Hello internet. It’s been a while. How have you been?

A lot has changed over here. We had a third kid! I know, I know. I swore up, down, left, right and center that we were done after two, but we really wanted to try for a boy…

*drumroll please*

…and we got a third girl! And now the baby making chapter of our lives is officially done. For real this time. No backsies. My husband got the snip snip. There will be no snip snap. I think he was traumatized enough the first go around.

After nine long months of cursing our decision to have third. Baby 3 decided she was done cooking 12 days “early,” just after Memorial Day of 2023. Yes, she’s over a year old and I’m finally sitting down to write about it…we’ve been adjusting our chaos meter to the “Family of Five” setting.

Eleanor’s Birth Story:
Just after midnight, I thought I peed a little. I waddled my very pregnant butt to the bathroom, quickly realizing I did not wet myself. That relief was short lived because my water had broken. I woke my husband, Doug, told him we would be going to the hospital sometime soon and then said to go back to sleep.

Go time! Twelve. Days. Early…shit.

I had planned on working up until I went into labor. I had a whole list of things I planned to wrap up, delegate, or update before maternity leave. So I did what anyone in labor would do. I worked for hours in the middle of the night while timing contractions! I pushed out (no pun intended) all of the need to know info for everyone helping out while I was on leave. I tied things up in a messy bow and notified my boss my leave was starting now.

Next up? Shower and blow out hair…because when the heck would be the next time that would happen? My contractions were getting more intense, but still far apart, so I laid down for a bit to try and relax.

Around 5 am, we called my MIL to come watch our older two and we headed to L&D. My first two labors were induced. Riding in a car while in labor was a new experience. Thankfully, it’s one I will not be repeating. Gentle movement through contractions is helpful. But I was literally strapped into an aluminum can. I was unable to do anything but try and breathe through them. Every bump and turn was white knuckled.

Check-in. Yes, I feel safe at home. Monitor baby heart rate. Cervix is dilating? All good.

This go around, I chose a midwife. I highly recommend one if you are able! She met me in the delivery room. She hugged me. Then, she set up electric candles. She also set up one of those cool light projectors that give a calming, underwater feel to the space. She organized the shower for me to use for pain relief and had extra towels set out. It was around 7 am. I felt calm, safe, and ready to meet our daughter.

For the next five hours, I listened to Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums on repeat. I still find this funny. Those are my least favorite of her discography. Reputation was not exactly the era I was in.

I reminded myself that I am strong. Women are strong. Our bodies are designed for this. Generations of women before me had unmedicated births, too. I can do hard things.

My midwife returned when I was around 9 cm dilated. Afterward, she told me that I was so calm and stoic. If she didn’t already know that I was in active labor, she would have thought I was just napping. I used the comb trick where you squeeze the pokey part of the comb into your palm during contractions. It gives you a point to focus on while breathing through contractions. By golly, someone really knew what they were talking about.

Around noon, the instinctual need to push switched on. This part sucked. Like REALLY sucked. Even now, I don’t really know what happened. On one push, my threshold for pain was crossed. I blacked out and came to screaming. A nurse was mere inches my face telling me I was safe. Her thick, red cat-eye glasses are burned in my memory as I stared at her cross-eyed. The pain was unbearable and I knew something was wrong.

With one last push, I delivered Ellie and then all hell broke loose. I was bleeding. A LOT. With my newborn baby on my chest, I remember looking over at my husband (Oh yeah! He was there the entire time…) and the expression on his face reminded me of when he told me his father passed away. The overhead light went on, someone injected Pitocin straight into my leg since I had opted for no IV line. I felt warm, wet liquid pooling between my legs. For what felt like an eternity, I thought I was going to miss out on my newborn’s life.

The midwife was no longer gentle and reassuring. She aggressively searched for the source of the bleeding while I was pleading with her to stop touching me. It was agony as she had her hand inside of my body, testing everywhere for tears. I was shaking uncontrollably until I was instructed to give one more push to deliver the placenta. Then everything went quiet.

I was told afterward that this was a partial placental abruption. This occurs when the placenta becomes detached from the uterine wall. Now, this is supposed to happen after you birth your baby, not sometime during pushing. As soon as I delivered the placenta, the excessive bleeding stopped. I was not dying that day, but I had lost a lot of blood. The nurses literally weighed my soaked bedding and gown to determine how many mL (trick question…it was measured in liters).

My fear melted away as I stared at the perfect baby girl in my arms. She had all ten fingers. All ten tiny toes. A full head of hair and the cutest little nose.

Her name is Eleanor, after her great grandmother. She did hard things. My mother did hard things. I can do hard things. And my daughters will overcome hard things too.

As always, I hope this little blog brought some joy to your day. And remember, you can also do hard things!

You can find me on Instagram @joyandotherthingsblog. I haven’t posted there in a while, except for the occasional story where I reshare funny, relatable reels.