**This is really long. I haven't been able to sleep lately, so I needed to get most of the little details out (there are still a few I kept for safekeeping). Also, I mention things like babies being born, so don't read it if you don't want to get up close and personal with me.
I've been putting off writing Lincoln's birth story for nine months now. Not because it was awful or traumatic or even boring. Simply because I feel like birth stories are so personal and such special spiritual experiences. They are something that I like to keep to myself and in my own little heart. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about Lincoln's birth lately - like it's keeping me up all night thinking about it, and so I think it might be time to share it.
Lincoln's pregnancy was hard on me. Not because I was sick or high risk or any of the normal reasons pregnancy is hard on people. In fact, except for the whole, "Your baby has really funny looking feet and maybe a few other things," it went pretty great. But I think emotionally that I was spent. I was so worried about things being wrong with him, in addition to the fact that I am one of the lucky few women who tend to get really depressed towards the end of pregnancy. Luckily, it's not anything a little bit of Zoloft can't fix (and for those of you about to open your mouths and tell me about the links between birth defects and autism and all sorts of stuff, you can just keep them closed. I already know. Plus, because I didn't start taking it until 30 weeks, I already knew my baby was already going to be funny looking, I figured it couldn't get much worse).
Anyway, I woke up on April 14 feeling kind of off. That wasn't too unusual though, as I hadn't been able to sleep for the past nine months. Seriously, I spent most of the nights in the guest bed, which was probably one of our best investments ever. Huck had a speech therapy appointment in our home that morning, so I hurried and cleaned things up and we had his appointment. I would like to add at this point in the story that I had desperately been praying that I would be able to go into labor during the day. I had labored through the night with Huck and I really didn't want to do that again. The speech therapist left and we made some waffles. At this point, I had my first contraction. Like, my first contraction during my entire pregnancy. It was 10:30. I called Geoff under the guise that I was going to tell him about Huck's appointment, but really I was so dang excited that something was happening! While I was talking to him, I had two more. I was only 38 weeks, so I really wasn't expecting anything. I was at the "my hospital bag isn't even close to being packe" not expecting anything" stage. As soon as I hung up the phone, I started timing my contractions. By my fourth contraction, they were strong enough that I couldn't talk through them. I turned on Daniel Tiger for Huck (talk about relaxing background music!), and laid down on our couch. They were coming between three and four minutes apart and lasting one to two minutes each. That was a good sign. I was still convinced I couldn't possibly be having a baby that day. It was just too good.
Within just a few minutes, it got to where I couldn't move at all while laying down or else it would set off a string of hard and intense contractions in addition to the ones I was already having. And I was absolutely freezing during my contractions. I didn't know that this was a thing until I was watching Parenthood a few weeks before and it was randomly mentioned in one of the episodes. It's a thing. Parenthood is real. I let this go on for an hour and then called Geoff and let him know that I was having contractions about four minutes apart and that's when they say you should probably go to the hospital to get checked out. He said he would be on his way and I kept reassuring him that I wasn't possibly having a baby today, but maybe he could come home and pack the hospital bag and then go back to work. It was 11:30.
At this point, Huck had had enough of this labor crap. He wanted to play! Because I was stuck on the couch, he spent his time jumping up and down on my hips, pulling my hair, and honking my nose. You can't make this stuff up! Finally, I had a break that lasted close to seven minutes. I even moved around to try and get things started again, but there was nothing. I picked up my phone to call Geoff and tell him to turn around and go back to work when my water broke. All over our couch. Oh, if only that was the worst thing that ended up on our couch.
I immediately stopped timing my contractions and called him to let him know that he needed to get home because we were having a baby. For those of you who know, I had Huck naturally and swore I would have all of my babies naturally. At least until I'm in transition, then I swear that I absolutely can't do it anymore and that I need an epidural. And that's what happened when I called Geoff. After I had been in labor for one hour and forty-five minutes. I thought I was wimpy. I turns out I really was going through transition.
