Adlavie Beth was born on November 7, 2020, at 12:54AM. She came 7 days after her due date and was 7 pounds + 13 oz, and 20 inches long at the time of her birth.

It’s been three beautiful months since Adlavie came into our lives, and I’m finally feeling up to writing her birth story! What a crazy year it has been between my pregnancy and adjusting to having a newborn again. Ben and I decided to start trying for a baby last winter and had a positive pregnancy test after about three months! I was very excited and nervous going into this pregnancy because of how stressful my pregnancy and delivery was with Aimery. When I was pregnant with Aimery, I was measuring very small and almost needed to be induced out of fear that he stopped growing at six months of pregnancy. I also had prodromal labor with him for the weeks leading up to his birth, and had a traumatic, natural labor with him for over 12 hours. Everything combined made me extremely nervous with how my pregnancy and delivery would be with Adlavie, but thankfully I had a much better experience with this pregnancy.

I decided to announce my pregnancy to my family, friends, and Instagram fam when I was 7 weeks pregnant. Since I was sharing about my TTC journey on Instagram, it just didn’t seem right to keep it a secret after confirming my pregnancy with my midwife! Plus, I had really bad morning sickness so it would have been hard to hide! I spent a month eating just toast and cereal and spending a lot of my days in bed. During my first trimester is when the world shut down due to the pandemic, so thankfully spending my days at home was easy to do during quarantine. I spent about two months at home without leaving the house at all. During this time, no one knew much about what was going on, so we were taking every precaution necessary to keep me and baby girl safe during this time.

During my second trimester, I craved lots of Chick-Fil-A lemonade, took a sneak peek gender test and found out that our baby was a girl, and learned that I am anemic which was causing me to feel faint throughout my pregnancy! It was also during my second trimester that I realized that again, I was measuring a lot smaller than normal. I recently found out that the reason for this is actually because I have a retroverted uterus, which means my uterus is tilted backwards and the baby grows inward for the first six months of pregnancy. I actually did everything I could to angle my instagram photos to show a bigger bump. The photo below I was 7 months pregnant and pushing out as much as I could - LOL!

My third trimester brought lots of exhaustion and worry as my due date came and went. It was definitely hard to navigate decision making when it came to when to induce since I was alone at my appointments due to C***D regulations. Ben was only able to attend one appointment with me throughout my entire pregnancy, and when it was time for those after due date appointments, I was left making decisions for our baby girl alone with my midwife. Being pregnant during a pandemic was not easy, and I feel so bad for all the first time moms that were unable to bring a support person with them during their pregnancy.

I started to experience contractions and went into false labor on October 23rd, a week before my Halloween due date. I went to my midwife appointment and found that I was only 1cm dilated. On November 1st, I began having contractions up to 12 hours at a time for 30 minutes apart. It was very clear that I was going to have prolonged labor with this baby as well! I had an ultrasound on November 3rd and a nonstress test, and this was the only appointment that Ben was able to come along too. Everything looked fine at this appointment and we left with a positive mindset that Adlavie just needed some more time before entering the world! I spent the next few days getting ahead in work, resting, and watching lots of netflix.

On November 6th, I went in for another ultrasound and nonstress test. Things took a dramatic turn when the ultrasound tech found that my amniotic fluids were dangerously low. They scheduled me for their next available induction the next day. Before I left, I asked if they could do a quick exam to check if I was progressing at all. I ended up being 4 cm dilated and had the doctor strip my membranes in hopes to move things along. I was instructed to go home, take a walk, and try everything I could to progress the labor before my induction the next day.

After my 30 minute drive home, I could start feeling contractions the second I walked in the door. I thought they could be just cramps from the membrane strip so I went about my day and started doing some laundry and packing last minute things in my hospital bag. Ben and Aims headed outside in hopes to get some of Aimery’s energy out and went for a walk and played with scooters. I soon realized that they were in fact contractions, and they were getting a lot stronger, so I thought I would let my mom know to start getting ready to come over to pick up Aimery. I turned on the shower in hopes to calm down and relax for a bit before she arrived. Right after I turned the water on, it felt like my water broke, and the next contraction brought me to my knees. I knew at that point I was going into real labor!

I called Ben and said that my “water” broke (we’ll soon find out this was the rest of my amniotic fluid) and asked him to get us packed up to leave. This is when things really took a turn, I all of a sudden felt like I was in the transitional stage of labor and felt an urge to push! I frantically called my mom telling her to hurry over here since we still needed to make another 30 minute car ride to the hospital. I was doing my best to stay calm and breathe through my contractions upstairs and Aimery was asking Ben every single question about what was happening - as if we haven’t been talking to him about this for the last nine months, LOL.

