Somewhere in the middle of this pregnancy, Matt and I decided that this baby would be our last. Four fast and done. 😉
So planning for this baby’s arrival and choosing to not find out the gender felt extra special.
We talked often about names and asked the kids if they were hoping for a boy or girl. Ryan, sweet guy, every time said he wanted one of each… “Just one more baby after this one…” and he wanted them to be named Max and Molly, which he later changed to Max and Sally. 🙂
We told the kids how cool it was that God already knew if our baby was a boy or a girl, and that the best part was that the minute we all got to meet our baby, we wouldn’t want it any other way because we’d love him or her so much from the very minute we met.
So even though the end of pregnancy always gets tiring and uncomfortable, I tried my best to look at my baby belly more and pay close attention to those sweet kicks and in-utero hiccups, knowing it would be the last time I would experience such a miracle.
We also made a point of soaking in the sweetness of our kids’ excitement and anticipation as they waited to meet their baby sister or brother. Even Emily would point to my belly and say, “Beebee” and nod her head and smile when we asked if she was going to be a big sister.
I had prayed that we could make it through our last trip as a family of 5 to San Diego, LA, and Disneyland without any discomfort (especially since I pushed the limit by a week and traveled at 35 weeks… shhhh), and the Lord answered that prayer. And then literally, the day after we returned, it was like my body switched to official “end of pregnancy” mode. I started moving slower and the lower back pain and contractions began. I was so thankful I made it so far and especially that I was able to move well through Disneyland just one week before!
Three weeks before my due date, I started experiencing very frequent contractions that weren’t terribly painful, but would last for upwards of 2-3 hours, making me wonder each time if my body was starting active labor early this go around.
After heading to see my doctor and being sent back home with a false labor, I shared the experience on Instagram and learned a new term from a ton of mamas who experienced the same thing: Prodromal Labor. I had experienced one false labor episode with Emily, but nothing that lasted quite this long! A few days later, the contractions were sharper and just as close together, lasting for that same 2+ hour window, so we drove to hospital with a packed bag, only to have the contractions calm down on the way.
After that second false alarm, I asked my parents if they could come stay with us. I stopped exercising and was trying my best to minimize walking, standing for too long, picking up the kids… basically all the things that are my normal “mom” routine. And I knew I couldn’t do it without help!
The goal was to make it to 38.5 weeks. Because we didn’t know gender, my doctor wanted to get us to this point since white boys have a chance of needing breathing support prior to the 38.5 week marker. The NICU nurses call it “wimpy white boy syndrome,” which is totally not PC, but apparently an actual thing, hah.
Knowing that this was our fourth delivery and that the baby could come quickly, I took it easy (thanks to my parents being here to help!) and checked off each day that got us closer to the 38.5-week mark.
I also decided in all of this false-labor confusion (it makes you crazy fast!) that I would feel much better having a date in mind where my doctor could deliver me, rather than waiting for labor to start on its own. The contractions I felt made me feel like this baby was just going to fall out when he/she decided to come, and I had no desire to deliver him or her on the way to hospital or in our bathroom at home. (Oh the places your mind takes you when you get close to your due date and feel close contractions for extended periods of time…)
So on Friday, May 17th, I had made it to 38.5 weeks and had my last appointment with my doctor. Matt met me at the office and we went in together, hoping that when my doctor checked me, I’d show signs of early labor that matched all of the contractions I’d been having.
I was between 2-3 centimeters when he checked me, and because he was on call all day the next day, I had him strip my membranes to get things going. I had never done this before but wanted things to happen as naturally as possible while still having a plan in place 😉 so this felt like the best option. Plus, I had heard plenty of successful stories from friends who did this and went into active labor the next day. That’s what we were going for!