Geoff stayed on the phone with me at this point to make sure I was okay and was reassuring me that I could definitely do this and I was going to be in labor for hours and hours (helpful Babe, helpful). He also would get a little bit concerned every time I stopped talking during a contraction (contrary to popular belief, I don't actually scream or moan or groan during contractions. I get quiet. Really quiet). He called my friend Jenny who had volunteered to watch Huck while I was at the hospital. He and her daughter Ainsley (who is five years older than him) are pretty much soul mate best friends. Geoff walked in the door at 12:05 and I told him that there was no way I was going to make it to the hospital in Tulsa and that we were going to have to go to the hospital here. I think he thought that I was being melodramatic. I thought I was being melodramatic. Luckily for me, I married probably the best guy out there, and he agreed that we would go to the hospital a few minutes away.
He started shuffling around, packing stuff up and bringing Huck back in from the garage about 1,000 times when I realized that I needed to push. It was 12:10 at this point and there was no way that I needed to push. I was definitely remembering this whole labor thing incorrectly. At 12:15 Geoff said that it was time to get in the car (we needed to drop Huck off at Jenny's before we got there). I told him that there was no way I could get in the car and that he needed to call an ambulance.
I will never forget this moment, because I could see in his eyes that he thought that I was nuts and that we didn't need to call an ambulance and that it was going to cost us a billion dollars (I was thinking all of the same things. I'm pretty sure there were angels talking me through talking him through this whole thing). So he called the ambulance, flustered enough at this point that he forgot our address. They asked if I was crowning (which I wasn't) and then hung up with him and said they would be there soon. He put Huck in his crib (who screamed and screamed and screamed) and then picked up the phone to call Jenny and ask her if she could please come to our house to pick Huck up instead. All of the sudden, I ripped my pants off because that baby was coming right then. Geoff did a double take, dropped the phone, and started said, "Come here baby! Come here baby!" Then he started yelling at the phone saying, "Jenny, I need you over here now!!" I felt like he was being a little bit forceful and told him to please stop yelling at Jenny. I pushed maybe two or three times and our little Lincoln was born at 12:24ish (we didn't actually look at a clock. Silly us, so preoccupied with delivering the baby). Geoff found us a big blanket, and we rubbed Lincoln's back because he refused to cry. He whimpered, but never really cried.
Finally, the ambulance got there and the paramedics came in ready to deliver a baby. I think they were secretly relieved that we had already done the hard part. One of the paramedics was a high school student who was training. She had super curly hair and stood at the end of the couch with wide eyes. Judging by the look in her eyes, I'm not entirely sure that she's going to make it as a paramedic. They cut the cord, I walked over and climbed onto the gurney (natural childbirth is the bomb), and they whisked us away to the hospital. Luckily, Jenny got there just as they were wheeling me out, and Huck got to go play with their family for a couple of days.
**Sidenote: Jenny, I'm sorry that Huck's bag wasn't packed and that we forgot to send him with diapers and shoes. You are the freaking bomb.
Once we got to the hospital, that's when the real fun began. They immediately took Lincoln from me (not cool people, not cool) and hooked us both up to machines to make sure we were alright. Lincoln was really healthy and really cute and really squishy and really swollen. We called him "Squeegee" for the first few days.
The nurse was really annoyed when I asked her to please wait until my contraction was over to give me the IV and proceeded to stick my leg with a syringe full of Pitocin. <Pitocin is almost always given after the baby is born and the placenta is delivered. In the hospital they don't usually tell you that they are doing it, they just stick it in your IV. Because I refuse to have IV's, they didn't give it to me with Huck. I think they were panicking a little bit because they weren't sure what on earth had happened at home> Not cool again people! Not cool. Eventually I delivered the placenta, they stitched me up, and I got to get my baby back.
Everything went pretty great in the hospital (barring the fact that I didn't have any clothes and had to wear one of those yucky hospital gowns for a few hours. And that's not vanity, that's just the truth). At one point, while I was holding Lincoln, I started to see black and my blood pressure started plummeting. I begged Geoff to make sure that I woke up. The nurses came in and flipped me upside down and kept me that way for a while, which seemed to stabilize things. Geoff told me later that my lips were totally white when they came in. I lost some extra blood with Huck and they think I lost quite a bit of blood when I delivered Lincoln - more than the average woman does. It was hard to say because they weren't actually there and couldn't actually see it, but based on my blood count and the fact that I was failing my blood pressure tests (I think my first reading was 70/40 or something ridiculous like that (I was too busy passing out to make a note) they concluded that I lost quite a bit of blood).
