I don’t know why I love an epidural so much. I really had thought about trying to go unmedicated this time around. It was my fourth baby. It should be quick. My body would know what to do. And for the weeks leading up to the delivery, I began considering a home birth to avoid the hospital. But once I got there and remembered how excruciating labor really is at 5 and 6 cm with no idea of how long it’s going to last, I was so ready to be done with the pain. As soon as I got my epidural, a feeling of calm settled over me. I felt so warm and cozy in my bed. Micah took a nap on the little bench near the window where sunlight was pouring into the room. I knew the epidural would probably delay the birth by an hour or two, but I just relaxed and enjoyed the time. I probably would have fallen asleep, but the nurse accidentally left my blood pressure cuff on a two-minute timer. I think she moved it to that setting during my epidural and then forgot to switch it back to 10 or 15 minutes. Every time I started drifting to sleep, the cuff would tighten around my arm. Finally, she came in and fixed it, but by that time I knew I couldn’t sleep. She said my contractions had slowed, so they would probably give me a little Pitocin eventually, but for now, they were going to let us rest. I spent the next hour reading my Bible and texting my sister and a few close friends. Finally, the nurse came back in and added Pitocin to my IV. Micah got up from his nap and went down to the cafeteria to find some food.  Thirty minutes later Micah was back and my midwife came by to check me. “Oh! The head is right there. Let’s deliver this baby.” It must have been around 12:30pm. From that point, everything went so quickly. A charge nurse joined our assigned nurse and midwife. Everyone was so happy and kind. They joked that they made a really good team, as the three of them had just delivered a baby in the room next door a few minutes ago.  Before I knew it, I was in position to push — still wearing my compression socks, I might add. The socks had become a staple part of my daily outfits during the last few weeks of pregnancy to relieve the horrible varicose in my right leg, and I joked that I might wear them during delivery. Turns out, it wasn’t a joke. I pushed through one contraction and the head was right there. I pushed through another contraction and the baby was on the brink of crowning. On my very next push, the head was out and suddenly a sweet little baby was hovering above me. It was 12:52pm. “What is it, dad?” The midwife asked. Micah paused for a few seconds before announcing, “It’s a girl.” I later asked him why the long pause, and he said he couldn’t really tell because of the angle of the baby. It’s true that Diletta was angled away from Micah’s view. When he delayed in his response, I looked down to see what the baby was and I couldn’t tell either. Micah said, “I was 80% sure it was a girl, but I didn’t want to announce it and then be wrong.” Baby girl let out one little cry and instantly melted into my chest. She was so calm and sweet from the very first minute. I vaguely remember delivering the placenta and then hearing my midwife say a few minutes late that I didn’t tear at all. Technically, I think she said, “No lacerations.” Now I tell everyone it’s so “easy” to have a fourth child… everyone should do it. We spent our first hour with baby girl on my chest. She nursed easily (it’s always so amazing that God designed them to know what to do) and then the nurse came in to get her measurements. 8 pounds, 12.6 ounces, and 21 inches — nearly identical measurements to Zianne when she was born. Before we knew it, we were being whisked away to our postpartum room. Because of COVID-19, we couldn’t have any visitors at the hospital, so we had hours to spend in our room just the three of us. This turned out to be a good thing, since we hadn’t decided on a name yet. We had plenty of time to discuss it. We were already leaning toward Diletta as a first name, but we couldn’t decide on her middle name. As we talked, we came up with more potential middle names gathering than narrowing it down. Did we do a family name? A Biblical name? One of our other favorite first names as a middle name? Part of me wanted a “D” middle name, so we could call her Dede. We spent the evening writing the options up on the white board in our room and then erasing the ones we ruled out. I think we were down to our final three choices when we went to sleep that night. I use the term “sleep” loosely… because I actually slept very little that night. I think I fell asleep exhausted by midnight, but then the baby woke up around 2:30am and wanted to cluster feed until 5:30am. The nurse came in to give her a bath at 6:00am. Then someone came to take our breakfast order at 7:00am. When the birth certificate lady knocked on our door five minutes after that, I was spent. “Do you have your birth certificate papers?” she asked. “No,” I responded, almost in tears. I don’t know her name yet.” “Can you have them ready by 8:00?” she asked. “No,” I replied. “I need to sleep. Come back much later.” Then I fell into my pillow, exhausted. Breakfast arrived and we finally settled on her name — Diletta Pearl. I started filling out our paperwork, so we could leave the hospital. Although I was told we would be able to leave the hospital twelve hours after delivery due to Coronavirus, we ended up being there for about 24 hours. By the time the midwife checked me and the pediatrician made rounds and the newborn hearing screening was complete, it was almost 1pm. We had decided not to tell our girls that they had a baby sister over the phone or video, but rather introduce them to Diletta in person, so we were excited to get home to surprise them. We stopped for a quick lunch on the way home and Micah decided “Diletta” should bring her sisters these unicorn easter baskets they had begged him for at the store a few weeks prior. At the time, he had said “no” to the silly $13 baskets but decided it would be fun if they received the overpriced gift from their new sister.  When we knocked on the door at home, the girls opened it wide-eyed. They were instantly in love with their newest little sibling, and they all wanted to hold her. It seems we gave her the right name because Diletta truly is “beloved” around here. ... Read more

