Once again, my birth story is excessively wordy and probably includes way too many details, but I’m writing down everything I can remember for my own *if I had a remembrance book* sake. I have loved going back to read Felix’s story and it feels surreal to be sitting here with a sleepy baby on my chest getting to write about her birth for my future self to read and savor.

Two weeks ago on Wednesday February 12th, I was losing my mind. At my 40 week appointment (the day before) my midwife had told me that the baby was in a wonky position and probably posterior. I went home discouraged and did a ton of stretching and yoga ball work to try to help her rotate but nothing was changing. Although I was only one day past my due date, I felt like knowing she was in a “less than ideal position” was driving me crazy. I had been having Braxton Hicks for months but from Feb 6th through Feb 12th I had basically none and it felt like my body wasn’t doing what it needed to do to prepare for birth.

On Wednesday evening, I talked to my dear friend, Jenny, on the phone and basically unloaded every fear that was on my mind about the labor and delivery and wonky positioning. She graciously listened to me and didn’t try to fix anything or tell me I was being irrational. Afterwards, I felt so much lighter mentally and emotionally that I just KNEW I was going to sleep better. We hopped in bed around 10pm and we were talking about the night before I went into labor for Felix how I didn’t sleep well at all. Xav jokingly said “Well I hope you get a bad night of sleep” and turned out the light. Half an hour later I had my first “Braxton Hicks” contraction in a week. Then I had another one. They were stronger than I had remembered them being the previous week and I wondered if my body was trying to help the baby rotate. I remembered how my physical therapist had shown me how to use pillows to prop up my knees and relax my hips through contractions to relieve my back pain. I figured I would try it while laying there. At 2:30am, I hadn’t slept and the contractions were probably 8-10 minutes apart. I was hungry and, since I hadn’t slept, I thought a snack might stop Braxton Hicks (but not real contractions) so it would be a good test. I went downstairs and did some circles on the yoga ball while eating a snack and then I heard Felix wake up so I went back upstairs. He had woken up from a bad dream but Xav was already in his room when I got there. We both hugged him and kissed him and watched him smile and settle back down. It was such a peaceful beautiful memory to watch him together as he went back to sleep. Now that I know it was his last night before sissy I’m even more thankful we have that sweet memory of our big little guy.

I told Xav I hadn’t slept yet and that his wish for my sleep was coming true. We went back to bed and I tried to relax but I was struggling to get comfortable enough to sleep still so at 3:30am I decided to take a shower and see if that slowed the contractions down or made them stop (I was still somewhat convinced they were Braxton Hicks and would go away if I did a relaxing activity). The contractions didn’t go away in the shower so I told myself I could time them at 5am… Right before 5am I started timing then and they were about 5 minutes apart. My app said “time to get ready to head to the hospital”. I thought it seemed overblown since the contractions weren’t that painful. However, since I hadn’t slept all night I thought I should at least text my mom and my in-laws. My mom responded with “oh boy I’ll take a shower” and Christa said “ok we are on our way”. Both responses made me feel worried that I was overreacting because I didn’t want everyone to start driving around with how bad the roads were if this wasn’t really labor. 

I woke Xav to go take a shower and he slowly made his way to the bathroom. Then I decided if people are on their way, I should get up also and pack our last minute toiletries. I stood up and was hit with a contraction that made me lean back onto the bed. Walking to the bathroom to grab our toothbrushes I got hit with another one that made me grip the counter. I timed a few more and realized they were only two and a half minutes apart and strong enough that talking through them was pretty difficult. That’s when I started to panic a bit. The contractions were a lot more intense than they were when I was laying down and they were coming every 2ish minutes. Xav got out of the shower and I had tried to make myself breakfast but couldn’t find a window between contractions to do anything useful in the kitchen.

I realized my in-laws were still an hour away and decided that we might need to just meet them at the hospital with Felix instead of wait for them to get to us. The roads were bad and snowy and my app was flagging the contractions as close enough to head to the hospital immediately so Xav woke up Felix and put both car seats on the same car. When he came back inside, he said he needed to just grab one more thing but at that point I was on the verge of tears and when I started to crumble he said “never mind” and quickly buckled Felix into the car. The snow was deep as I walked to the car and I grabbed the handle as I was hit with another contraction. I breathed in the cold night air and said, not for the first time, “I wish we were doing another home birth”. 

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“Are you doing another home birth?” was probably the most asked question of my pregnancy. Every time I answered “no” I questioned myself and our decisions. Even before we got pregnant, I doubted that we would do another home birth but it wasn’t until I got pregnant that I officially came to terms with doing a hospital birth. I loathe hospitals and I didn’t think I could feel comfortable in a hospital to labor the way I wanted to. On top of that, Felix’s birth at our home in Lansing had gone so amazingly well that it seemed like the normal thing would be to do another home birth, but whenever I thought about the logistics and situation I felt stressed. When we were in Lansing, the hospital was mere minutes away and an ambulance was right around the corner at the fire station in our neighborhood. At our current house, I feel much more isolated and far away from emergency help. I also knew that I would have had to find a different midwife since the incredible Becky is on maternity leave and that task alone felt daunting. 

