Our Birth Story – July 5, 2020

I am SO excited to finally be sharing our birth story with all of you. I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to finally sit down and write this. I am excited to share the journey with all of you and to also have something personal for me to look back on to remind me of all of the details of this beautiful day when we brought Harper into the world.

On July 4th, Cam and I went to our neighborhood pool. I was about 38 weeks pregnant at that point and didn’t really feel like doing much, so going to celebrate the 4th of July at our neighborhood pool seemed like the perfect option. I actually felt SO good this day, the best that I had felt my entire third trimester. My stomach wasn’t hurting me as much as it normally was, I didn’t feel as tired and my heartburn wasn’t as bad. I kept telling Cam how great I felt! I felt so great that we decided to go to my friend Liz’s house that night to hang out with some of our friends and cookout. I normally wouldn’t have been up for that much activity all in one day during my third trimester but again, I just felt so great and had so much more energy than I normally did. We left Liz’s house around 8, we got home, and went to bed pretty early.

On July 5th, I got woken up out of my sleep pretty early, around 5:30 am with some pretty bad back pains. I don’t know if you guys remember but I had some pretty bad stomach issues during my third trimester that also caused my back to hurt pretty much every single day so when I woke up having these back pains, I just assumed that it was my stomach hurting like normal. Slowly the back pain started getting more intense to the point where I couldn’t just lay in bed anymore. I stood up and laid my head on the edge of the bed to try and breathe through the pain. That’s when Cam woke up. When he saw me in that position, he was really worried. We eventually started to realize that the back pains were coming in and out, in and out; coming every 5 minutes, lasting for about a minute each. So Cam decided to call our OBGYN just to be safe. After about 15 minutes on the phone with the nurse answering all of her questions, she calmly said “okay, you guys go ahead and head to the hospital!”. At this point I was still 2 weeks away from my due date so Cam and I could not believe it! We were shocked. We already had our hospital bags packed, thank goodness, and headed to the hospital soon after that call. The entire way to the hospital I was having some really intense back contractions but I kept telling Cam that I was sure they would send us home because I just kept thinking that my labor contractions would be on the front side of my stomach, not my back.

We got to the hospital, checked in and got to the triage room. At this point, my back pain was INTENSE. It was the most intense pain I’ve really ever felt and at times I told Cam that it felt like my back was snapping in half. I got checked out by the triage nurse and I will never forget the moment when she said “Congrats! You’ll be having your baby today!”. It was one of the most surreal moments I’ve ever experienced. I was 4 cm dilated and I was not being sent home from the hospital. We were having our baby that day and I’ve never been so excited for something but so nervous at the same time.

It was about 11:00 am when we got back to my labor room and I remember asking my nurse when she thought I would have the baby. She thought about it for a minute and she said that based on the average of most women, that I would probably have the baby anywhere from 10 pm-midnight that night. So I went in thinking it was going to be a pretty long day waiting for baby girl to come.

I didn’t go into the hospital with a full birth plan but I did know that I wanted to get an epidural. My contractions were getting so much more intense by the minute and I swear, the second I got the epidural, I felt sooooo much better. I literally couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. My legs felt like they weighed 500 pounds each and it was the craziest feeling! Getting the epidural itself felt weird but I didn’t think that it was painful. It just felt like an intense pressure going into my back. I didn’t enjoy the feeling but I also didn’t think that it hurt, if that makes any sense. I will say that the weirdness of the epidural was 100% worth it in the end because the pain of my back contractions were wayyyyy worse. I would opt to get an epidural vs going through those contraction pains naturally any day of the week! But each person is different and you mamas who gave birth naturally, I commend you. You are SO STRONG!

After I got my epidural, Cam and I thought that we would just be hanging out in the room for a while so we were both just hanging out and talking and watching TV. My favorite show 90 Day Fiance was on in the hospital room and I was as happy as a clam hahaha. Shortly after my epidural, my OBGYN came in to break my water. That reminds me, my actual OBGYN happened to be on call the day we went to the hospital and when I found out that she was the one who would be delivering Harper, I cried tears of joy. I knew that there was a very high chance that she would not be there and I just felt SO thankful that she was there. It just all seemed like fate. So Dr. Bates came into the room to break my water and she said I probably still had a while until I started pushing. I think maybe an hour went by and she came back into the room to check on me. That is when everything changed.

