
It only took 3 (ok, almost 4) months to wrap up… but at last, Scarlett’s birth story:
By the time that I hit 39 weeks pregnant, I was DONE. I no longer felt like a cute little preggo lady, I felt like a beached whale. I was waking up at least 4 times a night to pee and had the hardest time getting comfortable enough to fall back asleep. I’d spent day in and day out bouncing on my yoga ball trying to get things moving along. I had two membrane sweeps. I went for long walks every evening. I was dilated to a 3… for 3 whole weeks. The doctor told me “any day now”… for 3 whole weeks. And still no baby. I realize I was yet to be at my due date, but with how insanely low baby was and the fact that I had an incompetent cervix with my previous pregnancy, I had never been expecting to make it to my due date. At my 39 week appointment the doctor asked if I’d like to schedule an induction and even though the idea of an induction was so nerve wracking to me, I couldn’t help but to blurt out ‘yes’ the second the offer was proposed. He let me know that they’d be calling to schedule an induction and that was that. Leaving the doctor that day I felt a huge sense of relief. The purgatory stage of pregnancy was finally over, I would soon know the exact date of when I would get to meet my girl.
Later that day I was called and provided with my induction date: September 11. Initially I thought nothing of it, however it soon dawned on me that we would be bringing our daughter into the world on one of American history’s saddest days…not ideal. I spent the next couple of days toying with the idea of calling to reschedule the induction. Between the not so desirable date and my overall fear of an induction, I started to think that pushing it back might be my best option. The night of September 7, I stayed up late (11 pm— impressive, I know ) and ate nachos with my husband while fantasizing together about the tiny little newborn that would soon be joining our family. Little did we know just how soon.
Andre and I went to bed at 11 that night and by 11:30, as I laid in bed deciding to call and cancel my induction, I felt a contraction that was like no contraction I’d felt before. Three minutes later I felt another. I quickly downloaded a contraction timing app and got to counting. They were coming in alarmingly fast and strong. Still, I thought maybe it was another bout of false labor, which had been plaguing me for days. I decided to get a glass of water and tried walking around. The contractions continued to come. I got back in bed to try and get comfy but quickly realized that I was putting all of my energy into breathing through my contractions. I nudged my husband awake and said “I think it’s time”. He popped up, said “it’s time!?”… And then fell backwards in bed and passed right back out. This time I shook him, leaned over the bed as a contraction began and growled “we gotta gooooo”.
Me being me, I refused to leave without applying a quick splash of makeup. I leaned over the counter, breathed through a couple more contractions, and decided it was so not worth the risk of wiggling a baby out onto the bathroom floor.
My husband grabbed Liam out of bed and carried him to the car. I texted my grandma to let her know we were on our way, grabbed a towel to put under me just in case, and waddled myself out the door. Without the hospital bag that I’d spent a month perfecting. Of course.
My grandma lives 3 minutes away from our house and the hospital is 5 minutes away from her house. But as we headed to her house i began to think that there was no way we were going to make it. I texted her to open her door, Andre ran Liam in, and we were off. I thought a baby was going to fly out with every speed bump we rolled over and as we pulled up to the hospital we just left the car in front and ran in to the ER. I was brought a wheel chair right away and just like that, a nurse was wheeling me to labor and delivery. I was ugly breathing, people were staring at me, and I was a total wreck. At this point it was 12:30 and when the nurse asked when my due date was, I realized it WAS my due date.
The nurse sent me into the bathroom to change before she did a pelvic check. As I was in the bathroom I bent over to get my leggings off (worst thing ever to try to get off while having level 10 contractions) and felt my water break. I came back into the room for my pelvic check and the nurse only had to check for a quick second before turning to me and saying “I have good news and bad news. Good news is, you’re not going home-you’re definitely in labor. Bad news is, you are dilated to a 9 and probably won’t have time for an epidural”. I was in shock. It had been just an hour since I felt my first contractions and I was dilated to a 9….???
I was rushed to a delivery room and my amazing team of nurses got to work. They were determined to help me get that epi and explained that the more I freaked out during a contraction, the faster labor would progress. They were shoving paperwork in my contraction having face as fast as possible and I signed each one with the ugliest ‘I’m at a level 10 pain’ scribble you ever did see. Within 20 minutes (that felt like 20 hours) the anesthesiologist walked into the room and I felt immediate relief upon simply seeing the guy. 10 minutes after that I felt like a new woman, my energy was reignited, and I was ready to meet my girl. Andre and I sat there excitedly texting family members and waiting for push time.
Just after 3am, the nurse came into the room and had me try pushing to determine if it was time to call the doctor in. After three pushes she decided it was go time and ran off to find the doctor. My doctor arrived, I pushed maybe 4 more times, and just like that, my perfect 6lb 3oz Scarlett Genevieve was placed on my chest. Andre was in such awe that he forgot that his job was to take photos and the nurse ended up grabbing his phone and taking photos for him.
I began nursing Scarlett and despite all of my fears, she latched perfectly. And so there we sat, soaking in our newest little babe while we waited to be transferred to our room.
About 7 hours after Scarlett made her grande debut into this world, she met her big brother for the first time. He came in typical Liam fashion-loudly and with a box full of donuts. He was excited but hesitant, and while he would hover next to us watching as we held her, he was too scared to touch her himself.
We decided that it would be best for Liam if Andre stayed with him that night, so Scarlett and I had our first ever ‘girls night’ in the hospital. And let me tell you, it was such a wild sleepover that we didn’t get any actual sleep. That’s right, after delivering at 3am, I stayed up all day the following day with visitors, and then proceeded to stay up with my little comfort nursing girl all night long. Thank goodness for sweet nurses and HGTV.
The following day I was told we would go home as soon as doctors came by to give the stamp of approval. The pediatrician came by bright and early, did one last echo on her heart to make sure her VSD had closed up, said Scarlett was good to go, and signed her off. My doctor however was MIA and despite the easiest delivery ever, the nurses couldn’t release me until I was seen. The entire day went by, and by 4pm this exhausted mama was not having it. I sent Andre out to the nurses station to figure out a plan to break me out of there and at last, they called the doctor and were able to get me released via phone call. I have never packed up my stuff so quickly.
We packed Scarlett into her car seat, rolled on down to the car, and at last, we were all together and headed to our happy place… home.
Cheers,
The Whine Connoisseur.













