Birth Story of #4

At the beginning of November I decided I was going to take a break from school. Between the cleaning of the house and organizing I was still doing, keeping up with school work for Mr. Blue and Mr. Orange was just too much. I was large and uncomfortable and just needed less stress. So we took a break and just enjoyed the time we had together before we added another one to the family. We hosted Thanksgiving as we always do and we were excited to be able to give our families and friends the tour of our new home and property. And then came time for the arrival of #4. I was 40 weeks and was set to have an appointment with my midwives on a Monday. Thankfully my in-laws had taken the kids the weekend prior to give Nic and I time to just truly relax and recharge before baby. And it worked! I woke up that Monday morning and felt a little different and (TMI WARNING) had potentially lost a little of the mucous plug. So we shifted gears a bit and I asked Nic if he would accompany me to my appointment and we brought our stuff just in case since it was a 2 hour drive. Luckily my in-laws were already on their way to watch the boys for the day so we informed them what was going on and also called my parents to say, ‘hey, here’s what’s going on - we might need you to head to our place but we’ll keep you updated depending on what happens at the appointment’.

On the drive there the weirdest thing happened that had never happened with my pregnancies with the boys - I could actually feel the moment baby dropped. We were talking and all of a sudden I could breathe! It was wonderful!! I could take a full, big breath. So we get to my appointment and tell them what’s going on and what I had experienced that morning. They checked me and I was only dilated to a 3. So she said that I’m on the induction schedule for that Friday if I don’t go on my own before then. I really didn’t want to be induced but also really didn’t want to have a Christmas baby and miss being home with the boys. So we left and decided to go get lunch. From there we decided to go to a few stores and get some shopping done and errands ran. While walking around I was definitely having consistent and timeable contractions. So we wrestled with whether to head home or stay for the night. We walked the mall, visited a friend, and were still trying to decide what to do. Meanwhile, the contractions were coming and going and they were starting to get more consistent. So, we decided to stay. We called my parents to have them head to our place when they got off work to relieve Nic’s parents, and the next decision was do we just go to the hospital or get a hotel. In the meantime we went and had dinner and grabbed a few snacks from the store to be prepared. We still weren’t sure what to do since my contractions would be so consistent at under 5 minutes apart and lasting almost a minute, almost to the one hour mark and then the next one would randomly be 10 minutes apart. So we just drove to the hospital and hung out in the parking lot for a bit before deciding to just go in and see what they say. It was about 9:30pm by the time we went in. While in triage to assess if they were going to keep me, 4 babies were born in the span of about a half hour, all boys, so we would see if I added to that soon! Once they had a minute to check me, I was dilated to a 5, and that plus the consistent contractions they decided to admit me.

Let me preface this by saying however you choose to birth your babies is wonderful. Birth is wonderful but can also be traumatic if there were things that happened that were beyond your control that completely upended your birth plan. That’s what happened to me with Mr. Green. So this time around I had done even more research, brought things to help, and built up my confidence surrounding birth and I planned to go completely unmedicated - purely because I wanted to, to prove to myself that I could. I sat in the amazing bathtub they had in their birthing suite, I moved around, worked through breathing, and my nurse was INCREDIBLE just the best coach and so encouraging. She kept the lights low, put up some Christmas lights in the bathroom and only came in when it was time to do a vitals check on both baby and I. We were trucking along, I was doing great, labor shakes had started - and then I just hit a wall. I was completely and utterly spent. By this time it was about 2:30 in the morning and after being on my feet most of the day and contracting for hours - not to mention not getting great sleep for weeks leading up to this day (thanks to being large and uncomfortable and having to pee constantly), I was exhausted. Nic did incredible and was encouraging me to keep going and that I was so close, he knew how badly I wanted to reach my goal and I love him all the more for that, but I was done. I didn’t think I would have the strength to bring our baby into the world if I didn’t get some rest - so we called in the anesthesiologist. And honestly, I really wish I wouldn’t have. This was my 4th epidural experience, and the worst. They had to reposition it a few times and it was the worst feeling - and I know I wasn’t just being dramatic because it even affected Nic. He’s normally a rock during labor and delivery, and he got a little woozy watching them do the epidural and how painful it was for me. Once that was over with, it was about 3:30am and I finally got to rest a bit.

Around 6am the nurse came in one last time to do her checks and to say that shift change was soon and that she got me the best of the best of nurses for the day since she just knew I was going to have that baby soon, but that she would be back that evening and couldn’t wait to meet our baby. She was an absolute angel. Our next nurse was also amazing and was on board with doing whatever it took to get this baby here. The one problem was the epidural was mostly working ridiculously strong on my right side, and I was feeling everything on my left. I had told her I definitely did not want to push on my back, I wanted to be on my side and that might be tricky since I couldn’t even move my right leg. Sometimes after 7am they asked if I wanted them to check and I said yes. I initially didn’t want to do many checks because it doesn’t always give a good indication of where you’re at and can just cause me to get in my head more. So they checked and I was at an 8. The next couple hours were intense and by 9am I was feeling the insanely strong urge to push - something else I’d never experienced. Before they had always told me when to push, but this time they really let my body lead - which was amazing. I told the nurse I had to push and I was going to whether the midwife was there or not so she made the call and then I (probably a little rudely) yelled at her to grab my leg and hold it up and I pushed once, the midwife got into place and I pushed again and baby was out! The midwife was still holding the baby and I’m just staring at Nic like uhhh this is now your one job WHAT DID WE HAVE?! So the midwife looks at him and says, so dad - what do we have here? And Nic was able to say, we had a baby GIRL! I never thought we would actually have a girl. And while I had a feeling the whole time it was a girl, I still was a little surprised. Everything had happened so quickly there at the end that I had forgotten to ask a nurse or someone to take pictures so we didn’t get any pictures until baby girl was already born and Nic was cutting the umbilical cord. And I didn’t find this out until after, but she was born en caul - meaning she was born still entirely in the amniotic sac and the midwife had to break it open and get her out from there. The nurse said, aww you had a little mermaid baby. I SO wish I would’ve been able to have that captured, that would have been so cool. But regardless, what a cool story to tell her someday!

They placed our sweet baby girl on my chest and just like big brothers - it was love at first sight. My heart grew yet again and I was absolutely smitten. The poor child didn’t have a true name for a good portion of the day because we couldn’t decide on a spelling. Eventually we figured it out. Once we had the name figured out, we first face timed with big brothers since we thought they should be the first to get to meet their new baby sister. From there we video chatted with Nic’s sister since she’s named after her and wanted her to be the next one to hear of her arrival. Next it was Nic’s parents (mine were with the boys), and then my sister-in-law and niece and nephew. Finally we sent out the barrage of messages to the rest of our family and friends announcing her arrival.

We stayed one more night and then we headed for home a little after lunch time the next day. While another night away from home to maybe get some sleep sounded nice, we were eager to see the boys and I was especially looking forward to my own bed (that epidural spot was so bruised and SO sore). Once we got home, my heart just burst wide open, watching the boys with their baby sister was the sweetest and everything I had ever prayed for. Our family was finally complete ❤️

Oldest Boy (1)- Mr. Blue

Middle Boy (2) - Mr. Orange

Youngest Boy (3) - Mr. Green

Baby Girl (4) - Miss Red