Layla Faye

On April 21st at 7:19 am, our little girl Layla Faye was born, weighing 7 lb. 11 oz. and measuring 19.5 inches long.

She's perfect and beautiful and sweet and we fell in love with her instantly.

I always feel like there's not much of a "birth story" to tell when you have planned c-sections.

But this little lady of ours has a birth story...

My actual due date was April 28th, but my doctor always lets me choose our c-section date and says I can go as early as 39 weeks.

So we chose April 21st, our 39 week mark exactly.

My mom flew in the night before so she could stay with the boys while we were at the hospital over the weekend.

My hospital bag was packed and ready to go and our alarms were set for a 5 am check in at the hospital and a 7 am scheduled c-section time.

I woke up in the middle of the night, around 1 am to a really painful contraction, but I got through it and went back to sleep.

Then I woke up to another one, but when I looked at the clock it was almost 2 so I knew these contractions weren't close enough together to mean much.

After that contraction, I got up to go pee and after I laid back in bed, I immediately felt my water break.

Or at least, I assumed thats what was happening.

It felt like I was peeing my pants, but I knew I wasn't because I had just gone pee.

It was the strangest feeling ever.

I woke up Randy and said "I think my water just broke" and he was totally out of it and just looked at me like I was crazy and said "nuh uh" and then he got up and went to the bathroom.

When he came back out I told him again that my water broke and then he went into full on panic mode.

After changing out of my wet clothes, I wanted to wash my face and put on a little make up and brush my teeth and brush my hair.

But before I could do ANY of that, Randy had thrown his clothes on and grabbed his backpack and the hospital bag and was like "LETS GO!"

He was totally freaking out and I was like calm down its not like the baby is coming right this instant!

So he called the hospital to let them know we were coming in while I freshened up real quick and then on the way to the hospital I called my Doctor to let him know we were coming in early as well.

I figured since my water had broke that as soon as we got to the hospital they would prep us for surgery right away and the baby would be here within a couple hours.

But that was NOT the case.

When we got to the hospital, they checked us in and hooked us up to monitor me and the baby and they were able to confirm that my water had indeed broke.

BUT they told us that it might be a while before we were able to head to surgery because the labor and delivery ward was extremely busy that night.

All the nurses kept joking that it must be a full moon out because there were LOTS of women coming in that were in full blown labor and so they were all getting rushed ahead of me, since my contractions were still a good 20 minutes apart from each other.

So while we waited, I did my best to breathe my way through some pretty intense contractions...because man do those things get intense once your water breaks!

At first it was looking like surgery would begin at 5 am. 

But then at 5 am they came in and told us it would be closer to 6 am, again due to overcrowding.

Then at 6 am, they told us we'd have to wait one more hour.

At this point, the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the option of an epidural if the contractions got too painful for me.

But he DID advise us to hold out if we could because he said the spinal tap would be better and more effective for a c-section.

So I held on for one more hour.

And then they finally took us to surgery at 7 am...which ironically enough was the exact time my c-section had been scheduled for anyways!

And then 19 minutes after being wheeled into surgery, there she was...

I'll never forget hearing her first cry.

That moment when they lift her up over the curtain for me to see is always one of my favorites.

And then I get to look over to the side, with happy tears streaming down my cheeks, and watch her get cleaned up and weighed and watch my husband cut the chord and wipe away his own tears as they finally place her in his arms.

And then comes my other favorite part...when he brings that little bundled up burrito baby over to me and lowers her down to my cheek so I can feel her skin against mine and kiss her and love on her for the very first time before she's whisked away again and I get sewn back up.

All my babies have been c-sections and even though its never how I imagined bringing my babies into the world, its always such a beautiful and perfect and spiritual and personal experience to me.

And I wouldn't change a thing about them.

I can't believe our baby girl is finally here!