Photo by Adrian Jon Photography

It's been awhile huh? It's also been pretty crazy. In the last year, we've moved into a new project house and had a baby. You know, a couple of small changes. To say we over estimated our abilities to juggle, is a complete understatement.

Parenthood is hard guys. Especially when you have a business, or at least it is in my case. However, after a year of our new normal, we think we are finally getting the hang of things. So since we had a bit of an update, we thought it was time for a bit of an upgrade.

We have some new things that are quite obvious, such as the new look and the new website. We also have some new things that will slowly roll out. So we hope you guys stick around, cause it is going to be pretty fun. Plus, it's always fun around a toddler, right?

If you missed the first part of this story, you can find it here.

Since it was decided that I needed to deliver Evelyn but I wasn’t yet in active labor, I was going to have to be induced. Definitely not what I had pictured. I was hoping to be at home for my labor as long as possible. That wasn’t going to happen but it didn’t even matter at this point. All that mattered was Evelyn and her health.

However, unlike a lot of induction birth stories, this won’t be a long story because it wasn’t a long ordeal. It was actually super fast, much to everyone’s surprise!

By the time they got me into a room and set me up, it was around 6:30PM but at that point, I had to wait for the doctor to place an order for me and for it to be filled. This was the most frustrating part of my entire labor.

They started with a foley around 10 PM and said it could take up to 12 hours for that to work. I opted to take a sleeping pill (safe for baby) and wait it out. Those last few weeks of pregnancy are practically torture when it comes to sleep. I had not slept a full night for at least 3 weeks at this point. Well, after only 6 hours, I was dilated enough to start pitocin. Around 6AM they broke my water, which there wasn’t much of, and started the pitocin drip. They told me it could be another 12 hours of the pitocin to get me to active labor so we decided to just sleep as much as possible.

Now I was always open to letting my labor play out however it was going to go. I wanted to try to see if I could go natural but I was totally ready to ask for pain meds. After about 1.5 hours of serious contractions, I went ahead and asked for an epidural. The pitocin was on the lowest setting but after only about 4 hours of it, my body completely took over and went into labor itself and I was able to stop the pitocin around 10AM and my natural labor took over.

Based on how I was dilating at this point, they told me it would probably be around 9PM for me to start to push. We told family and friends not to rush over there and that we were settled in for the long haul.

Literally 2.5 hours later, I woke up from a nap and told Drew I felt pressure. He asked if I wanted him to get a nurse but I said “no way, they said it wouldn’t be till later.” Luckily, he didn’t listen to me because as soon as a nurse came in, she was like “oh my, the baby is right there. Hold on, everyone’s on lunch. We gotta get a midwife back in here!”

Okay, I’ll just stay here lady…

We waited a little bit and they prepped me. I started to push and only ended up pushing for 15/20 minutes. They kept asking if I wanted to feel her head…nope. No thanks. Did I want a mirror to see…nope. I’m good. But then they asked me if I wanted to reach down and pull her out onto my chest. I am NOT the person that would say yes to this…but I did. I was so anxious. I didn’t even say yes actually, I just grabbed her and brought her up to my chest.

Feeling her precious body on mine, and wrapping my arms around her tiny soul is something I will never forget. She didn’t cry at first, she just looked at me. She seriously looked at me like she had been waiting this whole time to see me, the way I had waited this whole time to meet her. They say love at first sight exists, and it does. I saw her and felt every single fiber in my body realize the entire and only reason for our existence. It was to be Evelyn’s mommy. I stared at my beautiful daughter and she just started at me. At this incredibly tender moment, the only thing I could manage to say was “hi baby, I love you so much”. It was so basic, but that was all it needed to be. I have to be honest here and say that I had been more than just worried about my motherly instincts and if I was going to be able to be the mom this baby needed me to be during my pregnancy. Drew was always so reassuring and just kept telling me how great of a mom I would be. But I was still worried. But seeing that babe, every single shred of insecurity melted away. I knew that my life would be spent doing whatever I could do to ensure that my daughter had a great life. There is no way to accurately describe how the first look into your child’s eyes, changes you.

They started to rub her down while she was on my chest and that made her cry. I was trying to shush her when I remembered something I had seen. Drew read stories to my belly every single night, he sang his favorite oldie songs, he talked to her about his favorite cars and planes. I looked at Drew, who at this point was just ear to ear smiling, but I could tell he was unsure of what to do. I told him “talk to her babe.” Drew got down to her, she was wailing at this point, and said her name. “Evelyn.” As precious of a moment as I just had with her, I watched my husband have that moment with his daughter. She instantly stopped crying and just looked at him. I could see this man change. I saw everything about him change and become a daddy.

We got our golden hour, which was more like 2 hours. We just took it all in as we minute by minute became more of a family. I still can’t believe it all happened. Looking at her, Drew and I could only keep talking about how perfect she was and how we can’t believe she was finally here. It’s been four months and we are still constantly saying “I can’t believe she’s ours” and “I can’t believe how perfect she is”. It is amazing that two incredibly imperfect people, could make something so perfect.

