Sharing birth stories is always vulnerable. However, I know how helpful it has been for me during each of my pregnancies, to read others’ birth stories as a way to prepare for my own births ahead. Each of my births have been extremely unique, and none of them have gone as I prepared & planned for. Rhys’s story takes the cake for being extreme in both the birth AND the postpartum healing journey. Way to go, bud. You owe me a cupcake.

I share this in hopes of encouraging others that although birth is full of the unexpected, it is still a beautiful gift from God and IT IS WORTH IT. No matter how you deliver, no matter how you and the baby make it through - it is worth it! I never want my story to instill fear about pregnancy or birth - this is simply my truth and I share it only to encourage others that the unexpected CAN and WILL happen during birth, but you are more than able to handle it. Giving birth has taught me how freaking awesome I am. How tough I am. If I could give my former, pre-mother self ANY advice, I would tell her to be brave and be prepared for the things she least expects. I would tell her to lean into her gut instincts when she is faced with difficult decisions. I would tell her that she is absolutely stronger than she imagines she ever could be. And I would tell her to pray pray pray because God is very present during birth and he answers prayers - it just sometimes looks differently than you would expect.

Here’s my birth story with Rhys.

On November 9, 2019, I couldn’t help it - I was up early. The sun was streaming through the fingerprint-streaked windows. I showered, dried my hair, even applied makeup. Because I knew today was one of the most important days of my life - I would be meeting my baby on this very day! Today! Rhys was going to be born! I was going to be holding him today!

Let me tell you how I knew.

A BIT OF BACKGROUND.

This pregnancy was a challenging one for me. My pregnancy and delivery with my second son Daxton resulted in an emergency c-section (he was 9 lbs. 8 oz.), so I was being watched closely during these 9 months. I was seeing a high-risk specialist to make sure Rhys was growing well and wasn’t getting too big, too quickly in my belly. I watched my weight, cut out sugar, and exercised in an attempt to slow the weight gain, but I know now it didn’t make enough of a difference.

Near the end of the third trimester Rhys’ weight was being monitored and we were counting down the days to my due date. I was getting nervous that he was going to be “too big” to deliver. My doctors didn’t want him reaching a certain threshold of weight (I’m choosing not to share the exact amount because I know everyone has different sized babies and I don’t want to put a number in anyone’s head that could create a weight complex) - but for me and my baby, there was a certain weight they didn’t want to see the baby approach, and I was getting close to it. Very close. In the final weeks of my pregnancy, I felt like I was racing the clock. Trying not to gain too much weight so that I could have a shot at delivering this baby via v-bac. Otherwise there was a c-section scheduled on my due date. Because my first birth with Everett was a vaginal delivery, and my healing process was infinitely better than it was with the c-section, I wanted to give myself the best opportunity to have the baby vaginally.

Side note - typing “vaginally” is making me chuckle. I’m 32 years and apparently as mature as a middle school boy. Lord have mercy.

So about 10 days before my due date, I am NERVOUS. I am doing all the things to induce birth but nothing is working. Little boy just wanted to stay inside (I can’t blame him - it must be so cozy in the womb). My doctors understood my plight and wanted to work with me to give me the best shot at having a successful v-bac, so they encouraged me to call them as soon as I was having any contractions that were relatively consistent. They said as soon as I was having those, I could come into the hospital to have an “augmentation”, which isn’t a full induction but is where they give you a bit of pitocin to move things along and HOPEFULLY work with your body to put it into full-blown labor. I was up the evening of Nov. 8 with consistent contractions so we called the doctor and they told me to come in the next morning, so that I could get a good night’s sleep (as best as I could), because the next day would be a lot of work and I wanted to be rested up for labor.

LABOR.

So now we are back to the morning of the 9th. I kissed my big boys goodbye, my mother-in-law came over to watch them, and me, Stevie, my mom and sister (my birth team!) all headed to the hospital. When we arrived at 9am there wasn’t 1 person in the maternity wing - no one was in labor! It was strangely serene. I forgot how glossy white the hospital is, how sterile the air. I got all checked in, met with the doctor and midwife who were on call, and they checked me. I was about 2-3 cm dilated and the baby was still high (meaning he hadn’t dropped.) They asked me questions, and we discussed a plan of action about how to approach the birth. We started by getting me hooked me up to a bit of pitocin. This was a far more medical approach than I had ever had in my previous births. I am used to going about things very naturally and medication-free. However, this was my chance to hopefully move things along so that I could give birth (instead of automatically going into a c-section), so I was ready to try anything to avoid another surgery.

