Sophie's Birth Story | Part One
Let me preface this birth story by saying that this space and moment is sacred. Sophie’s birth was somewhat traumatic for me. Reliving it through writing it is not easy. It’s deeply emotional and vulnerable. But I know that as I read those “perfect” birth stories where everything just goes according to plan, I can’t help but feel a sting of jealousy or wonder “what’s wrong with me?”. So, in an effort to make space for those of us who have had traumatic birth experiences, I want to be open and honest so someone else can know that she is not alone in her experience.
If you’re new here, I encourage you to take a look at Knox’s birth story. While I kinda put a positive spin on it, you can hopefully see that it was a hard experience for me. Having an emergency c-section is scary. It sticks with you and it has always been hard for me. I’ve never felt like I could fully say “I gave birth” because I didn’t have a vaginal delivery. So, I’ve carried that with me. I’ve carried the guilt and grief over his delivery.
Something I’ve never shared publicly is about the D&C I had after our miscarriage. I did not “pass” the baby naturally and elected to have a surgery. Two days after the surgery I ended up in the ER due to passing massive clots. I won’t go into much detail, but it was incredibly scary & that experience has stuck with me too.
So, once I found out I was pregnant with Sophie, I knew I wanted to attempt a VBAC. I had labored naturally with Knox until I was complete and ready to push, but then was immediately rushed to the OR for the c-section (he was breach and his heart rate was dropping). So, I was a great candidate for doing a VBAC and my doctor was supportive. In the last few months, I spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to redeem my birth story with Knox through the birth of Sophie. I asked family to pray for this, I asked friends to pray for this. I truly wanted a different experience than what I experienced with Knox. His labor was FAST and intense. In some ways, it was traumatic. I was praying for a much more peaceful experience and one that resulted in a VBAC.
So, there’s the background you need. :)
When I was 32 weeks pregnant I started to get this feeling that she would arrive early. I thought maybe like 1-2 weeks early. I don’t know why I felt that but I kept telling Joel that we needed to start getting things ready. In the back of my mind I thought I was surely just wishing her to come like 2 weeks early and there was no way she would actually come early. But I guess my “feeling” was correct!
final picture of him and me before it all started to happen
Saturday, May 23rd
On Saturday May 23rd, I woke up and felt the need to get things done! I honestly thought it was just the urge to start nesting and also just the need to be productive. I pulled the carseat out, washed all the newborn clothes we had, did a bunch of laundry, cleaned the house, etc. I saw some family friends that morning and they asked me what my due date was and I joked: “well it feels like today should be my due date, but I’ll be 35 weeks tomorrow.” I wasn’t even 35 weeks yet and my body just felt so ready to be done being pregnant. I would go on daily walks and they were getting to the point where it felt nearly impossible to walk the 3 miles I normally would. This is not a brag at all, but I am in great shape and I did somewhat strenuous exercise until the day Knox was born, so this discomfort was odd for me. I had lots of pressure and just felt WAY more pregnant than I was. So, that Saturday the 23rd, I was on my feet ALL day. I was doing chores and running errands and just being a busy body! When I got home from errands I was surprised to see that my sister had come to visit! She had this strong feeling that she needed to come home for that weekend. Looking back, we all know why, but at the moment I was just so happy to see her! Around 4pm that evening I started to feel small little “leaks”...sorry it’s a little bit TMI. I started to pay attention to it and thought it probably wasn’t a good sign, but didn’t really want to consider that it could be my water leaking. They were definitely just small little leaks. I ended up telling Joel what was going on and that I was having some cramping (like period cramps), but we both thought it was nothing. Around 8:30pm, I had a larger leak happen and we both thought we should maybe call my sister (who is a nurse) to ask her what she thought. I texted her and she was concerned and suggested we go to the hospital. We didn’t take her seriously either. Ha, we both thought it was actually nothing. I ended up calling a friend who is a Labor and Delivery nurse around 9:30pm and she suggested the same thing. They both didn’t think it was actually my water leaking, but it was better to be safe than sorry, right? Around 10pm we headed to the hospital. We didn’t bring anything with us because we thought we’d be home in an hour to go to sleep.
