Hello friends! I thought I’d share a little story time so we can catch up around here!

When I was 38 weeks pregnant, I went in for my routine weekly pregnancy exam and found out that my little Olivia would be entering the world in exactly one week. My doctor wanted to schedule me to be induced, and as she explained this to me I kind of glazed over and left my own body in a state of surprise and disbelief. While I know I could have already gone into labor on my own by this point, to have it finalized as to when I’d likely be meeting my little girl and going through labor and delivery kind of sent me for a loop! I sat on the bench outside the nurses station while they called down to L&D to schedule me and said to myself “Holy sh*t I’m having a baby next week”….and one of the other nurses heard me, embarrassingly enough. She asked if I was alright, and I replied that “yes I was fine, just in a bit of shock and excitement”! My husband and I quickly spent the rest of the week taking care of all the things around the house and at our respective workplaces that we needed to accomplish. It was a bit of a mad dash! Heaven forbid this child had come any earlier!

I was scheduled to go in the night before to begin the induction process. My husband and I arrived at the hospital at 8PM as scheduled after eating a large dinner, and we got settled in for the night. Things worked slowly at first, while we got used to the constant beeping and monitoring (and the blood pressure cuff going off every 15-30 minutes – how annoying!), and after my second dose of Cytotec around midnight things really kicked in. All of a sudden I realized what a contraction is supposed to feel like, because I was experiencing them every two minutes. Somehow my husband managed to squeeze in some sleep during this (lucky him!), until the early morning hours when my pain really began to increase after the third dose. I finally decided to discuss with the nurse about the epidural, and trying to get an anesthesiologist coordinated because there was an emergency C-section happening. At 5 am he finally showed up, and what a glorious process it was. I was so nervous during pregnancy for the epidural process, but it wasn’t terrible at all! My sweet nurse talked me through the entire process and helped support me during my contractions while everything was placed and administered. I mean really, labor and delivery nurses are angels among us.

After the epidural was in, I was able to get some rest. It’s actually amazing that once that baby is in, and it’s working properly, I couldn’t feel contractions AT ALL. Such a weird experience! I rested for a bit, and when the nurse shift change happened I was now being monitored by two nurses – the one on shift, and one that was in training. They were both amazing through the entire process, but this meant every time I needed a cervical check, I got to receive them TWICE each time. Ooof. If you’ve been pregnant or given birth, you know how uncomfortable this can be. Needless to say, they were both great at helping me get prepared for labor. For the next several hours and into the afternoon, I was positioning and stretching and getting myself ready for delivery while the two nurses fought with my fetal monitors. They’d get it positioned perfectly, and then all of a sudden Olivia would move or the monitor would lose her and they’d have to adjust them. It was quite the annoying process for everyone!

Around 2PM, I finally started to get that heavy pressure sensation everyone always talks about. It’s one thing to read and hear about the labor and delivery process, but man is it something else to finally experience it first hand. For the next hour, this sensation grew stronger and stronger until 3 PM and I felt like I needed to push and I needed to push NOW. The nurses guided me through it for the beginning stages while we waited for my doctor to arrive. Breathing and pushing through each contraction, Olivia took her sweet time coming out. I felt like I was pushing with all of my might (and again, I’ve never done this before to know!) and she just wouldn’t come. I pushed for two hours until 5:03pm when her giant, misshapen head finally emerged from my body and they placed her tiny body on my stomach. I immediately started bawling because she was finally here. My special, precious baby girl was finally in my arms. All of a sudden all of the pushing and the pain and everything else just went away while I held my tiny baby and they cleaned and warmed her up. Of course lots of other things were happening down below on my body, but I wasn’t much paying attention. All I cared about at that moment was her. She was absolutely perfect in every way, even her giant misshapen head (poor thing!).

We got to spend the next hour together, getting our skin to skin time together and beginning to attempt to nurse. She latched right on like a champ, and I spent the time admiring my perfect little baby. I’m still kind of in disbelief that I made her, and it’s been 6 weeks! She came out at 6 lbs. 3 oz. which is tiny for my family’s standards for birth weights, but she was perfectly healthy, with a giant head in the 78th percentile and 20 inches long. My husband and my mom were there every step and push of the way to help support and encourage me, and it was an extremely special and incredible experience for all of us. I still get teary-eyed thinking about it now. Our hospital stay was 2 nights, as preferred by the hospital with first-born children. So we had a sleepy schedule of napping and resting when we could, and nursing in the off-time. She has a very strong latch, so nursing took me by surprise at the beginning, and there’s more to that whole story for another time. Finally after a lengthy discharge process, we were able to go home. I felt so relieved to be busting out of the hospital, but also terrified to take my new baby home and be on my own! Our transition home was made easier by having my mom stay with us, and I am so thankful for that. Even right after labor, I told my husband I was already ready to do it again (which I would then redact in the throws of postpartum), but truly it was an experience I could have never imagined. When parents describe how you have never known love until you meet your children, is a truth I could never understand…until I had my first child. Even when she screams and cries, I look at her and wonder how the miracle that is her life is even possible. My precious baby who was conceived during a time of trial and difficulty (infertility + a pandemic in a nutshell), finally fulfilled my lifelong dream of becoming a mother, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect baby.

Now, if she could just sleep a little more consistently we will all be happy! 😉 I’ll get back to blogging again, and I’m already planning out content for the fall – I just need time to do it! I’m soaking up every minute I can while I’m home with my baby girl because it’s already flying by. I’m soon going to be missing the nap times and the first-hand snuggles. Being a mommy will always come before being a blogger, but I’m going to try to make them both work!

xo, Chelsea