Note - I have nothing against c-sections. They are wonderful procedures that can absolutely save lives, and I am SO grateful that I was able to deliver this way previously. It saved me and my baby. However, the recovery is HARD, so for me, it wasn’t the optimal way that I preferred to deliver this time around.

So there I was. In the thin blue hospital gown, ice chips at my bedside, Jonnyswim playing in my headphones. Diffusing my favorite essential oil combination - Balance and Wild Orange. Stevie flipping through the TV channels, trying to find me an episode of Fixer Upper. Because he’s just the best. Soon the contractions became consistent, so the anesthesiologist arrived to give me an epidural. They began bumping up my pitocin every hour after that, and the strange thing was that although I felt numbness in my legs from the epidural, I was still feeling the pain of every single contraction. I felt the pain swelling in my back (I always seem to have back labor), and after about 2 hours I was feeling it sharply in my front abdomen as well. The pain was consistent with the contractions - it felt like laboring without an epidural. I shared this with the doctor and midwife, so they brought the anesthesiologist back in to check on me. He sat in the room with me while I labored, closely watching the screen that tracked my contractions, and every single contraction was getting more and more intense. I changed positions, used the yoga ball and peanut ball, ate ice chips, squeezed all the hands and arms and other available appendages of my wonderful birth team as they took turns with me, but I wasn’t getting the relief that I thought was supposed to come from an epidural.

Note - My labor and delivery with Everett was medication-free, so I knew what it felt like to labor without an epidural. I had gotten an epidural with Daxton at about the 18-hour mark in my labor with him, so I remember the sensation of an epidural. However, even then, I remember feeling my contractions - just in a calmed-down way from laboring without an epidural.

I remember telling my doctor - “I have a lot of friends who get epidurals and then take a nap - there is NO WAY I could take a nap right now. Is this normal??” At one point I heard the anesthesiologist tell the doctor, “She had her first baby without an epidural, so I know she’s tough. But she’s clearly in pain.” They were all trying to figure out why I was feeling so much pain, even with so much medication pulsing through my body. Fun times, can’t you tell?

As we were trying to manage the pain, it seemed that my labor was progressing - very slowly. Each hour or so throughout the day I was checked and dilating - from 2 cm to 3 and 4 and 5 and so on. This was good news! Even though I was laboring and it was painful and hard, it was clearly productive! I kept telling myself I could live with the pain. But as the hours went by it was such hard work and I was starting to get weary. I knew I needed to save my energy to push once I reached 10 cm, so I was anxious to make it to 10 cm soon. When was my baby going to come?

I labored all day.

By the evening the anesthesiologist was still with us, watching the screen like a hawk. He had been with me for hours. At one point, Stevie said to him, “I know that your time is valuable - is there a reason why you are still here?” It was kind of an abrupt ask, but also, we were all thinking that - why was he still here? Was there something wrong? Why wasn’t the epidural working?!

No one knew. It’s really fun being a science experiment.

The anesthesiologist, doctor and midwife all consulted and gave me some options. They could a) take out the epidural and try again. Perhaps it just wasn’t positioned perfectly?, b) they could administer a spinal tap instead of the epidural (sometimes this works better for certain people), or c) um, i don’t remember c. #mombrain

All the while, even though my cervix had been dilating throughout the day, it seemed that I wasn’t getting effaced and the baby wasn’t dropping either - he was still very high up. Once I reached 7 cm, my midwife went ahead and broke my water, which we all believed would help dilate me even faster. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case - my dilation stalled at 7 cm and never progressed after that. At this point my contractions were so intense and painful that I was having trouble speaking or even seeing clearly. In between my contractions I was able to have a small sip of water or some ice, but nothing was helping the intensity or pain anymore. And I’m kind of a joke-y person but there was NOTHING funny going on in that room.

