Our Daughter’s Birth Story

We are praising Jesus for the sweet birth story I am about to share with you. This day will always hold a special place in my heart and I hope to relive the moment every year as we celebrate each precious moment the Lord gives us with her. I pray that the sharing of Hazel’s birth story may encourage you if you are an expecting mama battling the inevitable nerves that come with this momentous day. It is a great privilege to be a parent – an honor we don’t take lightly. And I am so grateful for the beautiful story we get to tell of how our sweet baby girl joined us earth-side.

On Thursday March 23rd, we checked into the hospital at 7 AM for an elective induction. One day before my due date & full term at 40 weeks. We settled into our delivery room and I’ll never forget how quiet it was – only the sound of the machines buzzing & my heart beating uncontrollably beneath my chest. I couldn’t believe we were hours away from meeting her!

Our assigned nurse helped us get settled in (our hospital provided some of the best care btw, I can’t even begin to explain how great every single nurse and doctor was. They have a 1-1 care policy for labor & delivery so our assigned nurse was taking care of me and only me all day!) I also elected to let a medical student observe & I’m so glad I did because he was great, too (& they have to learn, right?!)

After I got hooked up to the IV and they finished taking all my vitals, they gave me an oral pill called Cytotec to help progress dilation. They also let me order some breakfast because once active labor started, I wasn’t going to be able to eat at all. After about 4 hours after taking this pill, they checked me and saw I hadn’t dilated much more at all. So they gave me a second dose and within minutes of taking it, I started to feel some regular contractions. They weren’t intense, just mild and a bit uncomfortable.

I labored like this for about an hour before they broke my water. After my water broke, the contractions got noticeably more intense pretty quickly. Pain level shot up from about a 2 to like a 6/7. The nurse and James were great at helping me breathe through each one but they were coming so close together (45 seconds – a minute) & I did end up throwing up a few times at one point. They then encouraged me to walk around the halls to keep labor progressing so James and I did that for a bit and it actually helped with some of the pain. I labored through these intense contractions for about 2.5 hours before the nurse advised we would probably start pitocin soon so I asked for an epidural at this point.

Once the epidural was administered, they did another cervical check and saw I was already 6 CM dilated! They were not expecting my body to progress so quickly solely off the Cytotec so this was great news. I ended up not even needing Pitocin at all because after this check, things started moving along real quickly.

Because I was feeling good at this point, my parents stopped by for a quick visit, James ordered some food for himself and I was able to nap a bit here and there. After about an hour, they came back in and I was already dilated to an 8. And then after another hour, 9. And then another hour 9.5. Things slowed a bit here at the end – I stayed at 9.5 for a couple of hours but a little after midnight, we made it to 10 and it was time to start pushing!

The pushing wasn’t painful (PTL for epidurals!) but I could definitely feel the pressure with each contraction. Pushing took way longer than we expected (3 hours total) because baby girl was face up and her head was stuck behind my pelvic bone. We pushed in a few different positions (side lying, all 4s, etc.) to try to get her to flip but it was happening so slow and the pressure I was feeling was starting to turn into a lot of pain. So, they gave me a bit more juice on the epidural which helped numb things and give me the energy to push through again.

At this point, they had another nurse come in to help manually flip Hazel around so she was face down. This worked pretty quickly and before we knew it, it was time to call the doctor and welcome baby girl into the world.

She arrived a few minutes later at 4:25 AM. 7 lbs, 11 oz. & 20 1/4 inches of pure beauty. The moment I saw her for the first time still feels like a surreal dream. She came out literally looking into my eyes. And we just laid there for several minutes taking it all in. James cut the umbilical chord shortly after & the rest feels like a blur. Nothing else mattered. Our sweet baby girl was here & our world was complete.

Thanks for reading our sweet daughter’s birth story. If you are looking for more newborn inspiration, check out my other blog posts including a peek inside our sweet girl’s nursery!

xo