While I appreciated the care I got through the midwife program at UofM for my postpartum appointments after Felix was born, every time I left the office after an appointment I realized how much I missed Becky and the very different experience of preparing for a home birth. (I checked Becky’s website at least once a month to see if she was still on maternity leave). Despite my fear of hospitals, I felt like it was the most logical choice and I hoped that having gone through a home birth previously, I would feel more confident in voicing my desires at the hospital. Additionally. I had heard from several people who had given birth at UofM that they loved their experience and had free reign on birth decisions, so I continued to pray for peace about the decisions we had made and for peace during the birth even if it wasn’t in the comfort of my own home.

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Nothing made me regret the home birth/hospital birth decision like that snowy drive to the hospital. The roads were bad and a normally 30 minute drive took almost 40 because we were stuck behind a car going super slow the entire way. Looking back, I feel like that car kept us from driving too fast in the bad conditions and kept us on the roads, but at the time it was brutal. I was “labor singing” aka mooing through each contraction, while Xav was giving minute by minute countdowns and Felix, from the back was kindly asking me to “stop making those noises”. Every bump and stop and turn felt miserable and I just kept telling myself to focus on one contraction at a time. I think I told Xav multiple times that “if this wasn’t labor I couldn’t do labor” and “if they send us home I’m not going to make it on the return drive”. He kept reassuring me that he didn’t think that was going to be a problem and that I should just focus on getting to the hospital. It is wild how much you can gaslight yourself in labor. I was half convinced I was going to have a car baby and half worried that I was being dramatic and that it wasn’t real labor. When we finally pulled into the valet parking, Xav was contacting his dad to figure out how to get Felix and his carseat transferred to them. Deciding I couldn’t wait, I rolled out of the car at 7:27am and walked myself inside (where I think I freaked out the receptionist who asked me if I was in labor by bursting into tears as a response).

In triage I couldn’t figure out the gown because my contractions were so close together and I was shaking so badly and yet I was still anxious about having the nurse check me because I was worried I’d be at a 4 or less and be sent home. Xav arrived right before the nurse said, “Oh you’re at a 9 at least”. I was SO relieved and shocked that I started crying again. They draped the useless gown over me and wheeled me through the hallways where my mom happened upon us. A nurse ran up and asked me randomly if I wanted a tub birth and then she ran ahead of us to the room to start the tub. Everything was hustle and bustle in the room when we arrived but there were two incredible nurses (Karima and Alex) who found my mom, went over my birth plan, turned out the lights and helped everything move from pure chaos to ultra peaceful. The tub relief was as amazing as I remembered with Felix and the nurses took turns with Xav and my mom applying counter pressure on my back through each contraction. They even attempted to read my scripture cards and turn on my playlist, but at that point all I wanted was quiet because the contractions were right on top of each other. After what felt like only five minutes (but was more like 30), I felt my water break and started pushing. Karima helped me get into a better position and coached me through controlled pushes and listening to my body. Someone said, “You’ll meet your baby on the next push or two” and as I waited for the contraction I thought, ‘already?’ Sure enough, the next contraction brought our girl into the world at 8:38am and I got to reach down into the water and pull her up to me. It was the moment I had been dreaming about and picturing ever since I did it with Felix and it was just as magical and incredible as I had remembered.

The nurses were crying with us as we admired our sweet girl and Karima said she could see God’s hand in the delivery. It was so healing to have such a peaceful, personal experience in a hospital. It blessed me so much to see how much they poured into making our birth experience special for us even with such a short timeline.

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Dorothy means “gift of God” and Nicole means “victorious”. February has been such a dark season for so many years and specifically after two years of loss and waiting, getting to meet our daughter in the middle of the hardest month of the year feels like a redemption that I didn’t think was possible. When we were thinking about names, Dorothy was a late addition (a Thanksgiving family find) and as winter rolled on, we discussed our list of names over and over and eventually started asking Felix for his opinion. At first, he just picked whichever name we listed last but a few weeks later he started to say “Dorothy is her only name” and “The only name in my head for baby sister is Dorothy”… which pretty much made our decision for us 🙂 And Nicole is in memory of my sweet friend Nicole Hamlin whose death eight Februaries ago changed my life. I hope that little Dorothy can grow up to be a woman of God like Nicole, who stands in the victory of Christ’s power over death and looks forward with hope to eternity. I hope her name reminds me that winter doesn’t last forever and neither does the brokenness of this world. Someday all sad things will come untrue. This year God gave me a little foretaste of that coming beauty by giving me new love for February.

We have felt SO surrounded by prayer and support. Multiple people have told me that they were up praying for us through the night and into the morning of February 13th and we felt truly carried by it. Watching Felix step into his big brother role with such passion and delight the last two weeks has been an absolute joy and something I will always treasure.