I’m suuuuuper late telling my birth story! My daughter was born 6 months ago today! To be fair, I’ve been trying to write this for a couple months off and on, but Glow would never let me post it because of its length 😂 So I’ll try to be more concise.

After a generally uncomplicated pregnancy, around 35 weeks or so, because my mom had this gut feeling that baby girl was sneakily bigger than doctors thought, we did an ultrasound. I expected an uneventful US, but to my surprise, the technician said she was normal size, but BREECH!

I tried the home remedy things to turn her but it wasn’t working. I’d done sooooo much research and prep for L&D and felt like it was all going to go to waste. I finally had to make peace with it and felt like God was prompting me to let go of control. Oddly enough, the day after I made peace with it, I suddenly felt this overwhelming desire to try an ECV (manual turning of the baby). So I scheduled a consult for the next day, for Feb. 7 🤷🏻‍♀️

Morning of the 7th, at 38+3, I was having contractions that I noticed even standing up. BH I always only felt sitting down. But I didn’t have time to lie down, drink water and all that! I went to the bathroom and had a bloody show and suspected I may be dilating; it’s actually the only thing that made me think this may be real. I had my husband finish up packing with me and we put the bags in my car just in case, and he headed to work while I drove to the ECV consult.

At the high risk office, they asked me various questions, including whether I was having contractions (you need a relaxed uterus to have a chance at success). I told the woman I thought I might actually be in early labor. Nobody really took it all that seriously because I was ridiculously calm! They did the US to see if I could be a good ECV candidate, and then the doc ordered me on the monitors for 15 mins because of the bloody show. Turns out, I was contracting 3-4 mins apart (much to the staff’s surprise!) and was too far gone to attempt the ECV, so off to the hospital I went!

If I hadn’t had this consult, we could have ended up with an emergency c-section or something going terribly wrong—I never would have believed I was truly in labor, and may have gone too long at home (living 40 mins away from hospital). Because of this appointment, we were able to confirm labor and get ahead of the process for both our safety.

I labored in triage for about 5-6 hours because they wanted me to digest my breakfast, which I enjoyed because I’d wanted to experience labor! Around 4:15pm they brought me back to surgery. On the walk there, it really set in that it was time and I started freaking out! I could hardly remain calm for the spinal and wished they had let my husband be with me for it. But I made it through 😝

Baby girl was born via c-section at 5:16pm, at 8.5lbs, big for her gestational age. Her color wasn’t great at first but her oxygen stabilized through skin to skin with my husband (in the recovery room they couldn’t locate a portable monitor so she had to be treated across the room from me. I still hadn’t gotten to even hold her).

With babies that come out big for their gestational age, they monitor their blood sugar every so often to make sure it doesn’t drop, and sure enough, hers got very low. She started shaking and refused to eat anymore. Around 2:30am they took her away and she was admitted to the NICU, where she stayed for 4 days.

The NICU was a weird twilight zone where everything I knew about parenting was not true. I felt like I had no control at all! No agency over my own child. And then it started to click: this was why God had wanted me to give up control. He was preparing me for when it would REALLY matter, not just for a c-section. I would not have made it through this without Him.

On February 11th we got to bring our daughter home! She’s such a precious and fun little thing!! She’s 6 months old today :)