Ellie’s Birth Story

Ellie is now 4 months old, and I figured I should get her story written before I completely forget the details! There are already some blurry parts in my mind, but I will get down what I do remember.

To start, I want to first note that I was very unsure about what I wanted from this birth. I wanted to have a natural, unmedicated birth at my core- but not if it was going to be a traumatic experience. If you read my first birth story, you would know that I had a 36 hour labor that ended in attempted forceps and then a C-section. I felt like I was on death’s doorstep through that experience. So- I was not willing to go through torture again in order to have a natural birth. I had prayed for months that I would have a quick labor, with contractions effective but spaced apart, and the baby would be born shortly after getting to the hospital. I also prayed that if God’s plan for me was to have a natural birth, that He would fill me with strength and clarity during labor to get through.

My other babies were born a few days after 40 weeks, so I was convinced I wouldn’t have the baby until after my due date. I was wrong! 

It all started Thursday night, March 12. I was 38+5 at this point. I woke up during the night and went to the bathroom to pee. After, I laid back down and felt a “gush” of fluid. Of course, I immediately thought my water broke. It wasn’t a large amount of fluid where it soaked through my pants or anything, but it was enough that I immediately got up to check. When I looked, I had a good amount of mucus present. I changed my underwear and put on a liner, and laid down in bed again. Shortly after, same thing happened. I get up again and there’s more mucus. This continued to happen a few more times, until I finally put on a pad because there was so much mucus coming. I also felt cramps and an uncomfortable pressure like I had to poop.

The next morning, Friday, I still felt a lot of pressure and felt like if I was just able to poop I would feel so much better. I’m still continuing to pass a ton of mucus, and it is blood-tinged. I still didn’t feel any contractions, so I had Cooper go to work that day suspecting nothing significant was going to happen. That morning, I was planning to take the kids to the library to return some very overdue library books. After breakfast, I loaded the kids into the car and drove to the library to return these books, but I didn’t have it in me to stay and let them play. I remember the cramping and discomfort of lifting the kids into the car, all while continuing to have “gushes” of mucus. 

I had been texting my friend/neighbor Michelle, who is a birth doula. I was telling her that I didn’t feel ready to have this baby yet, because I was only 38+6 and thought I had until past 40 weeks to prepare. I also had a lot of worry about Gianna not being the baby anymore, because she was so attached to me. I thought I had at least another week to rest and mentally prepare for the changes that were going to come. I wasn’t ready to climb the mountain of labor and birth yet. Michelle ended up coming over that night and talking to me to help me feel more calm and prepared to have this baby. It certainly helped, yet I still just didn’t want to be in labor yet. 

As Michelle was over that evening, my “cramping” started to feel more rhythmic. I was also starting to close my eyes and breathe through the cramping more. These were now contractions. Michelle started timing them, and they were about 7 minutes apart, but then would sometimes go 30 minutes without one.

My friend’s baby shower was the next morning on Saturday. I was asking Michelle if I should go to the shower. She said that I should if I was feeling well (she later told me she knew I wasn’t going to that shower!). 

It’s now around 10 pm and I’m continuing to have contractions. They are noticeable but not very painful, but I am lightly breathing through them. I go to bed and fall asleep a little before midnight.

I wake up at 2 am Saturday, and know that I am in labor. The contractions are there, and they are getting more intense. I am sleeping with Gianna in her bed, which is a floor bed with a gate around it. The contractions were not painful enough that I had to move, so I continued to just lay there and try to rest. I also didn’t want to wake everyone in the house up at 2 am, and wanted Cooper to be able to sleep so at least one of us had slept. By around 4 am, the contractions were getting painful and I was very uncomfortable lying on a floor bed. The problem is that Gianna would only sleep if she was laying on or touching me, so whenever I would try to get up she would wake up! I had to stay laying on that floor bed for much longer than I was comfortable, trying to get Gianna to stay asleep. 

Finally around 5 am the contractions were too intense for me to stay in that bed. I got out of bed and Gianna woke up, and would not go back to sleep. I went to wake Cooper up and tried to pass Gianna off to him. She was not having it, and her screaming and crying was too much for me to handle while going through contractions. I had Cooper bring the birth ball into Gianna’s room, and I continued to labor on the birth ball in her room, with Gianna staring at me from her bed. Oh, how different pregnancy/labor/postpartum is when you already have children to care for!

At this point, Cooper called my mom to come over, and she arrived sometime around 6 am. Thankfully, before my mom got to my house, Gianna had fallen back asleep and I was able to leave the room without her waking up. Praise God! Knowing she was at least sleeping peacefully and not screaming was so helpful for my peace of mind while about to head off to the hospital. After I was able to leave Gianna’s room, I went into my room to brush my teeth and get changed, sitting down frequently for every contraction. I was already starving because I had been up for 4 hours at this point. Cooper was in the kitchen making some food for us to bring in the car.

I got downstairs and my mom was there. I was sitting down and deep moaning with every contraction. Cooper and I loaded into the car and were off to the hospital. He had brought me a bagel and a banana for the car ride, and I ate a few nibbles in between contractions. I was hungry from being awake for so long, but just couldn’t really eat due to the contractions.

The car ride was about as smooth as it could’ve been. We had a 40 minute drive to the hospital. I had several intense contractions in the car, but I was able to breathe through them well. I was counting down in my mind how many more contractions I would have before arriving to the hospital. 