I continued to fail my blood pressure tests that they took, but I felt pretty great other than some intense dizziness. The doctor told me that I really needed to have a blood transfusion, but I REALLY didn't want one (stupid decision, next time I will totally do the transfusion). Postpartum hormones are nuts and make me nuts and it sounds really funny, but I really felt like I just got the first person out of me, I really didn't want them sticking another person in me. Luckily, Lincoln was really really healthy, and so we were able to be discharged after 24 hours. And that was that. Our little Lincoln was here and he was healthy and we are living life and still laughing about the whole thing.
In summary:
*Geoff is a rock. There is no way I could have done it without him and I am so grateful everyday that he walked into my office at BYU. He was such a rock through everything and even chose a pretty fantastic new couch while I was still at the hospital. I will say that this was such an incredible experience that we got to share together and I am so grateful for it.
*Yes, we realize in retrospect how many things could have gone wrong, and we are so incredibly blessed that they didn't. I firmly believe that there were angels with us through the entire thing, keeping us all calm and healthy.
*Now that I have done a home birth, it definitely has its perks. Will I be doing it again? Definitely not out of choice. I would so much rather there be doctors around in case things did go terribly wrong. Plus, Huck was a great labor companion and all, but I'm pretty sure the nurses wouldn't be honking my nose through my contractions. I've said a hundred times that I am a firm believer in natural childbirth, in a hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses.
*Our couch was bleached so many times that I can't even count them, and I refuse to let Geoff sell it (I'm ridiculously sentimental. RIDICULOUSLY), so it's sitting in our bedroom.
*Ultimately, we have our really cute little Lincoln and I am so grateful. Also, I'm pretty sure I will never have another labor that will go quite as smoothly as this one did, and so I'm grateful that I got to experience what a two hour labor actually feels like.
![]()
![]()
![]()
I've been putting off writing Lincoln's birth story for nine months now. Not because it was awful or traumatic or even boring. Simply because I feel like birth stories are so personal and such special spiritual experiences. They are something that I like to keep to myself and in my own little heart. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about Lincoln's birth lately - like it's keeping me up all night thinking about it, and so I think it might be time to share it.
Lincoln's pregnancy was hard on me. Not because I was sick or high risk or any of the normal reasons pregnancy is hard on people. In fact, except for the whole, "Your baby has really funny looking feet and maybe a few other things," it went pretty great. But I think emotionally that I was spent. I was so worried about things being wrong with him, in addition to the fact that I am one of the lucky few women who tend to get really depressed towards the end of pregnancy. Luckily, it's not anything a little bit of Zoloft can't fix (and for those of you about to open your mouths and tell me about the links between birth defects and autism and all sorts of stuff, you can just keep them closed. I already know. Plus, because I didn't start taking it until 30 weeks, I already knew my baby was already going to be funny looking, I figured it couldn't get much worse).
Anyway, I woke up on April 14 feeling kind of off. That wasn't too unusual though, as I hadn't been able to sleep for the past nine months. Seriously, I spent most of the nights in the guest bed, which was probably one of our best investments ever. Huck had a speech therapy appointment in our home that morning, so I hurried and cleaned things up and we had his appointment. I would like to add at this point in the story that I had desperately been praying that I would be able to go into labor during the day. I had labored through the night with Huck and I really didn't want to do that again. The speech therapist left and we made some waffles. At this point, I had my first contraction. Like, my first contraction during my entire pregnancy. It was 10:30. I called Geoff under the guise that I was going to tell him about Huck's appointment, but really I was so dang excited that something was happening! While I was talking to him, I had two more. I was only 38 weeks, so I really wasn't expecting anything. I was at the "my hospital bag isn't even close to being packe" not expecting anything" stage. As soon as I hung up the phone, I started timing my contractions. By my fourth contraction, they were strong enough that I couldn't talk through them. I turned on Daniel Tiger for Huck (talk about relaxing background music!), and laid down on our couch. They were coming between three and four minutes apart and lasting one to two minutes each. That was a good sign. I was still convinced I couldn't possibly be having a baby that day. It was just too good.