One of my favorite things about birth is the suspense of not knowing when it will start. I love the sense of anticipation in those final days. The funny thing is that all my births have started the same exact way — with my water breaking at night — but I still love not knowing how and when labor will begin. With Diletta, we were ready. So very ready. First of all, we thought she was going to be born at 1:30pm on Thursday, March 19th in a scheduled c-section because of my placenta previa. I dreaded the thought of pulling my baby from the womb at 37 weeks, but it was unavoidable, except by a miracle. I prepared as much as I could — washing a small load of baby clothes, borrowing nursing paraphernalia from friends, and gathering all the c-section recovery tips I could from other moms. Then God changed the plan drastically when my doctor called on the evening of March 11th (eight days before my scheduled surgery) and said the placenta had finally moved, after not budging at all for fourteen weeks of pregnancy. The miracle happened! The surgery was canceled, and then we got to really prepare for the baby’s arrival. I completed my grading for the semester. We finished our taxes. We cleaned out the garage (technically, Micah did, and I gave input on where items should go while sitting in a beach chair). We washed every car seat in the house, including two dusty infant carriers. When Micah’s sister arrived on April 1st, it was go-time. We were prepared. We had childcare. Baby could come at any time Every day I would get fully prepared to have the baby. Schoolwork with the girls and checking work email in the morning. Shower, shave, and hair curled in the afternoon. Dinner, sleep, and… repeat. But the baby didn’t come. We thought, maybe, the baby would arrive a day or two before the due date, as Talitha and Eisley had. But then I made it to April 7th and there was still no baby. We got a few more things done… selling items on Offer Up, renewing the car registration, ordering new checks from the bank. No baby. The one small change this pregnancy is that I actually had a night of contractions. On Sunday night, we watched the new movie Onward with the girls. About halfway through the film, I started noticing I was having small contractions. By the end of the movie, they were happening every 3 or 4 minutes. Even though they teach you all about timing contractions and in the hospital birth class, I have never actually gone through the process. My water has broken to start labor (with no preceding contractions) every single time. As we were watching the movie, I decided to download a contraction counter on my phone. What was the rule again? Contractions for one minute, five minutes apart? We put the girls to bed and I tried to get some sleep myself, but the contractions were too distracting. Finally, at about 2am, I got out of bed and took a book out to the reading chair in our loft. I figured I was either going into labor, so I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, or the contractions would finally subside and the reading would help me eventually drift off to sleep. By 3am, the contractions seemed to be lessening, so I made my way off to bed. Apart from a rogue contraction here or there, nothing really happened for the next 36 hours.  But on Tuesday, I felt heavy. Like gravity was taking its toll and the baby was pushing down, down, down. Reading back on my other birth stories, it seems that’s been a sign that labor is imminent. I went to bed that night around midnight and woke up suddenly a few hours later. My water had broken. I couldn’t feel it, but I just knew it. April 8th would be this child’s birthday. I made my way to the bathroom in the dark, hoping the clock read 4:00 or 5:00am and that I had actually slept for quite a few hours. No. It was 2:40am. I made my way to the toilet and, sure enough, found a little circle of fluid in my underwear. No gush. Just a drip. I got changed, put on my make-up, and packed up my toiletries. My hair was already curled from the pre-labor routine from the previous afternoon. I woke Micah and told him my water was broken and we should head to the hospital soon. As usual, he murmured and went back to sleep for a few more minutes, but soon enough, he hopped up and took a quick shower and packed a bag. While Micah was getting ready, I called the Kaiser labor and delivery line and told them we were headed in. The nurse on the phone gave me the run-down on the current COVID-19 policies. Micah would have to drop me off to go into triage alone. He should park the car and wait until I was admitted and then he would have to bring in ALL our personal belongings in one trip. Once he got screened and came inside the hospital, he could not leave again, even to go out to the parking lot. We rapped on Kayla’s door and told her it was time. She took our "pre-hospital" picture. It’s funny that all my labors have been so similar that we are able to practice the same traditions each time. We prayed on our way to the hospital and hoped for the best. Over the past few weeks, we had heard many strange and sad stories about women giving birth in the time of Coronavirus. Moms birthing alone without their partners, being screened for the virus before labor, giving birth in masks, dads getting kicked out of labor for coughing, moms and babies being separated after birth. The reason I had stayed up until midnight the night before because I was printing a “do not separate” legal form to take with me to the hospital in case anyone tried to suggest taking my newborn from me. Thankfully, Kaiser seemed to be more reasonable than other hospitals and they were still allowing one birth support person for labor. I knew I would have my temperature screened in the hospital lobby, but my midwife had promised that once I got up to the labor and delivery floor, things would feel pretty normal. However, hospital policies were changing day-to-day, so I felt like I couldn’t be certain of anything. I had the numbers of four different private-practice midwives saved my phone, just in case anything crazy happened at the hospital and I felt like I needed to leave. Micah pulled up in front of the hospital, a tall building I had never been in before. We had switched insurance providers since Eisley was born, so we were delivering at a different hospital. Due to Coronavirus, tours were no longer being offered, so I had literally asked my midwife at my 38-week appointment, “So if I go into labor, where do I go at the hospital?”  Now the time of uncertainty had come. I hopped out the truck, grabbing a few small items to alleviate Micah’s one bag-bearing trip into the hospital and prayed I would see him again soon. Then I walked into the hospital alone… ... Read more