I just found out I’m pregnant with baby number 2. It’s got me really sentimental about having my first, so I wanted to share the story. I’m a stay at home mom so I feel like I don’t ever get to talk about it with anyone but my husband.

At nearly 37 weeks on a Thursday I had my last ultrasound to check size and position. It was the first time I ever saw my OB, Dr. Andy, not smiling. She was breech, which is what I’d been convinced of all along. He told me fluid looked on the low end of normal, so to gorge myself on water all the time and maybe she’d turn on her own. If for some reason she didn’t, he would schedule me a C-section for 39 weeks. Because they weren’t able to see her legs very good on the ultrasound, they were only able to estimate her weight at around 5 pounds.

So home I go, with a giant water container my husband purchased. I drank constantly, peed every quarter hour on the dot, and generally tried to wrap my brain around the thought of a C-Section. I have terrible anxiety, so I was pretty nervous about giving birth either way. At this point, we still hadn’t painted the nursery or packed a bag. I had only just put in a giant load of baby clothes to wash.

Cut to Friday, 24 hrs after ultrasound. I’m cooking ribs, and mashed potatoes for dinner and waiting on my husband to get home. He had left work 2 hours early to pick up a new couch and recliner for us. Around 5 I started having this horrible back pain. I felt it across my lower back, but more painfully on my left side. I thought maybe she was on a nerve or pushing on something tender. I struggled through the rest of the meal with my husband arriving with his coworker around 6. I acted like nothing was wrong until his friend left and then explained I needed my husband to finish dinner while I tried to lie down. Absolutely nothing helped. The pain never ended. It wasn’t timed contractions so I still wasn’t thinking labor. At about 8:30 my husband finally insisted we drive to the hospital, which is 45 mins away, because he had to work the next morning and didn’t want to wait later. I still didn’t have a bag packed and he also insisted we get one together just in case. I folded some clothes from the dryer while he packed for me. By 9 we were heading to the hospital with me trying to concentrate on anything but the nonstop pain in my back.

At the hospital, I describe the pain and the nurse tells me she doesn’t think it’s labor, but a kidney stone. So they test my urine and hook me up to a fetal monitor. The test for kidney stones must have been negative because next she says Braxton Hicks from dehydration. I attempted to explain I’d been hydrating like a crazy person for over 24 hours. 2 IV bags later, my pain was the same and the contractions on the monitor were only getting bigger. Luckily, my OB was on call that night. Every time they over him it took about 30 mins for them to tell me what he’d said. Around 2 AM they said they’d called in someone from ultrasound who should be there in an hour to check position. I told my husband to go try to sleep in the car because he was exhausted. Around 3:30 AM ultrasound arrives. Guess what? Still breech! Just like I told the nurse. They leave to page the doctor and see what he thinks. TEN MINUTES later another nurse comes in with paperwork to sign for a C-Section. My mind is racing, but I think to ask, “So what time is it scheduled?” She looks at her watch and says, “Well the Dr. is on his way, so maybe 20 minutes.” WHAT?! My family doesn’t even know I’m at the hospital yet. So I call my husband and wake him first, then start shouting off texts like crazy.

They take me to the operating room for the spinal. The OR nurse (who is still my hero) had me hold her hips and rest my head on her chest while they searched for the right spot. Nobody said anything, but I think I wasn’t arching my back enough and that’s why they had to stick me 3 times, but actually more needles because of the numbing shots in between. Finally I felt a jolt down to my big toe and my legs turned to lead. They arranged me on the table and I watched them insert my catheter from the reflection in the light above me. Then the curtain went up, and they ushered my husband in. I could feel the first incision because suddenly the skin on my stomach didn’t feel so tight. I could still fee everything in that I could feel pressure and rustling around. And then they had her, probably in less than five mins from incision. It was at least a minute before I heard her cry, because they have to suction all the gunk out of C-Section babies because they don’t have the pressure of the vaginal canal to help push it out. She was perfect and only 5lbs 8oz. Then they started getting more aggressive in my abdomen. One upside to C-Section is they scrape your uterus out really good so the bleeding isn’t always as heavy post birth. But it was uncomfortable. I wanted to arch my back away from it because it felt wrong. I told the anesthesiologist and he gave me some morphine and a muscle relaxer. My husband could get very close to my face because of all the equipment, but I got to kiss my daughter’s head before they took her away. Everything goes black there until I wake up talking to my husband in the maternity suite.

7 long hours later, I got to really meet my daughter. Her breathing was really fast, so they wanted to monitor her and keep her on oxygen. They hadn’t bathed her yet either for fear of making her too cold. She didn’t have enough body fat to regulate temperature well. They bathed her later and brought her back in 3 blankets lol.

Come to find out my fluid was fine, the doctor discovered I have a tiny uterus during surgery. He said I’d likely always have smaller babies and be more likely to need another C-section if I didn’t wait at least 2 years to get pregnant again. I was so concerned my daughter’s weight would continue to be below average, but she caught up within the first month and has grown like a weed since. Pictures are from day 1 to 12 months.