When my parents arrived, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and I still was feeling an urge to push. Ben and I started rushing to the hospital! At one point during our trip, I looked over at Ben and told him that this baby was coming in the car. I’ll never forget the look on his face! Honestly, everything after this seems like a blur until we made it to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, I felt like no one was really taking me seriously when I told them that I felt like I needed to push (why don’t they listen to the moms, anyway?). They took their time checking me in a separate room then Ben was waiting in, and even had me WALK to the room where they would be checking dilation, assuring me that I probably haven’t progressed in under 2 hours. The doctor was shocked to find that I was 8-9 cm dilated and quickly got me a C***D test between contractions and wheeled to the delivery room, urging me not to push! The test gave me so much anxiety leading up to birth, but ended up not being a big deal at all since it couldn’t even compare to the pain the contractions were giving me.

Once I got to the delivery room, it looked like a scene from the movies. At one point, there were 10 doctors running around the room doing everything they could to prepare for the baby while also getting the epidural ready in case I would have time to be given one. At this point, Ben started panicking asking when I would get an epidural because he saw how much pain I was in. I had them check me once again before administering the epidural in case I was 10cm along and ready to push. I was still 8cm so I decided to take the epidural. Because I didn’t get an epidural with Aimery, I was afraid of how badly it would hurt. It ended up not being nearly as bad as thought - but again I was in active labor at this point. After a few contractions I could no longer feel them except for small amounts of pressure that would come in waves. I couldn’t believe the relief I felt and the fact that I was able to laugh through my contractions with an epidural! I was no longer scared, just very excited to have our baby girl. I will definitely choose the epidural next time, for sure!

Things slowed down for a while and I was able to take a nap. Ben and I just hung out and spent a lot of time scrolling through Instagram and TikTok while processing all the crazy that happened before getting my epidural! I took some notes in my phone about everything that happened so I would have a timeline of events for this post, as well. I even drafted an instagram post and answered a few work emails during these few hours! I was honestly starting to get pretty bored 🤪

Ben and I were required to wear our masks in the room until my test came back negative. Once my test came back, I was able to take off my mask with just Ben and I in the room. However, I was told for the first time that I would have to wear a mask while pushing since there would be doctors in the delivery room. I was pretty upset that I would have to wear a mask while pushing and meeting my baby for the first time, especially since my test came back negative. Leading up to my labor, I was assured at every appointment this wouldn’t be the case at my chosen hospital! It was one of the many things that I had to adapt to while having a baby during this pandemic!

Our nurse was great about checking on me and was always stopping in to make sure I was staying hydrated and to see how I was progressing. She decided to break my water and give me pitocin at one point so my labor would progress and I wouldn’t be giving birth in the late hours of the night. I started to finally feel some pressure and she walked us through what to expect and reminded me how to push. She asked me to do a few practice pushes. After the second practice push, she urged me to stop pushing until they could get the midwife in since Adlavie was clearly on her way out! She did not want to deliver this baby on her own!

They brought the midwife in immediately and instructed me to push. She had me rock the baby out, which I believed is the reason why I did not need stitches after giving birth. She definitely knew what she was doing! After two quick pushes, the midwife saw that baby’s umbilical cord was loosely wrapped around her neck. She instructed me to push one more time because baby girl needed to come out! She looked over to Ben at this point and told him that he would be catching the baby, and he wasn’t ready for that - LOL.

The midwife told Ben to put one hand on her head and the other one under her prior to catching. I did my last push and with the midwife’s help, Ben put the baby on my chest at 12:54AM! After delayed cord clamping, Ben cut the umbilical cord. The nurses took her for just a minute to clean her while I delivered the placenta. She was then placed back on my chest for skin-to-skin and breastfeeding - Adlavie latched on her own right away! Towards the end of the first hour, I handed the baby over to Ben so he could also have some skin-to-skin time with Ads. We were simply so happy to finally have our beautiful girl in our arms.

After a few days at the hospital, we were able to check out early since I had no complications and we were ready to get home to Aimery. Both of my babies meeting each other for the first time is something I’ll never forget, Aimery was so excited to be a big brother. Keep scrolling for more photos!

Giving Birth During a Pandemic: Adlavie's Birth Story