Birth Story

I had every intention of writing this while it was fresh on my brain but here we are three months later and I still haven’t written anything! So I will try to recount to the best of my memory the magical days we brought our little love into the world.

My due date was June 1st but I always had the sense that I was going to go early! Towards the last few weeks, I was already a couple centimeters dilated and getting more effaced each appointment. I felt like my body was so ready and it was coming soon. I had an appointment on the afternoon of May 22nd and when my doctor did a cervix check, she went ahead and did a quick membrane sweep. I was expecting this to hurt more but it didn’t feel much different than the cervix checks to me that we had been doing already! During the membrane sweep, she told me that I was contracting already! I couldn’t really tell that I was but it was good to start to know what to look for feeling wise, stomach tightening, etc. By the time we made it back to the car, I was noticing that I was having more contractions. We drove to krispy kreme ( totally out of our way ha! ) to get a donut and then went home. I was continuing to have contractions that just felt like a cramp, I would kind of lean back into my seat through them and I started using an app to track their length and frequency. It did not feel real at all to me at all and I didn’t even let anyone know because I wanted to see if they continued after we got home and weren’t in the car. Things continued to progress after we got home and I started to accept the fact that I think I was in labor! Ben heated us up some freezer meals that I bulk prepped for postpartum and we ate and just continued to labor at home as long as we felt like we could. Ben was in the best spirits so excited and comforting me through every contraction, trying to give me different positions that might help, and keep up with timing to see when we should go in. Once my contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each, we packed up the bags and headed to the hospital. We were both bursting with excitement to meet Rhodes, I tear up just thinking about how special all these moments were.

Once we got there we were getting checked by the nurse and I remember asking Ben to ask her if she thought we would get admitted for labor and she looked at us and said, “Oh hunny, you are already 5-6 centimeters dilated, you are having this baby!” ha! She also said I was doing such a good job breathing through contractions and asked if I was going natural. It was never my plan to go natural but now I would definitely consider it for my second. We were brought back to our room, texted all our family, and got settled. My nurse got the epidural fairly quickly since my contractions were already really close together. This was probably one of the worst parts for me. It did hurt but I think it was mostly mental, I just hate needles and hate the idea of it. From that point on, I continued getting more and more dilated, my family members were all rolling in and we were waiting on baby Rhodes to make his appearance! I was definitely really in and out of it, feeling sick, getting sick at one point, but not in too much pain. My own pillow, essential oils, and my playlist were the three things I felt like were the most important during actual labor that I was so so glad I had. Ben was the biggest and best cheerleader every moment, encouraging me so much. It came to practice pushing time and this definitely took me a while to get down. I felt so out of it I wasn’t even grasping what I should be doing. Eventually the nurse added some handle bars and once those were there, it was clicking more for me. My doctor ( who was about to leave on a trip ) was able to come in I think we started pushing around 6am. I will never forget hearing Ben yell out that he could see Rhodes head and he had hair, it felt so close! Rhodes came out at 6:55 am and changed my life forever. A new me was born the second he came out. I felt a love I never knew was possible. The whole experience felt truly out of body, the best best moment of my entire life!

I am sure there are a ton of little details and moment that I am forgetting already but one thing that I will never forget was the moment Rhodes came out, out of hundreds of songs on my birth playlist, “Open up let the light in” by Steffany Gretzinger was playing. This is the same song that Ben and I listened the day we were grieving the loss of our first baby to a miscarriage the year prior. We just looked at each other in awe of the faithfulness and goodness of God.

I think it’s more common to read more scary and traumatic first birth experiences on the internet so I wanted to share for my own sake to remember, but also to encourage others. What a beautiful experience!