I will never forget when Dr. Bates checked me out and then looked at me and said “Wow! You are 10 cm dilated. Ready to start pushing??”. Mind you, this was around 2:00 pm in the afternoon, no where near the time that I thought I would be giving birth which was around 10 pm-midnight that night. So I was just as shocked as she was! I went from 4 cm to 10 cm in such a short amount of time. So, we started pushing.

Dr. Bates looked at Cam and told him to get up and help grab one of my legs. Cam and I both had no idea that he would be apart of the labor process but I am SO glad that he was. It was so nice having him right there with me and to really be involved with the birthing process. He also cut her umbilical cord! It made everything that much more special. I pushed for about 45 min-an hour (I can’t really remember how long) and sweet little Harper was born at 3:23 pm. It was the most incredible/beautiful/most surreal moment of my entire life. When they laid her on my chest, I swear I have never seen or experienced anything so beautiful. The love you have for your child is unlike anything you can even imagine. The love is unexplainable and it’s a love that you never knew existed. Harper was 7 pounds, 3 ounces and 19 3/4 inches and the most beautiful thing I ever laid my eyes on. She was pure perfection.

Dr. Bates did tell me that since I had such a fast delivery and since Harper came so quickly, that she did hit my pelvic bone really hard on the way down. Because of this, her little face was really bruised, which you can tell from the pictures above. But she reassured me that the bruising would go away in a couple of days and it did! By the time we left the hospital to go home, you could hardly even tell that her face was bruised at all. My OB also told me that the next time I am in labor, I need to come to the hospital ASAP or else I would be having the baby in our house hahaha. My mom also had me very quickly and had an overall quick labor experience so I guess maybe it is a little genetic. I also found out from my OB that Harper’s face was actually facing my back which is why I was having “back labor” instead of normal front labor. I later found out that back labor can actually be a lot more painful than normal labor which is why I felt like my back was literally breaking in half!

We spent the next couple of days in the hospital learning to breastfeed, learning how to take care of a baby and going through all of the post partum and baby check ups. We got to take her home on the afternoon of the 7th and it was one of the best days ever. I loved being in the hospital the first day because I felt like I was able to learn so much from all of the nurses and lactation consultants but I was really missing our bed by the second night. Bringing her home to the place where she will grow up was also one of the most surreal and most special days of our lives. It was so beautiful in every single way and we were just so grateful to have her home safely.

Post partum wasn’t the most pleasant experience. Since I had Harper so quickly, it seemed to be harder on my body and I swelled really, really bad. So getting the swelling down took longer than normal. I did tear a tiny bit on the inside and had to get some stitches. I dealt with the normal bleeding and healing that every mom goes through who delivers vaginally. There were times when it hurt SO bad to use the bathroom and I thought the pain would never go away but it did. It was hard at the time but definitely worth it. I would go through a year worth of post partum recovery to stare at beautiful Harper everyday. I know that post partum recovery can seem scary to a lot of women and it’s definitely not fun but it truly isn’t as bad as you think it is and you will get through it!

I also dealt with the baby blues pretty severely the first couple of weeks. A lot of you may remember that I was pretty MIA the first couple of weeks after Harper was born and this was just because I was trying to survive one day at a time. I was the most emotional I had ever been. I would cry pretty much all day long the first couple of weeks. I would cry over how overwhelmed I felt, over all of the changes that I was experiencing and then I would also cry just staring at her and not being able to believe how much I loved her and not understanding how she was mine. Post partum baby blues are a crazy thing and those of you mamas who have experienced it, you get it! You literally cry over anything and everything. But it is SO normal and soooooo many women experience it. A lot of women also deal with post partum depression so don’t ever feel alone. There are SO many women that go through it and so many resources to help you get through it. You are NOT a bad mom if you deal with post partum depression and I promise that you will get through it. I was lucky to only have the baby blues last for a couple of weeks and then they slowly went away so I did not deal with post partum depression but I could always get it with another baby. It is one of those things that you cannot control so never, ever feel like you are crazy or that something is wrong with you or that you are any less of a mama. You are the best mama and don’t you ever forget it!

Having Harper was the best thing that has truly ever happened to us. Cam and I talk about our birth story all the time and relive that amazing day in our minds over and over again. It  was truly the best/most surreal day of our entire lives. You truly can’t put it into words. We are so thankful for a pretty easy delivery and a beautiful baby girl. Harper has made our lives so much more fulfilled, has given us so much more purpose and has been the best thing to ever happen to use. Thank you, Jesus, for this amazing gift!

XOXO,

Katy