Today is the celebration of Matt and I surviving another first year of childhood! I mean it’s my son’s birthday. One of my very favorite parts of my job is chatting with moms about their birth stories because literally every single baby and every single birth is unique. And I just think birth is ridiculously cool and endlessly amazing. So in honor of Zac being the big O-N-E today, I will share his birth story.

First, I’ll start off with the part of the day that we didn’t get too much documentation of (mainly because Matt was in denial that I was even in labor when I started.) You see, with Jesse’s birth, I was induced, so didn’t get to experience what it felt like to naturally start going into labor, but I had a feeling…

I woke up around 5:30 am on February 3rd 2016, I was 6 days away from my due date and I was feeling some contractions. I had a feeling this could be it, so I snuck out of bed, did some dishes, put the bags by the door, tidied up the house a little and went back to bed. I saved a bunch of birth affirmations from pinterest onto my phone in case I needed some good mantras to help me through and tried to get some rest. I was timing my contractions around 10 minutes apart. When I told Matt around 7am, he was like “Ok thats fine, I’m going to go to work and you can let me know if things get serious.” LOL!

I ate some breakfast in bed and snuggled Jesse and kept an eye on the time as I felt some mild contractions lasting about 30 seconds each. I had my weekly appointment set for 11:45, but I called to see if I could push it up because occasionally I would only get about 7 minutes between contractions (and this was my second baby which they say can sometimes be a shorter labor.) I got a 9:30 appointment and Matt met me there. I was 3cm and was told to go home and relax until contractions were 5 minutes apart lasting a minute or so, then I could head to the hospital.

Next on my list of to-do’s was getting lunch since it was close to 11 now and I was (as always) hungry! By the time we decided on food, got home with it and sat down, my contractions were getting closer and I was personally ready to head to the hospital.

I won’t bore you with my sitting in the waiting room for 20 minutes while in active labor (even though I had preregistered) but I will tell you that Zac was one of SEVENTEEN babies born that day. So I was in triage for quite a few hours until they could get a room for me. There’s a pretty rediculous picture of me trying to eat a GIANT chocolate cupcake that my bestie Erin brought me (who hightailed it from the school she teaches as soon as I told her it was GO TIME) but I’ll spare you.

So we got a room around 4pm (time was flying by for me and contractions were like 3-4 minutes apart and pretty manageable at this point) and we brought out my camera so here come all of the pictures:

Erin decided to spruce up the white board that usually the nurses use to note things like their names or medication doses. The nurses called her and Matt and his Aunt Debbie the Birth Squad!

I was still feeling pretty good, we were playing some fun dance music.

Until a contraction would roll around, they are about 3 minutes apart lasting a minute each at this point.

 

And back to smiling. I tried to get my mind off of things with dancing and drinking tea.

I now had to focus on getting through my contractions, usually holding on to Matt or Erin for support.

My water broke while I was dancing around after that things got pretty serious. I went from 4-7cm in 3 hours. It was now about 7pm.

Remember when I mentioned that 17 babies were born that day? Well there weren’t 17 doctors.

The nurse called for any available doctor because it was go time…

And although I tried to wait for one… Zac didn’t want to.

And with one huge push (because no one was there telling me to stop. I was just listening to my body and Zac…) the nurse “caught” him.

Zachary William arrived at 7:30pm looking exactly like his big brother did when he was born and my heart exploded.

Warm and soft and probably not particularly happy to be outside his hot tub.

But we were so very happy to meet him.

6lbs, 12oz, 19 inches

In Dada’s hands.

Time for Jesse to meet his baby brother!

“Hi Baby Zac!”

My heart is so. Full.

Jesse asks about all of the bracelets on my wrists.

I could stare at him for the rest of my life.

Big brother holds his baby for the first time!

Dark hair for baby Zac, not “cherry blonde” as Jesse called his own hair color.

A girl’s gotta snack, birthin’ babies is HARD WORK, guys.

Debbie shows Jesse some pictures and videos she took.

Our little family of four!

Thank you so much for letting me share one of the best days of my life with you guys! I look forward to capturing births of other amazing mamas in the future because I truly live for images like these.

Happy Birthday Zac!