My recovery was fairly easy thankfully! My only problem was that I got a “wet tap” on my epidural. Basically, the anesthesiologist leaked some of my spinal fluid and so my brain sat on my skull. It was actually pretty brutal. And there is nothing you can do to fix it except a blood patch occasionally will help, but it didn’t work in my case. It’s been four months and I still get those spinal headaches from time to time but those first couple weeks were a doozy and I had to stay two extra nights at the hospital.

So that’s it. That’s my story. Overall, I had a really rough pregnancy but I feel like things evened out because I had such an easy delivery once it was time. It was not at all how I pictured it but I am just so grateful my daughter is here and healthy. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Time is just speeding by and Evelyn is 4 months already. I want to make sure I type this story out before I forget it. I never thought I would be one to share this, but here goes. So if birth stories aren’t your thing (they were never my thing until I had a baby, go figure) skip these next posts.

June 21st, in the late evening, I sat down to do my “kick count”. It was kind of a joke to do the kick count because my little mover would never take more than 10 minutes to get all 10 kicks. Except that night it took almost an hour. It was strange and unlike our kiddo who just the night before was kicking like crazy. I tried not to let it bother me too much and be that crazy first time mom. I was worried but I told myself that maybe she was just sleeping or running out of room.

The next morning I was getting ready to head to the studio to get things done and also to finish shopping for a birthday party we were attending that weekend, I was a bit frazzled to try and get it all done. As I was getting ready, Drew called and asked if I had felt the baby move at all. I was in such a rush to get ready, I hadn’t realized I had not felt her move. At this point, I went into full blown panic mode and skipped the “cup of juice” they tell you to drink to get the baby to move and went for the bowl of ice cream instead. I was going to give this kid the biggest rush of cold/sugar I could to get to her to start moving. It took 2 hours to get her to 7 kicks so I immediately called labor and delivery. I was just shy of 39 weeks pregnant at this point and so they told me to come in immediately. I didn’t realize this meant we could potential come home with our daughter. I was just anxious to make sure she was alright.

I was trying to stay calm so I texted Drew that they want me to come and that they said he should probably come with me. Drew usually takes 15 minutes to get home from work. He was home in about 5 minutes that day. I don’t even want to know how he did that. Once he got home, he started to load up the car and wanted to rush and get there. I did my best to stay calm and relax, there was a better chance that everything was fine and that I was going to be sent home.

As soon as we got in, they got me into a monitoring room.They checked the heartbeat and it was still strong. Whew. I might have even cried when I heard it. So they decided to do an NST. Non-Stress-test and they explained to me that as long as we saw rolling hills on the mointors and no straight lines, that everything was fine and I was going home. The test lasts about 40 minutes. The first 20 had rolling hills, and I was starting to get anxious. I was grateful things were looking good but I knew something wasn’t right. My daughter went from one extreme to the other in less than 24 hours. Even though I didn’t “know” my daughter, I knew her! And this wasn’t like her. The second 20 minutes was a straight line. The nurse came in and saw the test results and said I was going home.

I was stunned and honestly, I was scared. I hate telling people they are wrong but something wasn’t right and my daughter’s well being was in the balance. Now they always say, “mother knows best”. And at this point in my pregnancy, I realized that I knew best for my child and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me otherwise. Including professionals.

I think the nurse realized that I wasn’t happy and I asked to speak with a doctor. The doctor came in and agreed it wasn’t a great result but that it was still okay. I told her I was uncomfortable with going home because I felt like something was wrong. Luckily this doctor was awesome and didn’t hesitate or make me feel silly. She asked if an ultrasound would reassure me and I said it would. As soon as the image came up and we saw our Evelyn on the monitor, the doctor said “oh, you’re having this baby today.” Even though deep down I knew this was a possibility, I was still stunned when I heard this.

Apparently, there is supposed to be 5 cm of amniotic fluid around the baby. Evelyn was down to less than 2 cm. At some point, I had a slow leak in my water and I just didn’t notice. To my defense, it was super hot and I probably just thought I was sweaty like I had been my entire 3rd trimester. I had even joked the week before to Drew that I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid. He asked if I wanted to go to the hospital but I was determined not to be “that” woman who confuses gas for labor. First timer here, didn’t realize I actually was right and probably should have gone to the hospital! Oops! I wasn’t in active labor but Evelyn was running out of fluid to move around in. At 39 weeks, there is no reason to risk infection and leave the baby in. So it was time to meet our kiddo!

I’ll take a break at this point but I do want to say, I am so grateful that those mommy instincts kicked in. When it comes to doctors, I’m usually very compliant and non argumentative but I’m so grateful that I spoke up. I don’t even want to imagine if I went home and never said anything. I was worried I didn’t have those “instincts” but they are there apparently!