Collins’ Birth Story

Tell all ya friends and neighbors!

Introducing our little lamb to the internet world, here’s our accidental natural birth story and how she came to meet us

Whew. I gotta say I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to write a birth story post.

Because of trauma I have associated with birth, I’ll never be one of those water birth or home birth moms and quite honestly, I’m okay with that. Give me my hospital birth and give me my alive child I can take home.

When Jordan and I had Charlotte, we had only been through a year of infertility struggles, but after only one round of fertility meds, we were able to conceive her.

Looking at that picture above from 6 years ago, we had no clue what would be in store.

We had 3 pregnancy losses, including our son last year that was probably my hardest and 4 years of secondary infertility because of my PCOS.

After an anxiety ridden and traumatic pregnancy, before I knew it, it was time to meet our newest girl.

Super quick version of Charlotte’s birth story

I didn’t have a blog when Charlotte was born, but not only was she born 5 weeks early, but my water broke around 12:30pm while I was at work and she was in my arms by 2:30pm that afternoon.

I dilated from 3cm to 10cm in 30 minutes and she was born all naturale. No drugs.

I screamed shit a lot. Loudly. It was like “SHITSHITSHIT! I’M SO SORRY! I CAN’T CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!”

Serious Will Ferrell as Jacob Silj on SNL vibes up in that triage room (which, yes, we had her in triage because they were taking their sweet time getting me checked in and didn’t have time to move me to an actual delivery room).

Anyhoo, let’s fast forward.

May 24, 2021

My last OB appointment. I was 38w 5d pregnant. And I was feeling every second of it. 2 weeks away from my due date.

So close, yet so far away.

Charlotte was born at 35w so this was as pregnant as I had been and I was also 5 years older. Technically “geriatric”. Way to make a girl feel good about her age.

I was only 1-2cm dilated and barely effaced.

We set an induction date of May 27th because that was the day that my doctor would be in the hospital and because he had been with us for our last loss and this anxiety-ridden pregnancy he wanted to be the one to deliver her. And I was perfectly fine with that.

The idea of being induced freaked me out, though. Because everyone has their own opinion and story about it.

“It made labor so much easier.”
“It made labor so much harder.”

“I was in labor for only a few hours.”
“I was in labor for 7 years.”

“I felt no pain!”
“I thought I was actually going to pass away.”

Cooooool. Cool, cool, cool.

May 26, 2021

I spent this day doing things that I knew the kids loved.

We had a family dinner at Chick-Fil-A which is Charlotte’s favorite.

We had popsicles after dinner which is a crowd favorite.

And I treated myself to Taco Bell for lunch, which is my favorite. I spilled mild sauce on this shirt I’m wearing here. (This comes back in the story later…stay tuned).

May 26, 2021 – 11:00pm(ish)

Jordan’s mom was spending the night with us to watch the other 2 hooligans.

Jordan and I were in bed talking about what the next day would hold and how I was feeling about being induced (so nervous would be the answer).

He had been up since 3 AM because he had to work at 5 AM that day. He had just dozed off and I had adjusted my favorite pregnancy pillow trying to finally snuggle in for the night since we had to be at the hospital early the next morning.

May 26, 2021 – 11:29pm

I felt a weird pop (like a bubble popping in my crotch-al region) and just thought, “Hmm. Weird.” As I went to lay down, there it was – my water broke.

I grabbed Jordan’s hand and said, “My water broke.” And then the contractions started right after.

My mother in law is a home health nurse and had given me some adult pee pads so that I could have them in case something like this happened.

I stood in the bathroom with my water just pouring out of me, pretty helpless wondering how in God’s name I was gonna put pants on to get to the hospital since I knew they were just gonna be soaking wet.

Jordan was running around grabbing all the things to get us ready for the ride to the hospital.

We got ourselves in the car and my contractions were 3 minutes apart.

Just like it happened with Charlotte – I had no contractions and then my water broke, they were immediately 3 minutes apart and then 2 minutes by the time I got to the hospital.

As soon as I felt them 3 minutes apart, I FREAKED OUT because I knew they would shortly only be 2 and we were 20 minutes from the hospital.

I was right.

As I’m yelling in the car every 3 minutes, Jordan is blowing through all stop lights and super quietly focused on the road.

We made it to the hospital in record time and as soon as we pulled into the labor and delivery parking lot, I swung open his truck door and had my hands on my pants fully prepared to pull them off and birth this baby girl outside the hospital.

It hurt to sit and it was dang near impossible to walk.

The double doors slid open and what felt like an army of nurses in scrubs bust through the doors, gloving up. I felt like I was in a scene of a super dramatic hospital show.

They’re asking me if I feel ready to push and I’m just yelling all of my answers.

