On April 30, 2020 at 4:29am we welcomed our little man into the world! He wasn’t expected for a little over two and a half weeks but decided he was showing up early. This is his beautiful, unexpected birth story.

On April 29th we were in Target (totally practicing social distancing haha) when I had two very sudden sharp pains. When it happened my first thought was “contractions” but I figured they were just going to end. About an hour later I had an OB appointment and my doctor decided to check since we’d been dealing with high stress situations for the previous week and the sharp pains. To say I was shocked when he told me I was dilated to a 4 was an understatement. He did say “I doubt you go into labor tonight or anything” but also advised for me to not go any further than our home (we live 30 minutes away from the hospital). So we decided to grab dinner and head home after the appointment.

Around 8pm that night, after about 45 minutes of contractions, my husband suggested I start timing the contractions. We timed them for an hour and to our amazement they were 2-5 minutes apart lasting 45 seconds- 1 and a half minutes long. Instantly I knew we needed to get going, instead I decided to call the labor and delivery advice line and see what they suggested (I was afraid of going and then being sent home). The nurse told me I could come and get checked if I’d like. So we decided to call my mother in law (who was being our life saver by coming to stay at our house with our daughter so we didn’t have to pack up her stuff too) who, I’m pretty sure, got to our house way faster than she should’ve haha. Once she was settled in we headed off to the hospital. We got there at 10pm, got hooked up to monitors, and they checked me again. At that point I was at a 4 1/2 and 60% effaced so the midwife decided to monitor the contractions for an hour, then have me walk for an hour, and check me again.

At about midnight they came in to check me…again. To my surprise I was at a 6! So they admitted us, got all the fun IVs going, and we discussed that I didn’t want an epidural unless it was medically necessary. At this point in the journey I stopped trying to keep track of what time everything happened. I just knew that Lincoln and I were both ready. For pain they gave me fentanyl via IV which was fine by me. I think I was at a 7 when I finally broke down and asked for a dose to manage the pain. They said they wouldn’t give me any until I asked for it and they weren’t kidding.

Sometime around what I’m guessing was 3:45am they decided to break my water but when they checked me I was at a 9 and they decided I should be able to break my own water just by pushing so that’s what I did. After my water broke, and they got the room set up for delivery, the pushing began. It was too late for more pain medication so when I asked for more the answer was “nope, you’re gonna have a baby” hahaha! After 33 minutes of pushing we got to meet our little man.

I was so terrified of giving birth during a pandemic but honestly it wasn’t much different than when I gave birth to our daughter. The only two things I can say were really different were the fact that I had to wear a mask a lot of the time (which is a huge challenge when having contractions) and the fact that there were no visitors allowed, which honestly was super nice we didn’t have to worry that anyone was going to just stop by the hospital or that we’d not be able to sleep.

Lincoln is exactly who our family needed and showed up exactly when we needed him.