Positive Birth Story- Emily & Evan

I had my second son, Evan, in a hospital on March 18, 2024. In the first couple days of this story, I don’t know if I would’ve classified it as a “positive birth story”… but by the end of the process I felt so much confidence in my body and in my and my husband’s faith and decision making for our family. Definitely ended as a positive birth story in my opinion!

My pregnancy with Evan was uncomplicated and very smooth. Throughout my pregnancy I had hopes for an intervention free vaginal birth and I made this very clear with my care provider. Everything looked good to go. I went “late” with my first son (41w1d), so I wasn’t super surprised that I was making it to my 40 week appointment. At that appointment my amniotic fluid levels looked great, but my care provider said they didn’t “love” Evan’s heart rate variability in the 20 minute non-stress test that was done. What started out as “not loving” the results ended in us being informed that we should go to the L&D floor right away for an induction. When we asked if we could go home, eat some food, and get our stuff, the answer was yes, but come back by late afternoon. We were confused... was this an emergency or was everything okay? We decided to go ahead and prepare for an induction. It was definitely not something I wanted, but of course I would do whatever was necessary to get my baby here safely.

We came back to the hospital in the early evening and I had a Cook balloon inserted when I was 1 cm dilated. It did its job and came out 7 hours later when I was 3 cm dilated. Throughout the night I was doing the Miles circuit and walking around my room in hopes that my induced labor would start for real and that I wouldn’t need to start Pitocin and begin a snowball of interventions. When the balloon came out and my contractions stopped, I dreaded the next time the on call OB was going to come in the room and bring up starting Pitocin yet again. My wonderful doula came to meet us and was ready to support us. I should mention that throughout the 14 hours I was there, I had been on continuous electronic fetal monitoring and that Evan’s heart rate looked great the entire time. Through a lot of conversation and a lot of prayer, we decided that if the only reason we were having an induction was because of the 20 minute reading compared to the 14 hour reading, maybe we should just go home.

I would be lying if I said I felt completely confident making this decision. I felt a lot of anxiety trusting my intuition and leaving the hospital after I had been looking at the warming cart in my room with what I thought would be my baby’s hat and diaper. Making the decision to go home was very hard, but it’s what led me to a lot of time in prayer and a huge exercise in trust.

I mostly spent the next 2 days resting, eating, praying, and trying all the natural things to start labor. By the third day after the induction attempt we decided to go in for another non-stress test on that Friday evening to make sure everything was looking good. His heart rate variability looked good and I was now 4 cm dilated! I was so pumped and thought for sure he will be here this weekend! Hahaha, if only I knew…

The weekend came and went with stop and start contractions. By Monday I was feeling a little bummed. I was 41w3d and I had been having contractions all weekend long. I thought second babies were supposed to come earlier than first babies? Why was my labor not starting? I decided to treat this day as any other (aka try everything to get labor going and try not to stress about approaching 42 weeks). I went to the chiropractor for another adjustment, went to Whole Foods to pick out some postpartum wine, and did some curb walking. By mid morning my contractions were feeling kind of serious, so my parents came over to watch our older son. The rest of the day was a blur of breathing through contractions in the tub and the shower, eating, and watching the Great British Bake Off. By the evening I was definitely having to focus to get through my contractions and they felt pretty intense. After trying to go on another walk with my husband and not being able to make it 5 yards, we decided to call it and head to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and when the triage nurse checked me at 9:15 pm, she said I was 90% effaced and 5 cm dilated. I felt so defeated. How did I feel like I’d been in “actual” labor and I was only at a 5? How much longer would this go on? When my doula arrived at 9:45 I had been thinking about my options and was very seriously contemplating getting an epidural. She said she would support me in whatever I wanted- we could go ahead and get the epidural, or we could try some things to get his head engaged. I thought we might as well try 30 minutes of her ideas before I make a decision, so she tied a knot in a bed sheet and hung it over a closed door so I could squat during some contractions to get his head more engaged. I guess I squatted way too deep because I said it did not feel good, it actually felt awful. At 10:45 pm, during my next contraction, my water broke and things went from 0 to 100 real quick. Without really knowing what was happening I started yelling “He’s coming out! He’s coming out!”, and my husband and doula called my nurse in and lowered the bed. I literally could not stop my body from pushing. They were able to help me on the bed and the on call OB arrived when I was already pushing kneeling down with my upper body over the raised head of the bed. Everything happened so fast but I was completely aware of my husband and doula encouraging me and the OB sitting back and not coaching my pushing. Evan was born at 11:03 pm and I felt pure joy as I was able to hold him and my husband hugged us. We definitely got a full golden hour as I birthed my placenta and Evan started nursing. We felt totally encouraged by the care team and it’s an understatement to say it was such an answered prayer to have my baby with us and healthy, me be healthy after birth, to have had an intervention free birth that I had so hoped for, to have had my doula with us, and to have had such wonderful nurses with us.

Evan’s birth story was totally unexpected, but it ended in such a way that I am so grateful for. I was blessed more than I could ask and we are able to look back and admire how God worked for His glory throughout all of the ups and downs.