I’m slightly behind in getting this post out, but it’s for a good reason; baby arrived last week!

Last Tuesday (4/14 – 10 days until due date) I woke up around 3 a.m. with what ultimately ended up being real contractions, but that early in the morning I wasn’t sure. I went back to sleep eventually and started my day of work/wife-ing/momming/schooling. Contractions continued throughout the day, but were inconsistent in frequency and intensity so I kept an eye on them, but kept trucking along.

In the afternoon, I had some calls for work I needed to be on, so I jumped on my two hours of conference calls, and just kept right on working even though I was super uncomfortable. After my last call, I was walking around and realized that the pain was getting much more intense and happening much more frequently. We decided to call my doctor and head to the hospital around 4 o’clock.

The hospital experience was pretty surreal. Everyone was in masks, we were both screened before going back to triage and they had security standing in the lobby. We arrived in triage, they sent my bloodwork back to the lab so we could get my epidural started as quickly as possible and I got changed into my labor gown. They checked me out and confirmed baby was head down, my water was definitely ready to break and I was dilated to 6.5 cm – it was time to have this baby!

The doctor was called, I was moved to my delivery room, I got my epidural and then we waited for the doctor so we could get this show on the road. While we were waiting, baby decided to do some gymnastics – she has been super active my entire pregnancy – and she flipped into a footling breech position, which means she was now feet first instead of head first. That’s a problem for multiple reasons, but it was a bigger problem if my water decided to break right then.

They told me to stay very still to make sure that didn’t happen and called the OR – we were headed back for a c-section; urgently. I was nervous and scared and disappointed because this was not the experience I had planned for, but honestly, these last five weeks haven’t been anything I’ve planned for, so what’s one more curveball in a sea of absurdity, right?

The doctors walked and talked me through everything that was about to happen/was happening and they sent Brett to get geared up so he could join us in the OR; I will be forever thankful he was able to be there with me. About three hours after arriving at the hospital, The Trilogy was born at 7:12 pm weighing 6 lbs 3oz. She was healthy and safe – and that’s all we could really ask for.

We only spent a couple days at the hospital because I wanted to be home with the boys and sleep in my own bed. We got home Thursday afternoon and everyone is slowly settling in to our new life as a family of five. Biggest brother is OBSESSED with his little sister. He gets so excited when she comes into a room. Little big brother mostly likes her, but there is some jealously happening for sure, and he doesn’t understand why I can’t pick him up. That part is hard on both of us.

Not being able to have the experiences I wanted during these last five weeks has been really hard. It seems incredibly unfair and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that was disappointed about the final weeks before The Trilogy arrived. She deserved so much more than we were allowed to give her. And deserves so much more than we can give her now while our stay home orders are extended through part of May. The one saving grace in all of this, especially because of having a c-section, is that Brett’s parents have been able to help us. I’m not sure what life would look like right now if we would have had to figure all of this out, on the fly.

When we were putting our logistics plan together, I never even considered what a c-section plan would look like, because it didn’t cross my mind that I could even need one. The healing process this time around definitely feels a lot harder. And the meds they prescribed me gave me the worst headache, so that was a rough couple of days.

There are a lot of things that didn’t happen with this pregnancy that I will forever be sad about, but at the end of the day, I have a beautiful, healthy, safe baby and that’s the best I could ask for during all of this, pandemic or not.

But missing out on some of the more material elements of pregnancy and delivery (like parties, and pictures, and visitors) almost make me want to try this one more time. Almost.