Evelyn's Birth Story

Welcome to the long version of Evelyn’s Birth Story! 

It was a Friday morning.  I was awake in bed (because that’s what I did towards the end of my pregnancy—laid in bed awake!) around 4:30 in the morning when I felt a little stomach cramping.  Seeing how this was my second child, you would have thought I knew this was LABOR, but instead for the next hour I convinced myself I was having bad indigestion – what I thought was compliments of iron supplements.  These “stomach cramps” were pretty consistently 7-10 minutes apart, so at 5:30 when heard Matt stirring around in bed, I told him, “Just so you know, I’m having what might be contractions.”  You see, the weekend prior I had had some pretty bad Braxton Hicks contractions, so I wasn’t about to cry wolf to him again! J 

We stayed in bed until 6 when I came to terms with the fact that these cramps were starting to hurt, so I  told him, “I’m pretty sure this might be the day.”  I decided to get up and move about, hoping to stimulate early labor into something more, and Matt got up and started finishing up some final things he had to get done for work that day.  I finished some laundry, and thinking it potentially was going to be a long day of labor, made a German pancake. 

At 6:45, I emailed my work saying something like, “I’ve been having consistent contractions since 4:30 this morning.  I’m not sure exactly where this is headed, but there’s a good enough chance this is labor that plan on me not being at our meeting today.”  I called my sister and mom, letting them know what was up.  Nealy (thankfully) shook some sense into me and said, “Kiley, THIS IS LABOR.  YOU ARE IN LABOR.  YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THIS BABY TODAY.” 

Maybe it was those magic words, maybe not, but from 7am on, things started to progress.  I called my neighbor to see if we could drop Avery over there.  I packed a banana, granola bar, and diapers into a bag for Avery and set it by the front door.  I stuck some last-minute items into the suitcase.  Meanwhile, Matt was still sitting in the living room working on his work stuff.  At one point, I had to tell him something so I went in there and had a pretty strong contraction while we were talking; it was then that he realized we needed to get the show in the road! 

At 7:40 I spoke with the midwife on call for the first time and said, “We’re coming!”  She said that the hospital we were planning on delivering at, Woodwinds, was full and to go to St. Josephs.  At that point I was SO HAPPY to hear that news because Woodwinds is a 25 min drive and St. Josephs is only 15 minutes.  I knew we didn’t have a lot of time.

Okay, back to the German Pancake.  I finally sat down with my peanut-butter-slathered German pancake and a big glass of milk in hand when all of the sudden a wave of heat and nausea and a tidal wave of a contraction swept over me.  I snapped out of the contraction with a very sore toe, and looking down, I realized that I had dropped my glass of milk on the floor.  It was then, at about 8am, I knew once and for all—we need to GO!  (At the time, I had a feeling that this was the beginning of “transition.”)

I called our babysitter and asked her to come over and bring Avery to our neighbor’s house… there was not time for Matt to wake her up and bring her over.  I told Matt to forget about the broken glass and un-blended smoothie sitting in the blender on the counter and to get our stuff into the car.  We get into my Jeep and for the first time ever, it would not start.  For real people!  Matt got everything moved over to his car and when we were finally pulling out of the driveway it was 8:05.  I was still super super hot so I cranked the AC full blast the whole way to the hospital.  In the car on the way there I was thinking things like:

“I willingly, and knowingly put myself in this position?!  I’m so stupid!”

“Hard contractions are good because they are really opening your cervix.”

“This is why people get epidurals!”

“Jesus help me.  Jesus help me.” 

“Relax your body.  Work with the contraction.  Don’t fight it.”

“I could really be okay with two kids.  Really.” 

“I think maybe I feel like I need to start pushing.”

“Open, cervix, open!”

“I’m so glad we don’t have to drive all the way to Woodwinds.”

“Please be over soon.  Please be over soon.”

We got to the Emergency entrance, they called “transport” and asked us to “Wait over there, please.”  Matt had enough sense to tell them we will NOT be waiting; get someone else to bring her up.  I was having the time of my life in the wheelchair while they paged someone else to get me.  We soon found out that wheeling people up to maternity was not this guy’s normal job because, sure enough, he got us lost.  (To his credit, St. Joe’s is a very confusing hospital to navigate.) 

It was 8:30 when we got to my room.  My nurse Mary said that Melissa would be there in 3 minutes and that we were going to try to wait to check me until she got there.  This was the first I head that Melissa was the midwife on call at St. Joes and I was SO HAPPY to hear that because she was the midwife I saw for all of my appointments! Anyway,  I said that I felt like I needed to push, so the nurse checked me, announcing that, “Yep, you are complete.”  Then she said, “I never tell a laboring woman that she can’t push, but Melissa really will be here in a couple of minutes.”  When Melissa got there I remember looking into her eyes and saying, “I’m so glad you’re here.  I’m so glad it’s you.”  (There are 20 midwifes in the practice, so chances were slim that I’d end up with her!  God has good, and sometimes almost funny, timing.)  Gaining a little confidence knowing she was there to guide me through, I started pushing.  It was then Melissa realized I did not have an IV going (I was positive for group B strep).  It took two nurses a combined total of four tries before they got my IV of penicillin in; all the while I’m doing my best at pushing this little girl out.  Feeling the need to push was a new sensation for me because since Avery had a “nuchal” hand, I never felt that urge with her.  During each push I just wanted to hold Matt’s hand, and in between each push I’d take a big gulp of water.  After about 15 minutes of pushing Melissa said, “If you give me two good, strong pushing contractions, you will have your baby laying on your chest.”  Apparently I shot up in bed and said, “Are you serious?!”  Sure enough, two contractions later and sweet, slimy Evelyn was flopped on my chest, at 8:56 am.  THE END!