!” at him through a contraction because I needed some stability and I wanted to hold onto his arm through it. He slipped on the wet grass and fell on his knee, catching himself before running back to me on the top of the steps. (We laughed the next day when we saw the smear of mud where he slid through the grass.)

I was suddenly feeling so much pressure in this contraction that I sorta grunted through it, “TIM I think you’re gonna have to call 911. There’s NO way I’m gonna make it to the hospital!” I was having visions of giving birth in the car, or on the side of the road, trying to figure out and explain to 911 where we were and how to find us – that thought absolutely terrified me.

Tim dialed 911 on the screen but didn’t press “send”  right away, putting the phone in his pocket instead. He still thought we had enough time to make it to the hospital. We were still headed to the car and made it part of the way across our yard when I had to stop for another contraction. With that one I had a MAJOR urge to start pushing. It was the kind of feeling I’ve heard some women share about – my body was pushing the baby out whether I was ready or not. It wasn’t scary, it just felt like such an intense amount of pressure and something I just needed to go with rather than fight. I actually remember looking at the cool wet grass in our yard and thinking how nice it would be to just lay down in it. I told Tim I was starting to push and his response was “I don’t know if that’s a good idea!” (And yes, we laugh about this now!)

6:07:46am We were standing in the dark in the front yard as I struggled to get to the car, and Tim called 911. You’ll hear on the call how he keeps telling me we either need to get to the car or get back to the house – I remember having such a hard time with that, knowing we needed to go to the hospital, but being terrified of having a baby on the side of the road, and desperately wanting to go back into our house which felt much safer to me than getting in our car at that moment. 

They asked Tim if he could see any part of the baby and ultimately he made the decision that we needed to get back inside and into the light so he could check. We somehow made our way back up the steps and into the house which was super difficult for me. At this point I could barely walk and I was so inward-focused that I could hardly open my eyes between contractions to see where to go. Tim guided me back inside and I leaned over the arm of the couch again. Tim stripped me down to check to see whether the baby was crowning or not and reported back that he could not yet see any part of the baby.

(I had Tim edit the 911 call to remove our address – I felt weird about having every detail of where we live out on the interwebs haha! If you know where we live, you know where we live. Let’s not be creepy about it.)

Our 911 Call, Part 1

 

My mom arrived which you can just barely hear on the 911 call if you’re really paying attention. She must have quickly gathered what was happening and she came right over and held me, putting her hands on my arms while I leaned over the arm of the couch and stood over the towel where my water had broken. 

The urge to push was so overwhelming and I quickly told Mom “I’m pushing!” Her first reaction was something like “Baby, maybe try not to push quite yet!” but when I told her I couldn’t help it, she just encouraged me through it all. 

It was so unexpected to have her with me in labor but she was exactly what I needed in that moment. Tim was having to run around gathering things and I needed a solid encouraging presence with me. She just put her head down next to mine and held my arms and told me I was doing amazing and that I was an incredible mama. I asked her if she would say a quick prayer over me and baby and she did in that moment – it is such an incredible memory that I will always cherish.

I remember hearing Tim explain and re-explain where our house was to the 911 operator and I finally told him he needed to go to a different room while he gave them our address again. Google maps often takes people to the wrong place and it was stressing me out hearing him explain and re-explain where we live and envisioning them not arriving on time because they went to the wrong place. On the call it’s clear they know where to go, but it didn’t feel that way in my head at all!

At one point they asked Tim to let them know when each contraction was starting. He caught the beginning and end of the first one but missed the start of the second, just telling the operator when my second one was finishing. The operator said they were about two minutes apart.

Much of the call sounds quiet, but Tim was running back and forth checking for the baby, keeping me cleaned up (bless him), and eventually he started collecting all the things the guy asked him to get just in case he would have to deliver the baby before the first responders arrived (he was asked to gather towels, a blanket, a shoelace for tying off the umbilical cord, and safety pin or something sharp.) He has a hilarious memory of looking around our bedroom for something to tie the cord with and finally yanking the shoelaces out of his dress shoes.