The doctor came in at about 9pm and had a frank conversation with me. She said that I needed to continue dilating and my cervix needed to soften/efface. She said she was going to come back in an hour to check me, but if I hadn’t progressed by then we would need to talk about our options. I knew what that meant. “Our options”. I had spent so much time and energy over the past 9 months doing everything in my power to avoid a repeat c-section, and yet here we were - it was looming ahead. And I wasn’t in control. There was nothing I could do to move things along.

I was frustrated that my body didn’t seem to be responding to the pain medication or continuing to dilate. Why why why. I kept talking to my body and telling myself, “open open open!” I repeated my verses to myself. I listened to Kanye’s new album. I prayed. Stevie prayed. Mom prayed. Rachel prayed (very nervously). Poor Rachel, she was really wigged out by this whole situation.

I had a conversation with my maker. I asked God to make it very clear to me what I should do next. I told Him that I needed to dilate and progress further by the time the doctor returned (as if He didn’t already know that) OR if I didn’t, that I would go ahead and opt for the c-section. I didn’t want to waste anymore energy. I asked Him to make it very very clear to me because I didn’t have the energy to decipher anything confusing. I wasn’t in the mood for a mixed message.

I continued to labor for that hour and it was my most difficult hour yet. When the doctor returned and checked me, she informed me that I hadn’t progressed at all - AT ALL. No further dilation, the baby still remained high, and my cervix wasn’t softened.

How’s that for clarity.

I told you that God responds. It’s just not always the kind of answer we want. Amiright, church girls??

The doctor said she believed that I would continue to dilate throughout the night if we stayed on this same course - but because the baby hadn’t dropped at all throughout the day, it was a very real possibility that we would end up in a c-section by tomorrow morning anyway. She was concerned about me laboring for more hours with the potential of a c-section ahead. She and midwife asked how I would like to proceed. I looked at Stevie. It was c-section time. I was flashing back to the exact moment during Daxton’s birth where we had to make THIS SAME DECISION. Different birth, but wildly similar scenario. Stalled at 7cm again. I felt so much peace with the decision to move forward with the c-section (which might sound crazy but its true), but Stevie was upset - he began peppering the doctor with all sorts of questions about why this happened this way and how we could possibly attempt a longer labor. I had to interject and tell him I simply didn’t have it in me to labor all night. This girl was tired. I had used almost all my energy by then, laboring for so long with what felt like no epidural.

Note - A long labor followed by an emergency c-section is what made my recovery with Daxton’s birth so difficult and made for a long recovery - the last thing you want to do is have a long labor and then have a c-section, because the healing process takes FOREVER. (I felt like like it took me 2 years to heal from Daxton’s birth.)

I didn’t want to repeat the kind of birth I had with Daxton. I had already been laboring for 12+ hours at this point, with no end in sight. We decided that a c-section was the course of action we would take, so they began prepping me for surgery. We were all sorts of bummed (the doc and midwife included), but I felt like God was giving me so much peace in spite of the circumstance so I just leaned into that.

Delivery.

Then my dad arrived! He brought me the post-delivery meal I had hoped for (cheeseburger and fries from Palmers), but unfortunately when he arrived he knew that we wouldn’t be chowing down anytime soon. He came into the delivery room as they were prepping me for the surgery and you know what - I needed to see him. He was so wonderful, comforting me and joking with me in the kind of humor that only we share. You know when your family gets you and knows that you just need to laugh? That’s exactly what my dad brought. At one point I was having a contraction and he held my hand through it - he was exactly what I needed after a long day laboring in that room. And then like a flash I was whisked off to the OR as I waved goodbye to my parents and my sis - Stevie was planning to join me for the c-section, so the nurses were getting him suited up. Or scrubbed in. What is the medical lingo for that??

The bright fluorescent lights of the OR blinded me. Suddenly I was naked, and there were about 10 people milling around in the room, as if it were so normal to have a huge naked women laid out on a table. Several nurses gathered at the foot of the table, glancing at me and quietly discussing. They were busy swabbing me, compiling materials, gathering and fetching and prepping. But one of them stopped and said, “Honey, you are SO big. You shouldn’t feel bad about getting this c-section - we see women in here everyday and your belly is so much bigger than most.” Who doesn’t love being naked and being told this? What a trophy I have, me and my HUGE belly. I’m kidding. Sort of.