Within just a few minutes, it got to where I couldn't move at all while laying down or else it would set off a string of hard and intense contractions in addition to the ones I was already having. And I was absolutely freezing during my contractions. I didn't know that this was a thing until I was watching Parenthood a few weeks before and it was randomly mentioned in one of the episodes. It's a thing. Parenthood is real. I let this go on for an hour and then called Geoff and let him know that I was having contractions about four minutes apart and that's when they say you should probably go to the hospital to get checked out. He said he would be on his way and I kept reassuring him that I wasn't possibly having a baby today, but maybe he could come home and pack the hospital bag and then go back to work. It was 11:30.
At this point, Huck had had enough of this labor crap. He wanted to play! Because I was stuck on the couch, he spent his time jumping up and down on my hips, pulling my hair, and honking my nose. You can't make this stuff up! Finally, I had a break that lasted close to seven minutes. I even moved around to try and get things started again, but there was nothing. I picked up my phone to call Geoff and tell him to turn around and go back to work when my water broke. All over our couch. Oh, if only that was the worst thing that ended up on our couch.
I immediately stopped timing my contractions and called him to let him know that he needed to get home because we were having a baby. For those of you who know, I had Huck naturally and swore I would have all of my babies naturally. At least until I'm in transition, then I swear that I absolutely can't do it anymore and that I need an epidural. And that's what happened when I called Geoff. After I had been in labor for one hour and forty-five minutes. I thought I was wimpy. I turns out I really was going through transition.
Geoff stayed on the phone with me at this point to make sure I was okay and was reassuring me that I could definitely do this and I was going to be in labor for hours and hours (helpful Babe, helpful). He also would get a little bit concerned every time I stopped talking during a contraction (contrary to popular belief, I don't actually scream or moan or groan during contractions. I get quiet. Really quiet). He called my friend Jenny who had volunteered to watch Huck while I was at the hospital. He and her daughter Ainsley (who is five years older than him) are pretty much soul mate best friends. Geoff walked in the door at 12:05 and I told him that there was no way I was going to make it to the hospital in Tulsa and that we were going to have to go to the hospital here. I think he thought that I was being melodramatic. I thought I was being melodramatic. Luckily for me, I married probably the best guy out there, and he agreed that we would go to the hospital a few minutes away.
He started shuffling around, packing stuff up and bringing Huck back in from the garage about 1,000 times when I realized that I needed to push. It was 12:10 at this point and there was no way that I needed to push. I was definitely remembering this whole labor thing incorrectly. At 12:15 Geoff said that it was time to get in the car (we needed to drop Huck off at Jenny's before we got there). I told him that there was no way I could get in the car and that he needed to call an ambulance.
I will never forget this moment, because I could see in his eyes that he thought that I was nuts and that we didn't need to call an ambulance and that it was going to cost us a billion dollars (I was thinking all of the same things. I'm pretty sure there were angels talking me through talking him through this whole thing). So he called the ambulance, flustered enough at this point that he forgot our address. They asked if I was crowning (which I wasn't) and then hung up with him and said they would be there soon. He put Huck in his crib (who screamed and screamed and screamed) and then picked up the phone to call Jenny and ask her if she could please come to our house to pick Huck up instead. All of the sudden, I ripped my pants off because that baby was coming right then. Geoff did a double take, dropped the phone, and started said, "Come here baby! Come here baby!" Then he started yelling at the phone saying, "Jenny, I need you over here now!!" I felt like he was being a little bit forceful and told him to please stop yelling at Jenny. I pushed maybe two or three times and our little Lincoln was born at 12:24ish (we didn't actually look at a clock. Silly us, so preoccupied with delivering the baby). Geoff found us a big blanket, and we rubbed Lincoln's back because he refused to cry. He whimpered, but never really cried.