Our 911 Call, Part 2

 

I just kept bearing down with each urge to push and I could feel the baby moving down with each contraction and back up a bit when they would ease up (it was actually amazing and not scary at all, weirdly enough). I asked a few times if they could see the baby, and you can hear Tim answering me on the call, saying no each time. And at some point right before the first responders arrived I remember saying something like, “I think baby is coming SOON!” 

Throughout this intense part of my labor I remember focusing on just two things. The first thing I remember thinking about was to keep the tone of my voice as low as possible (rather than screeching, squealing, or screaming – I remember my nurse telling me to do this when I was in labor with Beckett because it helps to keep you more calm and under control rather than panicking.) With the reminder to “stay low” I instinctually made a sort of low “OooUhhhh” noise. The other thing I remembered from my first labor was to relax my face. That sounds so weird, but when I was pushing with Beckett my nurse Mary kept reminding me to relax my face – there’s some sort of connection between relaxing the face and relaxing everything “down there” for baby to make his or her way down and out. Having done yoga here and there, those two things made sense in my head, even if much of it is just mental. After my water broke those were literally the only two things I could remember to do. Everything else, especially my position leaned over the couch, was purely instinctual – that was what felt the best so that’s what I did!

The operator asked Tim to get me to lay down on my back and you can’t hear it in the call but I flat out refused. I physically could not move from the spot I was in, bent over at the waist with my forearms resting on the arm of our couch. In the background my mom and Tim were getting pillows and towels ready to make it more comfortable for me to lay down on the floor when the lights of the firetruck appeared outside our window. I remember feeling such relief in that moment knowing they were that close, but I also remember telling my mom how badly I did NOT want to get in the ambulance. I was so nervous I’d have to give birth in the back of the ambulance as it bumped down the road and that honestly sounded terrible.

Our driveway is fairly long and they parked the firetruck at the end of it, so Tim ran out to let them know they were in the right place and that the door was open for them. He then ran back inside to check me again and the baby had just started crowning so he hustled back out to let them know he could see the baby’s head. 

At this point in the call he left the phone inside near my mom and I while he ran outside, so you can really hear me working through my contractions more and you can hear my mom encouraging me as she could see baby starting to crown. We think he put his phone on speaker at this time because I remember hearing the 911 operator on the call from here on out. 

I love that you can hear the excitement/nervousness/enthusiasm in my mom’s voice as she goes back and forth between encouraging me and talking to the 911 operator. You can hear her say “You’re doing great! You’re doing great!” over my high pitched voice asking “Is baby coming out? Is baby coming out??” Mom answers me saying “just a tiny bit!” and then she reassures the 911 operator that I’m undressed from the waist down. She then sees the baby crowning and she says “oh yeah, here comes… oh yep! A little bit.. Cute little (head)! Just the very tip of the head!”

You can hear Tim and my mom both showering me with encouragement toward the end of the call as Tim walks back in the door with the firemen on his heels. (A couple times Tim and my mom told the operator that an ambulance had arrived but we realized later that it was the first responders in the firetruck that arrived first and the ambulance arrived just after the baby was born.)

At this point the three firemen walked in, introduced themselves, and one said, in a distinct Southern drawl, “alright ma’am, things are ‘bout to get real personal!” which you can start to hear if you listen very closely at the end of the call. 

Our 911 Call, Part 3

 

Click through for the second part of Emmeline’s Birth Day Story (on her actual first birthday)! I promise she will actually be born in this next post!

If you haven’t yet read the introduction to Emmeline’s story, feel free to start there.

I mentioned this yesterday, but just a reminder if you missed it – if pregnancy stories are tough for you to read, or triggering for any reason at all, please be kind to yourself. There is no reason at all for you to read this story if it isn’t helpful for you. Although it is a positive birth story in my eyes, it does include a very fast labor, a call to 911, and a birth at home.

I’ve also included affiliate links in this post for The Birth Hour’s Know Your Options Childbirth Course. If you sign up via my link I’ll get a kickback at no additional cost to you. I so appreciate your support!

