Warning! If you don’t like reading birth stories, skip this post! I love sharing my children’s birth stories as a memory for us of this season of life. And, I hope it can encourage some new or expectant mother out there. Every birth is a miracle, and I’m so thankful for God’s sweet grace in how baby David came into the world. ALSO: No judgment, please. My face  was swollen, I was exhausted, and was quite make-up-less. Welcome to life in the delivery room and two days postpartum!

We have officially dubbed baby David the “SEC Championship” baby. Let me back up and say this… my official due date was December 12. However, David had consistently measured big or “ahead” in terms of weeks, so we had an induction scheduled for Tuesday the 8th. From about mid-November on, I was already at 3-4cm with several weeks to go. I was told it could be “any day now” since well before Thanksgiving, and we were just ready! So, December 5th came along and it was SEC championship day. Bama looked OK, but not stellar, in the first half, and when I checked my blood pressure at half time, it was quite high. Much higher than I expected. Nic ordered me to go lay down and not watch the game. Instead of watching, I played Ticket to Ride on my phone, and asked for frequent score updates. Once Bama looked like they had the win, I was allowed to watch again!

This was conference championship Saturday, and y’all, I LOVE college football. So, I had my share of games to watch, and continued to check my blood pressure. It never seemed to drop, and I continued to get anxious, which makes it all snowball. Nic decided to wake me up in the night and check it, but I couldn’t sleep much at all. We checked it at 2am, talked to the doctor (the same doctor who delivered Rachel, and happened to be on call through the weekend – Hi, Dr. Redden!), were told we could come on in to the ER or try to rest at home. I opted to rest at home… although I couldn’t sleep.

6am Sunday morning rolled around, and Nic and I decided to get up, shower, get ready, and go on to the ER. After I showered and listened to some of my favorite calming music, I felt great. I decided to check my BP again, and it was still through the roof. Nic allowed me to only eat one egg and nothing else. I drank some coconut water, since I heard how great it was for staying hydrated during labor, and knew I wouldn’t be allowed much of anything if they kept me in the hospital. We loaded up the car, dropped Rachel with the grandparents, and drove to the hospital around 8am. It was quiet in the ER waiting room, but I was quickly told that I was the 5th Labor and Delivery patient to show up that morning. CRAZY TIMES!!!

We got moved up to a labor and delivery triage room, where they checked my blood pressure again (160s over 120s… no big deal! Ha!) and kept checking it every 5-10 minutes. It continued to drop the longer I laid there, but Dr. Redden came in and said I could go home and try to rest and it should go down, or I could go ahead and get induced. Nic and I both felt that if I went home, we’d be back that afternoon, because I just couldn’t relax knowing that it was so high. So, we opted to stay and be induced.

I felt good about our decision… I had been induced with Rachel for other reasons, so I knew a little bit about what to expect, and knew my body could respond. We texted my parents to tell them we were staying, and they let us know they had already driven down from Hendersonville to Franklin, and were just down the street eating breakfast! Ha! Soon after we got put in a delivery room, my parents came and sat with us for a little while and we watched the beginning of the college football play-off selection show. (I wasn’t kidding about loving college football!)

Dr. Redden broke my water around 11:15, and I opted for an epidural around noon. The epidural came about 12:30 or 12:45, and I rested. I reminded my nurse that it was only an hour or so after the epidural with Rachel until I was ready to push. The same was true this time. Around 1:45 or 2pm, I asked to be checked because I knew it was time. She checked and little David was ready to be delivered, so the flurry began. Lots of nurses came in to get everything ready, and Dr. Redden prepared me for pushing. With this epidural, my legs were completely numb, and I really felt like it was going to affect my ability to push. However, our sweet boy was here in just 3 pushes! David Brooks was born at 2:20pm.

We were shocked that our little guy’s face looked just like his big sister’s when he arrived. I was so thankful to hold him and get some sweet skin to skin time. They quickly weighed him, and he weighed in at 8lb, 8oz. We all said he didn’t look quite that big, but the numbers don’t lie! 😉 Pretty immediately, we knew he had such a calm and easy-going temperament, and thankfully that’s proven to still be true. We have been smitten since the moment we met him!

God is good. He gives us grace. As an anxious mom-to-be, He proved his faithfulness over and over in spite of all my worries during my pregnancy. I could not have asked for a smoother delivery, and I’m so very thankful.

How are we doing with a 2-year-old and an infant? Well, it’s really, really tough, at least for me. But, we love them so, so much. More on that managing-two-kids thing in another post! Kudos for making it all the way to the end of this long post!!

The first image in this post and the photos below are some of our photos taken by Holly of Bella Baby. Why would a photographer purchase these images when she could have taken more herself? I knew I would regret not having these images of our time in the hospital with baby David. I’m SO GLAD to have these photos!