Once we get to the hospital around 7 am, we dropped the car off with valet and they load me into the wheelchair. We get to L&D and get into triage quickly. The midwife checks me, and says I am 5 cm and 90% effaced. Woohoo! I am definitely struggling with contractions. I had mentioned that I prayed for strength and clarity from God if He was calling me to a natural birth- I was several hours into labor at this point, and I was not feeling that strength calling me to a natural birth lol! I told the midwife I wanted to get an epidural. 

Once I got into the delivery room, I had my IV giving fluids, and anesthesia soon after came in to place the epidural. I do not remember ever consenting to a student CRNA doing the epidural. I do remember in triage the midwives saying that they had a midwife student who was with them and asked if she could be involved in my care, and I said yes. But I have no memory of them asking if a student could place my epidural, and I didn’t know that was happening until she was actually doing it. This epidural placement HURT! It was nothing like I remembered the others being like with my other births. First of all, it was taking so long. It was also giving me zingy pains down my legs and back causing me to jump. I heard the CRNA saying to the student, “you feel that, that’s the bone, you don’t want to be feeling that” and them wiggling around in there for so long. It was so painful and I knew something was wrong. 

Finally, the epidural was placed. Long story short, the epidural didn’t work. It was mostly working on my left side, but not on my right. I could still feel “cold and wet” on my right side and was still feeling contractions. They were lessened, but still painful. I tried laying on my side to see if the medication would start working on the right side, and it wasn’t improving. 

Finally, a different CRNA (a true angel) came in and recommended that we redo the epidural placement before the pain gets worse. She redid the epidural, and I started feeling a lot more relief. I could still feel some contractions on the right side but it was much more manageable. 

Around 11 am, my water broke. It was not a huge gush, and it ended up being that just part of my water had broken. At this point, I was around 6 cm. I was a little discouraged that I was only 6 cm and had arrived 4 hours earlier at 5 cm. My contractions had been spacing out, and I was sometimes going up to 10 minutes without a contraction. 

At this point, we decided to start some Pitocin to get things moving. They told me that typically they start with 2 units of Pitocin, and continue upping by 2 units every 10-15 minutes until contractions are more consistent. They started me on 2 units of Pitocin, and within probably a minute I was having intense back to back contractions. I was also feeling these contractions. They lowered the Pitocin to 1 unit, and I was having contractions probably every 2 minutes. I was shocked at how strongly my body was reacting to the Pitocin. Because such a small amount of Pitocin was bringing on such strong and frequent contractions, we went through a few phases of turning the Pitocin off, and then if contractions spaced out again we would start 1 unit again for a short time. 

Throughout the afternoon, we were trying many different positions with the peanut ball, side-lying, going on my hands and knees. Again, I was still feeling a lot on my right side, so I was able to move pretty well. Around 3 pm, the contractions were getting so painful, especially in my back. I was deep breathing and moaning through them. Especially when Pitocin was going, the contractions were so long and I felt like they were not stopping. There was really not much more that the epidural could do; it just wasn’t working well for me. 

At this point, I just wanted this baby out! I was in so much back pain and was really struggling. It was hard to accept relief with the epidural, and have it not work and still be in so much pain. We tried raising the head of the hospital bed, and being in an all 4s position with my head and arms against the raised head of the bed. That position really helped to relieve the pain in my back, but instead the pain was in my right hip. It was excruciating. I was doubting so much how I was going to be able to push while in this much pain.

During this time, the midwife checked me and I was 9 cm. Soon after, I was 10 cm and it was go time. I was pushing on my back with my legs raised. When my legs were held up, I felt some relief in the hip pain. I was yelling at Cooper, “don’t put my leg down!”. The pain was still definitely there but somewhat lessened. I started pushing with each contraction, and between the pain in my right hip and the intense pressure I felt in my butt, I thought I was a goner. I was struggling so much and truly didn’t know how I would make it through this birth. The midwife and nurses kept saying how they could see the baby’s head and how close she was, and I kept yelling, “you’re lying! I still have so much longer!”. 

When the midwife would say that the baby was right there, I screamed, “then pull it out!”. A line that Cooper still repeats to this day. I was typically pushing 3 times with each contraction. I asked (more like yelled) to the midwife how many more contractions. She said 4 more contractions, and I said, “that’s too many!” I started just pushing even when there wasn’t a contraction because I NEEDED this baby out at this point. Right before she was born, I felt this intense stretching and burning sensation. The midwife was right, and 4 contractions later, after 30 minutes of pushing, the baby was born at 6:01 pm! I did have a tear that the midwife stitched up.

Cooper announced that the baby was a girl! I had been so convinced that the baby was a boy, and was completely in shock! The baby could’ve come out a zebra for all I cared at that moment, I was just so happy that the birth was done. We were so sure that the baby would be a boy, that we didn’t even have a girl name picked out. She was 8 lbs 11 oz, and the most beautiful perfect bundle of joy. I couldn’t believe that I was now a mom of 2 girls, and that my girls had a sister! 

This birth experience was incredibly difficult, but also so beautiful. I felt God stretching me and growing me through this experience. While I say that I needed God to give me the strength for a natural birth, He did in a way, just not the way I expected. Once the baby was born, the nurse said, “well you just had an unmedicated birth!”. Not in the way that I wanted, and not completely, but God did give me the strength to get through something really hard, harder than I wanted it to be in the moment. Thank God for our sweet Ellie Grace! 3/14/26