Finally, the ambulance got there and the paramedics came in ready to deliver a baby. I think they were secretly relieved that we had already done the hard part. One of the paramedics was a high school student who was training. She had super curly hair and stood at the end of the couch with wide eyes. Judging by the look in her eyes, I'm not entirely sure that she's going to make it as a paramedic. They cut the cord, I walked over and climbed onto the gurney (natural childbirth is the bomb), and they whisked us away to the hospital. Luckily, Jenny got there just as they were wheeling me out, and Huck got to go play with their family for a couple of days.
**Sidenote: Jenny, I'm sorry that Huck's bag wasn't packed and that we forgot to send him with diapers and shoes. You are the freaking bomb.
Once we got to the hospital, that's when the real fun began. They immediately took Lincoln from me (not cool people, not cool) and hooked us both up to machines to make sure we were alright. Lincoln was really healthy and really cute and really squishy and really swollen. We called him "Squeegee" for the first few days.
The nurse was really annoyed when I asked her to please wait until my contraction was over to give me the IV and proceeded to stick my leg with a syringe full of Pitocin. <Pitocin is almost always given after the baby is born and the placenta is delivered. In the hospital they don't usually tell you that they are doing it, they just stick it in your IV. Because I refuse to have IV's, they didn't give it to me with Huck. I think they were panicking a little bit because they weren't sure what on earth had happened at home> Not cool again people! Not cool. Eventually I delivered the placenta, they stitched me up, and I got to get my baby back.
Everything went pretty great in the hospital (barring the fact that I didn't have any clothes and had to wear one of those yucky hospital gowns for a few hours. And that's not vanity, that's just the truth). At one point, while I was holding Lincoln, I started to see black and my blood pressure started plummeting. I begged Geoff to make sure that I woke up. The nurses came in and flipped me upside down and kept me that way for a while, which seemed to stabilize things. Geoff told me later that my lips were totally white when they came in. I lost some extra blood with Huck and they think I lost quite a bit of blood when I delivered Lincoln - more than the average woman does. It was hard to say because they weren't actually there and couldn't actually see it, but based on my blood count and the fact that I was failing my blood pressure tests (I think my first reading was 70/40 or something ridiculous like that (I was too busy passing out to make a note) they concluded that I lost quite a bit of blood).
I continued to fail my blood pressure tests that they took, but I felt pretty great other than some intense dizziness. The doctor told me that I really needed to have a blood transfusion, but I REALLY didn't want one (stupid decision, next time I will totally do the transfusion). Postpartum hormones are nuts and make me nuts and it sounds really funny, but I really felt like I just got the first person out of me, I really didn't want them sticking another person in me. Luckily, Lincoln was really really healthy, and so we were able to be discharged after 24 hours. And that was that. Our little Lincoln was here and he was healthy and we are living life and still laughing about the whole thing.
In summary:
*Geoff is a rock. There is no way I could have done it without him and I am so grateful everyday that he walked into my office at BYU. He was such a rock through everything and even chose a pretty fantastic new couch while I was still at the hospital. I will say that this was such an incredible experience that we got to share together and I am so grateful for it.
*Yes, we realize in retrospect how many things could have gone wrong, and we are so incredibly blessed that they didn't. I firmly believe that there were angels with us through the entire thing, keeping us all calm and healthy.
*Now that I have done a home birth, it definitely has its perks. Will I be doing it again? Definitely not out of choice. I would so much rather there be doctors around in case things did go terribly wrong. Plus, Huck was a great labor companion and all, but I'm pretty sure the nurses wouldn't be honking my nose through my contractions. I've said a hundred times that I am a firm believer in natural childbirth, in a hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses.
*Our couch was bleached so many times that I can't even count them, and I refuse to let Geoff sell it (I'm ridiculously sentimental. RIDICULOUSLY), so it's sitting in our bedroom.
*Ultimately, we have our really cute little Lincoln and I am so grateful. Also, I'm pretty sure I will never have another labor that will go quite as smoothly as this one did, and so I'm grateful that I got to experience what a two hour labor actually feels like.