With this pregnancy I felt a lot more pregnant, from beginning to end. Not in a bad way – just that everything was more. I felt a lot more nauseous during my first trimester, and for more weeks than with Beckett. I felt more movement from baby since my placenta was posterior this time (with Beckett it was anterior, or in front, which is said to cushion some of baby’s kicks). I had a LOT more Braxton Hicks contractions, starting around 20 weeks and going throughout the rest of my pregnancy. I also felt a lot more pressure down low as the pregnancy went on. Dr Sal was wonderfully reassuring about all of this, reminding me that it’s completely normal to feel more of everything with subsequent pregnancies.

The only “complications” were simple ones that didn’t actually affect our pregnancy (thanks modern medicine) and they were the same ones we dealt with when I was pregnant with Beckett. I get “benign gestational thrombocytopenia” when I’m pregnant (which is low platelets and can affect whether I’m a candidate for an epidural if they drop too low before delivery – they stayed just high enough both times that I could have gotten an epidural if I wanted one). I also tend to have low iron during pregnancy, like many women. And my blood is Rh-negative, so I have to get the Rhogam shot during and after pregnancy to protect myself and future babies from potential complications.

We decided not to find out whether we were having a boy or girl, just like with our first pregnancy. That’s a decision Tim and I made together before we ever started trying to have babies. We both thought it would be such a special experience to find out together when we meet our little one in the delivery room. We loved doing that with Beckett and we wanted to do the same this time around. If I had guessed what we were having during my first trimester I would have guessed girl – with all the extra nausea and how much I craved sweets during that time, it felt different from my first pregnancy. 

Once I made it past the first 14 or 16 weeks I finally started feeling better and from then on out I felt more like we were having a boy. The baby was just as active, if not more so than Beckett was in my belly. To me it felt like another boy because that’s what I knew. Baby’s kicks felt familiar – I could imagine those jabs to my ribs being another active little boy – a little brother to Beckett. But then some days I wondered if it could be a little girl – maybe just an active wiggly baby girl in my belly? I went back and forth almost daily. I was probably 60/40 between boy and girl, leaning slightly more toward boy since that’s what was familiar.

I really cherished the time as my belly grew bigger and Beckett started to understand what was happening. Some days I would think he didn’t get it at all, but then he would surprise me and ask to kiss the baby, wrapping his arms around my belly and planting a kiss on my round tummy. Since he came with us to nearly every appointment, he loved pretending to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Sometimes, without warning, he would lift my shirt up over my belly and gently place his fist on my belly while making a “shh shhh, shh shhh” noise to imitate listening to the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler.

After working my way through the modules of the Know Your Options course, I realized there were a few things I would have done differently or at least known to ask more questions about during my first labor and delivery with Beckett. Looking back, a theme of that labor for me was the feeling of being sort of immobile – I remember feeling trapped to the bed, trapped to the monitors strapped around my belly, and trapped to the IV fluids my nurse insisted I have when I arrived in labor. Every time I needed to get up and go to the bathroom, I had to be unhooked from all the things and I felt like such a nuisance asking my nurse to come in and help me with all those things so I could just get up to pee. (I know, I know, that’s what they’re there for – but I have such high empathy that I never want to bother anyone even if it’s their job! Plus, the first nurse I had that night wasn’t particularly warm and fuzzy, and we didn’t really connect, so that made it more difficult for me to feel like I could ask for what I needed.)

During this pregnancy I learned more about standard procedures in L&D, what you can request while in labor, that sort of thing. I learned about intermittent monitoring and wireless monitoring and knew that since having Beckett, our hospital had acquired more wireless monitoring equipment, so it was more likely I’d be able to ask for that this time around. I knew feeling more mobile would certainly help my mindset while in labor. I had also hated the feeling of having a saline lock, or hep-lock, in my hand – I’m not a huge fan of needles, so just thinking about it made me uncomfortable. I figured it was standard procedure for every laboring woman to get a hep-lock when they arrive – it makes it easy to administer fluids and meds as needed. But as I learned more, I began to question whether or not I had needed the bag of fluids while I was in labor with Beckett. I don’t remember my nurse ever explaining why I needed them (I’m sure she probably told me it was standard, but I have no recollection of it.)