Here’s the thing about c-sections - they use the epidural to numb you for the surgery. Remember how my epidural wasn’t working? The friendly anesthesiologist was back by my side, explaining exactly how this procedure was going to work. I reminded him that during my previous c-section, the pain medication hadn’t worked on me and I had to go under general anesthesia for the delivery. He said they weren’t going to have to do that - hopefully - and proceeded to turn up my epidural medication. But I knew it wouldn’t work. I just knew it. This whole situation was so familiar it was eerie.

Once the doctor arrived she asked the room if I was ready and the team announced - almost! She looked at me and very calmly began to explain what she was going to do. I informed her that I wasn’t numb yet, and she looked at the anesthesiologist questioningly. She continued to talk to me and asked me a few questions, and then she did something very freaky and yet impressive. In the middle of our conversation, mid-sentence - she reached down pinched me right where the incision was going to be made. She pinched me hard. I screamed-slash-howled SO LOUD. She looked up at the room and said, “Okay, she’s not numb at all - we need to go to general anesthesia.” I was very impressed at how she deduced my level of numbness. It’s a pretty smart trick - I bet so many women * think * they aren’t numb in this situation when they really are - so it’s a clever way to find out. Unfortunately this meant that Stevie couldn’t be part of the birth - this was the second time that he had scrubbed in for a c-section birth and then was told at the door he couldn’t attend. I’ll never know what the felt like for him. On my side of the door, the poor anesthesiologist was profusely apologizing, saying that he didn’t know why the epidural wasn’t working for me, that this happens to less than 1% of women. I was thinking, “what a situation to be so special - I would really rather be fitting in with the crowd right now.”

They began counting down backward from 10. All I remember is getting to 3, and then there was nothing.

Recovery.

I woke up and my vision was blurry. Limbs were numb. Throat hurt. Tubes in my nose. One of the sweet nurses was at my bedside, talking very chipper to me, but I don’t remember what she said. Something about the surgery going well, something about baby boy being with daddy. I don’t remember the moment they brought him in, but suddenly he was in my arms, warm and chunky and beautiful and soft. He found my breast, he was nursing, it was all happening. He absolutely felt a part of me. Awe. Warmth. Completion. My boy was here, he was outside of my body. He was here. He was the most beautiful thing.

Elated, exhausted, elated, exhausted. The days that followed in the hospital were consuming. Recovery from a c-section is powerfully hard. But I remember being served strawberry jello and chocolate pudding and chicken noodle soup, and man, did those things GIVE ME LIFE.

My mom brought Everett & Daxton to meet Rhys at the hospital, and the boys were mesmerized by their new baby brother. He was so quiet, they were so rowdy. But when they first laid eyes on him, Daxton’s smile for his brother lit the room with sunshine, while Everett’s stoic seriousness painted the story of his process. He was the big brother of this tribe of little guys. This was his little brother. The realization, the responsibility, the wonder, all of it expressed in his face - I watched him grow up in this brief moment. I realized that this birth wasn’t just my story or Rhys’, but all of our story. One of our family growing up, growing into the next season. Transition. All of us grew up with Rhys’ arrival.

And of course, Stevie is just perfect with him. Rhys looks so unbelievably small in his big arms.

Rhys David Hale
Born 10:45pm, 11/9/2019
8 lb., 12 oz., 19 inches

Rhys (pronounced “Reese”) is a Welsh name, meaning fiery, passionate warrior. David means beloved.

For all of you who have shared in this journey with my family, thank you for your excitement for us, for the support, encouragement, and prayers along the way! It is surreal to be here, surrounded by more testosterone than I could have ever imagined, raising this family of boys. I am overwhelmed by the love I feel and by the mercy of God Himself, who has been present with me in these most tumultuous, traumatic and tremendous moments of my life. Giving birth to my babies.

My healing process has been an entirely other story, one that I will save for a separate post. But for now, an endless thank you for being here.