Birth Story | Newborn Photoshoot

My due date was July 4th. Camden decided to make his debut 4 weeks and 1 day early. On June 4th, I had just gotten back from going to a couple stores with my mom and I went to the bathroom. When I went to the bathroom, I found part of my mucus plug in my underwear. Your mucus plug can come out and you could still have several weeks before you go into labor, so I figured I still had plenty of time, but because you know, anxiety, I decided that I should probably get our hospital bag and Mayson’s overnight bag packed just in case.

Well it’s a VERY good thing I got everything packed because that night at 1:30am on June 5th my water broke. I had just been woken up about 10 minutes prior by Mayson calling out “mom,” but he didn’t actually wake up, so I didn’t get out of bed. I hadn’t fully fallen back asleep when all of a sudden I felt what was like a little bubble pop. I never got out of bed so fast in my life. I ran to the bathroom, peed, and then it just kept trickling out. I went over to Marcus and put my hand on his arm. He opened his eyes and they immediately got huge and I told him my water just broke. I don’t even remember what he said, but he was in complete shock and he shot out of bed and started freaking out a tad. (Understandably, so.) I called the triage line for my OB and they said to get to the hospital as soon as possible. I called my grandparents who were planning on taking Mayson while we were in the hospital and they came and got him. Thankfully they only live a mile away.

The whole time we were getting ready to leave the water just kept trickling out. It was the strangest feeling. It was like I was peeing and I couldn’t control it. During the drive to the hospital it seemed to stop, but the second we got there and I stepped out of the car, it was like a scene in a movie, it just came GUSHING out. I just stood there like, “What the f*** do I do?!” Marcus went and got a wheel chair and got me inside. At this point, I wasn’t having any contractions yet. We get checked in and as we are waiting to go to the delivery room the contractions slowly started. By the time we got to the delivery room I was basically wanting the epidural ASAP. I think I ended up getting it by about 4am maybe. 

Now let me tell you, my epidural experience with Mayson was quick and painless. He got it in my back so fast and I didn’t feel anything. This time was completely different. It took him a while to get it in, and when he first put the needle in, it wasn’t quite in the right spot and he moved it around. Even though they numb you, I still basically felt him digging around in my spine with the needle. It was almost worse than the contractions. Afterwards, Marcus told me he was about to yell at the guy to hurry up and get it done because he could see how bad it was for me.

Once I got the epidural, it was basically a waiting game until I was fully dilated. The epidural though, usually slows down dilation, so they did end up giving me Pitocin to help with that. I was in labor with Mayson for 16 and a half hours and I pushed for an hour and a half. With Camden I was in labor for 14 hours and 40 minutes and I only had to push for 15 minutes (yay!).

I have to say though, those 14 hours and 40 minutes were full of anxiety for me. I was so nervous about the fact that he was coming so early and that something was going to be wrong and that he would have to go to the NICU. Thankfully he was perfectly healthy. We feel so incredibly lucky. They did have to suction quite a bit of liquid out of him so he could get proper breaths when he first came out. They said that he probably just took in a lot of liquid right before he came out, but other than that, no major issues. He passed all of the newborn tests before we left the hospital, and at every checkup since, he’s been doing great.

Now, at 3 and a half weeks old, it’s still feels kind of strange that he’s here since I technically still should have been pregnant. Admittedly, for the first couple weeks after we was born, I felt a bit sad that I missed out on those last weeks of pregnancy. We knew we were done having kids after Camden, so I was trying to soak it all in and enjoy all those kicks and those last moments of pregnancy. With that said, I’m also glad he came early because this second pregnancy was WAY more miserable than my first. I was extremely uncomfortable this time around.

If you are still reading, thank you. Thank you for letting me share my story with you and thank you for being here. It means so much to me to get to share my life and my family with you guys. 🤍