To continue helping things move along, that night, we got takeout from an Italian restaurant by our house (eggplant parmesan worked to get things going for all of our kids), and then we walked 1.5 miles to our downtown for ice cream. It was definitely the slowest I think I have ever moved, as I felt the contractions coming the whole way there. So much so that I was hoping baby would hold off until morning! The plan, after all, was NOT to go in just hours before my doctor was on call. Luckily, Matt thought ahead and drove the car up to the ice cream place ahead of time so that I wouldn’t be walking the whole way home too. We were going for progress, not actual labor quite yet.
It was such a sweet memory for all of us to walk downtown and eat ice cream together the night before we went to the hospital!
The next morning, May 18th, I felt a little discouraged that my contractions had slowed down, but based on other signs (I’ll spare you the details) along with my doctor stripping my membranes and all of the eggplant and walking, we decided to follow through with the plan to go in and get checked. If I had made any progress, we’d stay and meet our baby!
After checking in and being taken to our room, my doctor came to check me and I was 4cm. That was progress! And it was go time. Today was going to be the day we met our baby.
I can’t even explain the excitement I felt this entire day. I would honestly have 25 babies for the experience of delivering and holding each one for the first time. There is nothing like it in the world. And then add the surprise of the gender on top of everything else, and Matt and I were both just so ecstatic.
I was so glad that weeks earlier he had semi-talked me into getting an epidural. I really thought I wanted to try to go without one like I did with Ryan because of the bonding experience that Matt and I shared throughout that entire day of labor. My thought was that I wanted to fully experience this last labor, but then I also wanted to be present mentally when it came time to push, and I knew that the exhaustion of going without an epidural could mean that the end part would not be what I wanted for this last go around.
It is such a personal decision, but if we had 10 more babies, I would do what we did with Andrew over and over again. I honestly could not have crafted a better birth story.
After checking me around 10am, finding out I was 4cm, and deciding that we would stay and meet our baby that day, my nurses got me ready to receive antibiotics through IV, as I had tested positive for Strep B this pregnancy.
This is actually another reason why I started to feel nervous about waiting for things to happen on their own. I had never tested positive for Strep B before and knew that I would need at least one round of antibiotics through an IV before delivering to give our little one the best chance of steering clear of contracting it. I didn’t want to wait and have such a fast delivery that I wasn’t able to receive the antibiotics first.
My doctor wanted to give the antibiotics a couple of hours to get into my system and said he would return at noon to break my water. This whole time, Matt and I just hung out together, updated friends and family to let them know we would be meeting our baby soon, and continued to talk through names for boys and girls as neither one was decided!
Around 11:30, I got the epidural in preparation for my doctor breaking my water at noon.
The thing about having the epidural was that I never got to a place of fear or exhaustion or overwhelming pain, but could still feel what was happening enough to know when it was time to push. And oh my word the epidural naps. hah! Maybe it’s because we have small kids at home, but there is something about those epidural naps. You sleep so soundly all while your body is still doing the work it needs to do to deliver a baby. As I type this, I’m wondering why I was thinking of doing it any differently.
Around 1pm the nurses gave me the lowest dose of pitocin (starting at a 2), and then increased that by 2 every 30-60 minutes. This whole time, I went in and out of napping, talking to Matt about names, seeing my sister and her family who came to visit, and texting friends and family with updates. But mostly, Matt and I just hung out and took it all in- this was our last delivery and we would be meeting our baby SOON!
Around 3pm, the nurses gave me the second round of antibiotics for Strep B, and Matt and I narrowed down our boy names and girls names to two each. So funny, but I felt like we needed to look at our baby before we knew for sure!
At 4:30, my doctor came in to check me and let me know I was 7cm. Then he sat down and started telling me a story about his wife and one of their deliveries, and within the first few seconds of his story I said, “Sorry to interrupt- I know you just checked me, but I feel like I might be complete and ready to push here soon, so we might want to get things ready.” (I feel like this makes me sound pushy, but I knew that Emily came fast once I had that feeling, so I didn’t want anything to feel rushed and frantic right before I started pushing!)
My doctor is so calm in the best way, and just said, “Well, you’re probably right. I’ll give you another minute and check you again.” So he finished his short story, checked me, and sure enough, just a couple of minutes after he told me I was 7cm, I was complete and ready to push.