May 27, 2021 – Midnight(ish)

At this point, my contractions were 2 minutes apart, but they lasted about a minute and a half so I had about 30 seconds to feel like a normal human.

As they got me into a chair and wheeled me down the hall, I had a second of clarity where I just looked at all of them and said, “Man, I’m dramatic, right?! I promise I’m usually not this ridiculous of a person.”

We got into a room and they were being super quick about hooking me up to IVs and getting my info in.

The midwife came in and checked me and told me that I was about 5cm dilated and she’d be back later.

My husband kindly said, “This part usually goes fast, so hopefully we’ll see you soon.”

They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said sure.

Boy, what a mistake that was.

The anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural and had to work in 30 second intervals every 2 minutes between contractions.

After the whole rigamaroll of getting the frigging thing in, he looks at me and says, “She’s probably already in your birth canal and if she is, this epidural won’t do you any good.”

Cool, bro. SUPER NEATO.

So I wasted 25 minutes getting prepped and getting the needle in only to realize that it would be completely ineffective.

All naturale again was where this was going.

The midwife came back and didn’t tell me anything but just grabbed my legs and said, “So, how about on this next contraction we push?”

In my brain I was like, “Nah, I’m good,” but I knew I had to oblige.

May 27, 2021 – 1:00am(ish)

Here I was just pushing and whatnot. I was waiting to feel the ring of fire like I did with Charlotte. The part that hurt worst with her was her head, but she was so friggin skinny that I felt nothing else after that.

I was pushing, but didn’t feel her head so I thought it was all in vain. But then I heard the nurses and Jordan saying, “Baby’s head is out!”

I was all, “WAIT WUT?” Because I didn’t feel it. Maybe that epidural worked! L.O.L. It did not.

The cord was wrapped around her neck so the midwife told me to hold off on pushing again until she got it off.

Then she said, “Okay, now push like you’re taking the biggest poop of your life.” So I did.

AND IT HAPPENED. MY WORST FEAR.

I dooked. Straight up dooked.

So not only was I embarassed, but I was SO PISSED, why? I had spent the last month and a half of my pregnancy super constipated and couldn’t poop if you said you were gonna pay me a million dollars.

And all of a sudden, now it just glides right on out like riding a greased inner tube down a slide at a waterpark.

“You’re KIDDING ME!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t pooped in weeks and now it just comes out in front of God and everybody? I’m so sorry you guys!”

They all assured me that I wasn’t the first, nor would I be the last.

Still. When I say mortified, I mean MORTIFIED.

However, right after that, at 1:17am, at 7 pounds, 9 ounces and 19.5 inches long, THIS GIRL CAME RIGHT ON OUT TO MEET US.

Before I even opened my eyes to see her tiny little body, all I heard was her dad screaming, “LOOK AT THOSE BOATS!” talking about how long her feet and toes were.

To be fair, he was right, but still. Let me at least open my eyes and look at her before you just go judging my poor lil’ bèbè’s body parts.

I can not speak highly enough of the nurses we had. They were INCREDIBLE. One of them just picked up my phone and started taking photos of her right as she came out so that we had photos of it since we couldn’t have anybody in there other than Jordan and me because of Covid.

Take a close look at that shirt. Does it look familiar?

Yup. It’s the exact same shirt that I spilled mild sauce from Taco Bell on a mere 12 hours earlier. I didn’t even have time to change into a hospital gown until after she was born.

So she came out of the womb right onto mild sauce.

They put her up under my shirt so we could do skin to skin for about an hour before they did anything else with her like weigh her or move us to our recovery room.

The sweet nursing staff started cleaning me up, including spraying a bit of air freshener.

You know….BECAUSE I FREAKING POOPED IN FRONT OF A ROOM OF STRANGERS.

So my water broke at 11:29pm and she was born at 1:17am. Just under 2 hours.

Funnily enough, we text my doctor as we were on the way to the hospital to let him know what was up and he said, “Sounds good. I don’t know if I’ll make it to deliver you.”

Jordan said he should have just sent him a picture of her and said, “Yeah I’m not sure if you’ll make it either.”

This past almost month with her has been absolutely amazing.

I love all my babes, I really REALLY do.

But this girl is just so special.

How have the other 2 done with her?

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Charlotte has been the best helper. She loves her so much. She got super attached to her while I was pregnant because we watched the weekly video together about how she was growing inside my belly.

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Josiah is shockingly sweet with her. He just WILL NOT leave her alone. He loves her “tiny feet” and says “She’s so cute” about a million times a day and kisses her nonstop. It’s more of a fight of him to leave her alone than it is her being mean or aggressive with her.

I can’t wait to see how Collins changes our family dynamic as she grows and changes. But I’m already so sad at the fact that I feel like this month has FLOWN by.