Callista Anne’s Birth Story

Born on January 28th, 2017 at 3:14 a.m., 6 lbs 11 oz and 21 inches long. 

 

 

January 23rd, 2017 was our official due date. I was so certain I would’ve already had our little baby in our arms before our due date that I was convinced our little one would make his/her debut by the end of the day. The due date day had almost ended when mild contractions started. Anthony and I tracked them, and they were consistent enough for us to head to the hospital to make sure it was actually starting. After being monitored, to our disappointment, we were sent back home due to prodromal labor (a.k.a “false labor” even though it is everything but “false” feeling!). Well, that prodromal labor continued every 15-20 minutes for 4 long painful days. 

 

After exhausting every option to naturally induce labor, on the afternoon of January 27th, I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood yet again to try one last time to get labor going. By the time I made it to the bottom of the hill, my contractions went from every 15 minutes to every 7-10 minutes. By the time I got back home my contractions were every 5-7 minutes! I headed into my doctors office hoping they’d send me to the hospital, and was sent home to let labor progress and was told to plan on heading to the hospital that night once the contractions were more intense. Anthony met me at the doctors and we headed back home. We ate dinner, I walked a million laps around the house until the contractions were steadily 4-5 minutes apart. Anthony started a shower for me, but by the time I made it up the stairs, I knew there was no way I’d be able to get out of the shower if I got in and it was FINALLY time to go to the hospital. 

 

My favorite doctor was on-call and waiting for us when we arrived. We got to bypass triage and head straight to our hospital suite – this was REALLY happening! We officially checked in around 8:00 p.m. We tried to sleep when we could, but by 7:00 a.m. things weren’t really progressing as much as we had hoped. 

 

My goal was to have a delivery room filled with smiles, laughter, and hopefully have a natural birth…but I was not going to beat myself up if I needed to turn to medications to help things happen safely.  Our wonderful doula, Maggie of Budding Branches Birth Support, made her way to the hospital in the morning. Maggie was an absolute angel to have by our side during this entire process…the moment she arrived she helped me start exercises to help kick up my contractions. Unfortunately I wasn’t dilating enough and I needed to start Pitocin, which made the painful contractions that much more intense. I decided to accept some pain medications to help take the edge off just a bit in the hopes that I could avoid an epidural. Well, by about 5:30 p.m., after over 24 hours of back labor, I was walking the hospital halls with Anthony and Maggie when I made the decision to have the epidural…the pain was just too much to handle for such a long time. By 7:00 p.m., our little one was still in the wrong position (back was to my stomach), and if he/she didn’t turn I would potentially have to have a c-section. Thankfully Maggie and one of the nurses helped me get into position and after over an hour of trying to flip the baby, we were successful! 

 

Finally, by about 11:30 p.m., I was fully dilated and it was time to get ready to start pushing, ironically right when my epidural had completely worn off (I guess there’s that “natural” delivery I wanted, right?!). In my mind, after being in labor for over 30 hours, pushing would be the fast part and we’d finally meet our little one and find out if it was a boy or a girl! Good grief, was I wrong! Over 3 hours later, my doctor asked me to reach down to help deliver my baby into the world, which was the greatest surprise and most magical moment of my life. At 3:14 a.m. on January 28th, my husband announced that we had a baby girl! Our daughter Callista Anne finally joined the world and we would never be the same. 

 

Callista (Callie) Anne has brought a level of love into our lives we never knew possible. She is named after my grandmother, Callie, and has the same middle name as myself and my mom. She’s a Daddy’s girl already and is truly the happiest little girl in the world. All the heartache and pain that we had trying to start our family for all these years washed away the moment she entered the world. She made our world stop and start again in a single moment. 

 

These photos were captured by our amazing doula, Maggie and myself during and after labor. We can’t thank her enough for capturing these incredible moments during labor that we will get to relive forever.

First family photo 6 hours after birth, as well as her first time meeting her Grandma, Grandpa, and some of her favorite Aunts! 

Skin to skin time with Daddy…

Her first bath at the hospital.

Finally getting ready to head home!

We made it home and Hailee finally got to meet her sweet baby girl!