He got the nurses in the room and set up the delivery cart, and it felt like everyone, including me and Matt, were so excited to start this party and meet this baby. I’m pretty sure I squealed and said something like, “We’re about to do this!” hah! I’m sure it was because it was our 4th (and for sure because I had an epidural), but I was not the least bit nervous. In fact, I was just SO excited, and I think the whole room followed mine and Matt’s energy.
A nurse asked if I wanted her to take pictures and then was commenting on the picture of our family on the home screen of my phone. I think they must have passed the phone around because all of the nurses were commenting about our kids as my doctor was quickly getting everything else ready for the delivery. It felt like a little party as we all got ready to meet the next member of our family.
With everything in place, my doctor turned out the lights and had a soft lamp on (one of my favorite things he does for deliveries by the way), got some extra pillows behind my back, and right before I started pushing, he said, “Okay everyone, one more reminder, Matt’s going to say if it’s a boy or a girl.” And then he said, “Okay, whenever you’re ready to push, go right ahead.”
Let me stop right here and say that even this lead in to pushing was SO different than our other 3 deliveries: Ryan came minutes shy of 24 hours of labor and a near c-section, Natalie was near crowning when the doctor (not my doctor) was delivering another baby and one of the nurses was announcing loud enough for us to hear that it was her first delivery, and Emily came so fast after being checked at 7cm that Matt almost missed the delivery because he had stepped out of the room for a minute to update family who were waiting in the lobby. So this delivery was already off to a great start in my mind!
Matt stayed up at my shoulders (he’s never been one to be down in “the war zone” as he calls it, haha) and held my hand and one of my legs. When I felt a contraction coming, I pushed for the first time. There was no counting out how long I should push and no crazy pain, but I could definitely tell what was happening and how hard I should push. At the end of the first push, I rested and waited for the next contraction that came maybe 20 seconds later. My doctor just kept saying, “Whenever you’re ready” and then when I pushed, he would say, “Not too hard, nice and easy.” The room was calm and quiet and so was his voice.
After the second push, I could tell Andrew was crowning. I pushed 2 or 3 more times (afterward, my doctor said he thinks I pushed for less than 3 minutes) and felt his head and shoulders come out, and then my doctor looked at me and asked if I wanted to deliver our baby. I had never done this with any of our others, so I wasn’t really sure what he meant. But then he directed my hands under Andrew’s armpits and told me to go ahead and pull him out. So I did! This was such an amazing moment I will never forget.
Without looking myself, I lifted him up for Matt to see and asked, “What do we have?!” and Matt said, ” IT’S A BOY!”
I laid him right on my chest after that and started crying even more than I had when I got to pull him out. I kept saying, “That was so perfect” and kept thanking my doctor and the nurses. Then I looked at Matt and said, “We have another boy!” and just kept saying over and over again how perfect delivering our last baby was. It was like the Lord allowed us to end on the sweetest high after some precarious and scary previous deliveries.
This was also the first baby I got to hold right away. Ryan’s cord was tied tight and he was blue when he came out, Natalie wasn’t breathing and they had to call in the emergency team, and then Emily had meconium in the water, so they had to take her too at first.
So this delivery, and holding this baby right away, and hearing him cry right away, and having Matt cut the cord while he was on my chest… the whole thing felt so magical, and so right.
Andrew laid on my chest for a full hour before anyone took him for his weight or measurements or to give him his first bath right next to my bed. And Matt and I just stared at him and took in that he was ours.
After taking his measurements and doing his bath, my parents brought the kids back to meet their new baby brother. We were so thankful we had him early enough for them to come see him right after he was born! And so thankful to my parents for making it happen!
Andrew Stephen Nelsen, we loved you the second we laid eyes on you, and we are so very thankful for you!
And just in case you like reading birth stories like me, you can read Ryan’s birth story here, Natalie’s birth story here, and Emily’s birth story here.