I learned this time around that getting fluids is a prerequisite to getting an epidural. But I hadn’t asked for an epidural and I had told my nurse I wanted to go without if at all possible. Having those fluids when I first arrived to the hospital in labor with Beckett certainly didn’t hurt anything. But being trapped in the bed while I waited for the bag to drain felt agonizing. I remember feeling frustrated and mentally drained when my nurse came back in maybe a half an hour after starting the fluids and I pointed out that the bag didn’t seem to be draining. She sort of frowned and unhooked and rehooked everything up and the bag drained in seemingly no time at all, much to my relief. After that I was told I could get out of bed and labor how I wanted.

Our hospital opened a new women’s wing shortly after Beckett was born, so we decided to do another hospital tour to familiarize ourselves with where we’d be delivering and ask any questions we might have. At the end of the tour I asked our guide if it was standard procedure for every laboring mama to get a hep-lock upon arrival (even though I thought I knew the answer). When she answered yes I asked about the bag of fluids and whether that was standard as well. She told me I’d need one if I wanted an epidural but otherwise could decline. 

I double checked with Dr Sal at my next appointment, recalling my labor with Beckett and how I’d felt so trapped while waiting to get the fluids. She gave me a funny look and asked, “But your nurse knew you didn’t want an epidural, right?” I nodded and told her how I’d relayed our “birth plan” to our nurse upon arrival and Dr Sal sort of laughed and said something like, “She didn’t think you could do it! She must have thought ‘oh, first time mom, uh huh, sure you don’t want an epidural…’ and decided it was better to go ahead and give them to you instead.” It’s a little prideful but I felt SO validated by Dr Sal’s words! It was encouraging to hear from her that I certainly could turn fluids down, while keeping in mind that I would have to get them if I changed my mind and wanted an epidural.

Toward the end of my pregnancy when Dr Sal started checking for baby’s position he/she was always head-down and low in my pelvis. So we knew we had a cooperative, but still very wiggly baby. During my final few appointments I opted not to “get checked” for how dilated I was – I knew that number really didn’t mean a whole lot before labor gets going. With Beckett I wasn’t dilated at all the day before I went into labor and I felt SO discouraged when I found out, but I’ve also heard stories of moms who walk around a few centimeters dilated for the last few weeks of their pregnancies and it doesn’t necessarily mean labor is imminent. I decided I didn’t need to know the number because it would probably just serve to mess with my mind and either discourage me or put me on edge.

The weekend before our due date Hurricane Florence was aiming straight for the North Carolina coast. Our doctor reminded us to make sure we had our hospital bags packed as big storms like this one tend to fill up the delivery wings at hospitals. I’m not sure if there are any official studies that have been done but I read there’s something about the change in barometric pressure that can get labor moving! 

That week as the hurricane was aiming for our coast, The Birth Hour released a podcast titled 911 Call Roadside Delivery Birth. Sort of as a joke, I decided to listen to it “just in case” our baby decided to make his or her entrance during the hurricane, and just in case any roads were closed between our house and the hospital, and just in case baby arrived quickly while we were on the road or something crazy. I even had Tim listen to the podcast, you know, just in case.

Alas. We made it through the entire hurricane unscathed – apart from a ton of rain and a huge tree that fell in our front yard. Baby was happy to stay put through the storm and we were so grateful.

As our due date was approaching I remember sort of mourning the end of this season with just Beckett being my only little buddy. I remember knowing things were about to change big time, especially the amount of time and attention I’d be able to devote to him and I was certain it would feel like a big transition for him. 

The night before I went into labor I had the sweetest time saying goodnight to Beckett. He laid on my shoulder longer than usual, we prayed together as a family like we try to do every night, and he let me rock him for a few minutes before gently leaning out of my arms to be put down in his crib. He’d been having some more difficult bedtimes as of late, but that evening was different. Just sweet and snuggly. 

Tim and I spent some sweet time together that evening too as we dreamt of what was to come – what this next season might bring. I journaled for a while, reflecting on the transition to come, on the sweet bedtime with Beckett, and musing about how many more nights I would put him to bed as an only child.

I remember standing in the shower before bed that night, hand on my belly, feeling like, and knowing that it was almost time. I remember looking down and quietly saying to my belly “okay baby, you can come any time now,” having no idea she’d be in my arms 8-9 hours later. 

Click through to the next post about Emmeline’s actual birth day and to hear our 911 call.