Oliver's Birth Story: Part One

I’m finally sitting down to write our sweet Oliver’s birth story and I don’t think it’s a coincidence to God that exactly one year ago today, I started writing a blogpost to share our story of infertility with the world. God’s timing friends, it continues to just blow me away. He is in EVERY part of our sweet boy’s story! It is such a gift to get to share his story with the you all in hopes that even just one person would believe in Jesus or restore their faith in him after hearing his story.

If you’re new around here, here’s a few links to catch you up. :)

Read our walk through infertility & journey to baby J here

Read the story of our miracle baby here

Alright here we go, starting with a quick pregnancy recap & the days leading up to his birth!

Overall I loved pregnancy & I’ve never needed Jesus more all at the same time. There were a few extra hurdles throughout our pregnancy with trouble finding his heartbeat at 11 weeks, placenta previa until 28 weeks, and our sweet boy’s heart rate being monitored with additional tests at 34 weeks. But we know without a doubt, God had us in his hands through it all. Our sweet miracle is here & healthy!

At 36 weeks we went in for his growth ultrasound and he was already weighing more than I did at birth. ;) He was on track to be a 10 lb baby if I made it to 40 weeks. We were SO glad he was healthy and thriving, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit terrified of delivering a 10 lb baby. Since he was measuring big and my amniotic fluid levels were high, they wanted to continue with ultrasounds every week leading up to his birth to monitor him, so we continued with weekly ultrasounds for the next two weeks.

The days leading up to his birth

Friday April 12th & Saturday April 13th

At 37.5 weeks pregnant, we hosted a bunch of our friends over for one last get together before baby. We had a blast playing board games, eating snacks, rocking babies, and grabbing coffee together. I was exhausted, but at this point we welcomed any distractions and wanted to make the most of the time we had in these last few weeks leading up to baby.

Sunday April 14th

Tears were shed as I was beyond exhausted and things were getting miserable. At this point I wasn’t sleeping & pretty much everything hurt. We spent Sunday going for a long walk, and making a Target run for spicy foods & pineapple - I was willing to try just about anything at this point! ;) We had a doctor’s appointment the following day and would see how things were going.

Monday April 15th

I woke up to get ready for school and for the first time throughout my pregnancy thought, “I don’t know if I can physically do this for two more weeks.” I was SO swollen and keeping up with my sweet preschoolers was a workout. ;) That afternoon we went in for our doctor’s appointment. She checked and I was 1cm dilated and 60% effaced. It was encouraging to hear there was some progress, but I also knew that I could stay 1-2cm for weeks and didn’t want to get my hopes up. As they used the little doppler to check his heart rate, it was pretty high again. Throughout the ultrasound and the rest of the appt. it didn’t come down much, so they sent us to the hospital to hook up the monitors for an hour or two to see how he was doing.

They told us to bring our hospital bags just in case. It all got so real, so fast. We headed to the hospital, they hooked up the monitors and after sitting with my feet up for a while his heart rate came back down into the normal range. During this time, the monitor started picking up that I was having contractions every 5 minutes or so. At this point I was 37 weeks, 5 days so they gave me a bag of fluids to slow contractions down and they sent us home around 8pm that night.

Tuesday April 16th

I was physically and emotionally exhausted after the previous night’s hospital visit. I made it through the day on Tuesday and something told me to snap a picture of how the kiddos loved to say goodbye to baby Oliver each day at dismissal time. Little did I know this would be my last bump picture & my last day with these sweet preschoolers!

Wednesday April 17th

6:00am || I opened bible to read the next chapter as I was reading through 2 Corinthians. This was the Bible verse I underlined while reading that morning.

“I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you. “- 2 Cor. 8:7

I had no idea just how much joy was coming and how much I would need my confidence to be in Jesus in just a few hours!

8:00am || Thankfully Wednesday was a prep day at school. It was still going to be a full day of meetings and prepping lessons and finalizing maternity leave plans, but it was nice to be able to go at a little bit slower pace.

10:00am || As I was sitting in meeting with a co-worker, dazing out, she turned and asked “Do you feel okay today? You just don’t look like you feel well.” I told her for the first time throughout my entire pregnancy, I felt like I was “over it” and just so ready for him to be here. I hesitated to complain because after walking through infertility, I knew I would gladly take every second of the exhaustion and aches and pains, but I was too tired to sugar coat how I was feeling at this point.

10:45am || I was chatting with the para in my classroom before she left and went over “just in case” plans for the next two weeks, and showed her where everything was for the sub if I were to go early. (laughing again at God’s timing!)

Noon || I was sitting at my desk eating a snack and all of the sudden felt like I was going to pee my pants and didn’t have control of my bladder. I instantly panicked and went to bathroom…but nothing happened. So I walked (waddled) back to my classroom and thought I better start getting things together just in case this is what it’s like when your water breaks. & then thought “oh my gosh…what if my water breaks right here…what would I do?!” I started closing my laptop and planner. I grabbed the school directory sheet out of my desk drawer to make sure I could call or text a co-worker if needed, and just SECONDS after that I felt a huge gush run down my leg. I froze…and my heart started racing as I realized what was happening.

I called my co-worker whose classroom is down the hall and told her I thought my water had just broke as I tried not to panic. She’s has had three kids of her own and is more like a second mom, and came running down immediately. I started to panic and tear up, but she somehow made me laugh in the moment and kept me calm. She asked if I had called Riley or the hospital yet and said I probably should because we were having a baby! ;) I was sitting in my rocking chair…on a tarp…in my classroom…calling my husband to let him know “IT’S HAPPENING!”

He has a half hour commute to/from work, so my sweet coworkers came in and kept me company while we waited for him to arrive. When he got there we all laughed and smiled and they cheered as we drove off for the hospital. :) Thankfully we had most of our bags in the vehicle already from our Monday night hospital visit, and just had to swing by the house to grab a few things. We had about a 45 minute drive to the hospital we were delivering at, so on the way friends of ours and our pastor called to pray over us and this sweet baby boy. This boy has been covered in prayer since before he was ever conceived and we are just in awe of God’s miracles.

We checked in at the hospital around 1:30pm and texted family and close friends to let them know the day was finally here! :)

Stay tuned for part 2 of Oliver’s Birth Story coming soon!