Emerson's Birth Story

I realized that I hadn't written this down yet, and it was so incredible that I wanted to document it. Enjoy!

Well, as you all know, I was an awful 11 days late and decided to go in the morning of 4/23 to have my water broken. Gratefully, I was having a lot of contractions the night before, so I think I was really already in labor when I went in. My doctor broke my water at 8am and I was still at 3-4 cm. Because I was going for a VBAC, the hospital required that I be monitored at all times. This was news for both me and my doctor, so I was bummed I wouldn't be able to walk the halls with James like we did last time. So, I got comfortable in the bed and we started watching The Godfather II. Around lunchtime, my mom came up with Ellie and we visited for a bit. Contractions were definitely getting harder by then, so they went ahead and left. They checked me and I was only at 5-6cm at this point. I kept going through the afternoon and it definitely got harder as it went on. I started getting the urge to push around 5pm and thought I might be done. They checked and I was only 7cm!!! I was so disappointed. The contractions were super hard at this point. I was having conversations with God in my head about how many more I could take. They said to hang in there until 6pm and they'd check me again. I made it, and was fully expecting to be disappointed again but she said I could start pushing! Yea! I pushed through one contraction, and they were seeing the head already. They asked me to breathe through the second one (which is almost impossible!) to wait on my doctor. Well, the blessed man walked in by the end of that one, so I was able to push again on the next one. By about the 4th one, her head was out! Her body came out on the next one. Those two were so amazing. To be able to feel this little person come out was just so awesome. James was so excited, and they handed her to me to nurse her right away. She didn't really latch on at first, so they took her and cleaned her up a bit and then we tried again. No problem the second time!

I did tear a bit, so my doctor (who seemed about as excited that we'd gotten through the VBAC as we were) stitched me up while James and I bonded with our sweet girl! Our friends and family filled the room an hour later including Ellie, and it was just an amazing night sharing our little girls with them.

While we definitely struggled with God's reasons for Emerson being so late, He definitely came through in the end and answered our prayers for a perfect birth story, and we are SO grateful!