playing hangman while waiting…
They checked us into the triage room where they took my vitals and did all the routine things, asked me lots of questions, put on monitors to check on the baby and see if I was having contractions. They ran a bunch of tests to determine if I was in fact leaking amniotic fluid, they did an ultrasound to check how much amniotic fluid was still surrounding the baby, and checked to see if I was dilated at all. I was 1cm, 50% effaced, I had lots of fluid still surrounding the baby and the two tests they ran to determine if I was leaking amniotic fluid contradicted each other. One was positive and one was negative. At this point, Joel and I were in shock. We didn’t know how to take in the information because we truly thought nothing was happening, but the Doctor on call was definitely concerned. She wanted to get me on an IV for antibiotics (because I wasn’t even 35 weeks yet, I hadn’t had the Group B Strep test yet), she wanted to give me a steroid shot to help mature the baby’s lungs, and they were admitting me to stay overnight. I felt like I got hit by a car. This could NOT be happening. I asked to wait until morning to start the IV and do the steroid shot because I wanted to hopefully get more conclusive results about the amniotic fluid (since one test came back as negative). They said that would be okay but needed to monitor me overnight. At this point, I was not doing well. I was panicked. There was NO way I could possibly have a baby soon. There was NO way this was actually happening. I didn’t even say goodbye to Knox; he was asleep when we left. It felt like the ground was falling out from underneath me. I just wanted to go home and pretend like everything was fine. I had plans to go Boysenberry picking the next morning and that’s all I wanted to do. I wanted normalcy. Luckily, we live across the street from my parents so my dad slept at our house because Knox was asleep when we left for the hospital.
So, we spent the night at the hospital. We were truly in shock. We couldn’t process what was happening. They had to take my temperature every two hours (because infection is a concern if your water breaks) and also monitor the baby. I was having very small contractions all night, but didn’t really notice them. They just felt like Braxton Hicks contractions. I was incredibly anxious all night and got maybe 3 hours of sleep.
Sunday, May 24th
The following day was Sunday and apparently it was a very busy day in Labor and Delivery so we spent the entire morning waiting for the doctor to come see us. We knew she wanted to run the tests again, but for some reason we had to wait for her. We watched tv, texted friends to fill them in on what was going on, made friends with the nurses and just tried to be at peace. At this point, I hadn’t leaked any more fluid, so it just felt like a fluke thing.
Around noon my sister brought us lunch and at the same time, a close family friend came to visit me at the hospital to pray for me. Joel had left to get the food from my sister so I was allowed one visitor. While he was visiting, he informed me that he was also at the hospital to meet another one of our close family friends because his wife has just been in an accident. That couple is like family to me. They are best friends with my parents. We adore them.
About 30 minutes later I texted my sister to ask if she heard any news about our family friend and if she was doing okay. She didn’t reply but instead called me & through sobs informed me that she didn’t make it. It was in this moment where Joel and I both completely fell apart. The grief and pain was overwhelming. The news was completely shocking. My parents were taking care of Knox so I knew we needed to get home to take him so they could have the space to grieve. Joel went to inform the nurse what happened and told them we needed to be discharged--we didn’t care about the tests anymore. There are no words to explain our emotions at this point. The stress of what was happening with my body, paired with the shock and trauma of learning of the death of a family friend was truly too much to process.
The doctor was on her way to see me right at that moment so they strongly suggested we do the tests again, while also being incredibly sensitive to what just happened. One of the tests takes about an hour to get results while the other one can get a result in a matter of minutes. The first test is called the Fern test and is a swab that is then looked at under a microscope. Apparently when amniotic fluid dries, it dries in a fern shape. So that test can be done immediately. It came back negative. The other test is called ROM plus and they decided to discharge us before we got the results and she would call me with the results of that test (it takes about an hour to get results from that) when she got them. I was discharged with instructions to come back immediately if I leaked anything. Ever since I was admitted to the hospital the night before I hadn’t had any leaks, so I stumped everyone. The conflicting test results paired with no leaking and a high AFI (Amniotic Fluid Index--it basically means I still had a lot of amniotic fluid surrounding the baby) gave them a little bit of ease when discharging me.
We left the hospital, went straight to my parents house, and the remainder of the day is such a blur. The doctor called me an hour after we left to let me know that the ROM plus test came back positive, so she wanted me to know that I needed to come back immediately if I had any more leaks. I spent the remainder of the day laying down or sitting down--I just felt off physically. I was in a state of shock, grief, and fear. Shocked that I could possibly be having a baby soon. Grieving the loss of a dear family friend. Fearful about if the baby would be okay, if I would be okay, and fearful about what the next few days could hold for us.
At this moment, I did have a feeling that I would have a baby soon--solely going off of how my body felt. But at the same time, I was also in denial. I was 35 weeks on that day. We didn’t have the car seat in the car. I barely had anything ready. Everything felt like it was spinning out of my control and I couldn’t catch my breath.
Due to the loss of my mom’s best friend and my hospital stay, my other sister and her family decided to come stay with us that night. I had told her that I felt like maybe I would have this baby soon and we needed more people here to help with...everything. It was difficult because we’ve all been staying apart due to COVID-19, but at this point, other things were more important and we needed each other (and we had all been social distancing from others for a long time).
That night (Sunday, May 24th) around 9pm I felt another leak--this one was bigger than the others. I told Joel about it, but no one else. I NEEDED to sleep in my own bed. That night I prayed that God would make it clear so we would know what to do. I prayed that if we needed to go back to the hospital, it would be unavoidable. I slept great that night, but woke to Knox yelling at 6:15am…