My Second Pregnancy’s Birth Story

My sweet baby girl is here! She is now two weeks old, which feels both accurate and completely impossible at the same time. How has it only been two weeks? But also how has it already been two weeks?! She is everything I didn’t know I wanted and needed.

We’re doing well as a family. She eats well, sleeps well, and is shockingly alert during her little pockets of wakefulness. I’m recovering physically pretty well and pretty quickly. Emotionally, I think I’m somewhere in the baby blues. I’ll cry and not know why. Or feel sad out of nowhere. And then, in the same day, I’ll feel this overwhelming love and closeness toward my husband that catches me off guard a little. Hormones, I tell you!

My 11-year-old is doing well too. The week her baby sister arrived was a lot for her. She was starting midterms; had some challenges in the female department, and felt the emotional weight of everything shifting at once. It was a bit overwhelming for her, but she is settling now. We all are, in different ways, I suppose.

And then there’s how baby girl actually got here, which still feels so unbelievable when I replay it.

The Birth Story

Two days before my due date, I was done. Well, really I was done two weeks before my due date. But that week, I was absolutely exhausted. I was over the acid reflux, constipation, back pain, swelling, and not being able to move the way I wanted to. I remember thinking, very plainly, I am ready to not be pregnant anymore.

That same night, around 3 AM, I woke up to what felt like really intense Braxton Hicks contractions. Not quite painful, but strong enough that I couldn’t ignore them or go back to sleep. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 9 AM. But because of the consistency of the contractions, I instead decided to go straight to Labor and Delivery.

By 8:45 AM, I was checked in and sitting in triage. My nurse monitored me and told me everything looked great. And then a midwife came in and very casually told me my cervix was completely closed and I was not having a baby anytime soon. She offered to sweep my membranes, said it was unsuccessful, and sent me home around 10:30.

I cried the entire drive back. The words “not having a baby anytime soon” just kept replaying in my mind. And I just kept predicting several more days filled with discomfort and misery. I was tired, uncomfortable, and so ready to meet her. And it felt like all of that buildup just… didn’t matter.

When we got home, I laid on the couch and tried to relax while my husband put on Friends. I don’t even watch Friends! So I was half-paying attention, chuckling here and there, but mostly sitting with the same tightening feeling in my body.

Around 11:30, we ate lunch. And around noon, I went to the bathroom and saw my mucus plug. This, of course, sent me straight to Google and ChatGPT. But even then, I couldn’t fully believe anything was progressing because all I could hear in my head was the midwife saying, you’re not having a baby anytime soon. So I dismissed it.

I went back to the couch. And then the cramps started. And these were… different. They weren’t just tightening. They moved, like waves. I could feel them start low, almost in my back, move through my groin, and then wrap up into my abdomen. After an hour of them, I started timing them. But even still, I was second-guessing myself.

Maybe they’re still Braxton Hicks. Maybe this is just what the end feels like.

Two hours went by like that.

By the time we left to pick up my daughter from school, around 2:30, I was gripping the car door through each contraction. Closing my eyes. Gritting my teeth. Breathing through it. And trying to stay calm and not alarm anyone.

When we got home around 3:30, it was no longer a question. I had to stop whatever I was doing every time a contraction came, and they were about five minutes apart. We were supposed to take her to beach volleyball practice at 5, and I remember looking at my husband and saying, “I’m not gonna make that.” He quickly called her dad to come get her.

And then I labored in our living room. Crouching, crawling, leaning on furniture, trying to find any position that felt even slightly better. My husband was right there, holding my hand, rubbing my back, just being quiet and steady the whole time.

By about 4:30, we left for the hospital. That drive usually takes 20 to 25 minutes. He got us there in 12! And at that point, the contractions were so strong and so close together that I was fully convinced I was going to have the baby in the car on the 110 freeway!

We pulled up around 4:45. Security took one look at me mid-contraction, put me in a wheelchair, and rushed me upstairs. And somehow, the same lovely nurse who had helped me that morning was there again, which felt like a small, grounding moment in the middle of all the chaos. She checked me and I was 8 centimeters. 8 centimeters!

I went from completely closed at 10 AM to 8 centimeters by 5 PM. I remember thinking, omg, I did that! I begged for an epidural and almost missed the window. But my nurse fought for me to get it, and I got it just in time.

At 6:45 PM, I started pushing. An hour and fifteen minutes later, she was here.

Just. Like. That.

What This Experience Is Requiring of Me

I’m still in utter shock at how quickly everything transpired. But more than that, I keep coming back to what it showed me.

It showed me that I actually do know my body. Even after being told I wasn’t in labor, something in me knew my pregnancy had shifted. I was influenced by the midwife and talked myself out of it for a while. But my body was already doing exactly what she needed to do.

It showed me that I’m stronger than I tend to give myself credit for. I labored at home, for hours, without any medical support or intervention. At one point, my husband was even asleep, and I was just… doing it! Breathing through it. Moving through it. And that, more than anything, makes me really proud of myself.

And maybe most of all, it showed me how little control I actually have. With my first daughter, I was induced for preeclampsia. Everything was managed, timed, and directed. It felt like the doctors and nurses were in control of the entire process. But this time, there was none of that. I couldn’t force anything to happen sooner. And I couldn’t make it any easier. I had to surrender to it in a very real, uncomfortable, moment-by-moment kind of way.

This experience asked me to trust myself more, loosen my grip a little, and move with what’s actually happening instead of what I thought would happen.

And if this is how it started, I can already tell there’s more of that ahead.