Oh "BOY"~ What a Birth Story!!

Hello, dear readers! Good news… I’m still kicking.

If you aren’t on Facebook, you were probably curious as to where I’ve been the past few weeks. Well, as you can imagine, that baby I was blogging about FINALLY came out.

And BOY oh BOY! What a birth story it was!!! We are deviating a bit from our normal “faith” focused content today because I want to capture the details of how this new Tiny Human decided to make his appearance into the world before all the details ride off into the sunset of my sleep deprived mind. (And yes… It was a BOY!!! EEEE!!! But more on that momentarily.)

You might be aware that this pregnancy was not what one may call “boring.” I am so grateful it was healthy and full term (see also: overdue) but it was physically not the most enjoyable thing on the planet. I was contracting (painfully) for many weeks before actual go time, and even make a couple of trips to the hospital with some false labor shenanigans. (I wrote about the first round here…)

Here’s the REAL Go-Time story.

At about 11am on Thursday, February 16th, I started contracting. Again. Consistently. AGAIN. They were painful and consistent, but clearly that meant nothing to other involved body parts necessary for labor. AGAIN. I was 4 days overdue, so was trying to keep my expectations low. And refrain from shanking every last person that said, “WOW, you are STILL pregnant?!

Around 3ish that afternoon, hubs and I swung by the doctor’s office, just to “check things out” and hopefully earn (or save) ourselves a trip to the hospital.

No change/progress since my Tuesday doctors appointment. #WhompWhomp

It’s fine. I was cool. Not bitter at all. #WebOfLies #CopingMechanism

So we picked up our eldest child Charis from her pre-preschool and headed to what I like to call “Mandatory fun” with the army. (It was a cookout/brewing thing for our current company… And with this unit, things actually are pretty fun.)

We hung out at the friend’s house for a while as contractions chilled out (a little) for a couple hours. Around 5 pm, they fired up again. With. A. Vengeance.

It got to the point where I was no longer able to make conversation and just sat on the couch trying to play it cool (breathing through the contractions, and making ridiculous faces, trying my best NOT to make scene.) Finally, I gave in and asked Brandon to take me home.

After some more very intense waves of all things contract-y, and a warm bath (and an emotional episode of rage and frustration, convinced that I would be setting records for longest pregnant woman EVER) the pain reduced enough so that I was able to rest on the couch for a brief time.

That night, things intensified… I sort-of slept (see also: dozed/rested) through the night as I contracted over and over and over again.

The next morning, I “woke up” at about 6:30am. And I got out of bed determined. Slightly irrational. And even more angry. I told my dear husband to GET UP, to call his chain of command and tell them we were going to the hospital and NOT. COMING. HOME. until we had a baby in our arms. No matter what we had to do… (Because I STILL didn’t know if this was the real deal or not.)

We finally departed an hour later. We dropped our kiddo off a neighbor’s house and I was suddenly filled with urgency. I didn’t really know why, I just was. (I thought it was because I was deep in the throes of back labor (real or false, your guess was good as mine,) and laying on my back in the passenger seat of the car for the 45 minute drive to the hospital was the most excruciating thing I’ve probably done in my life.)

As we neared the hospital after what seemed like a decade and a half later, I cussed a few times (sorry Jesus– totally not my style!) and told my husband (irrationally) to start breaking some laws and GET. ME. OUT. OF. THIS. CAR. NOW.

Finally– we park the car. I step out and splash. My water finally breaks.

If I could have formed rational, complete thoughts in my brain, I think I would have said, “Well. There’s that.” (At least at that point I knew we were having a baby that day. FINALLY.) But all I could really think was HURRY. A sense of continued and growing urgency.

We limp/waddle/breathe our way from the back 40 of the parking lot to the hospital doors. Halfway to the entrance, our friend who was watching Charis called and said her son just woke up covered in vomit. #MomProbs #AllTheGerms She asked if we cared if she let Charis stay with a different neighbor. (Obviously, I was in no place to argue. At this point I would have handed her to a stranger if they would promise me they weren’t a felon.)

The time was 8:06am. (This will be helpful info later.)

Walking in the hospital, I leaned against the wall to breathe through another contraction. We hobbled to the Labor and Delivery registration desk.

Unlike previous trips to this locale, they didn’t make me wait to sign in. Probably because of the mess I was making and the pained, very urgent, pie-eyed look on my face.

We go through the doors, and the checker-inner-lady gets on the phone and says something (slowly, casually in her southern drawl), “Yes, I believe we have a gal in active labor here.”

I look at her and say “HURRY. PLEASE. HURRY.” (Subconsciously praying that I do not become a jerkfaced heifer to innocent bystanders/staff, because hey, I do love Jesus.)

Three more steps down the hall, I fall against the wall and let out some kind of primative, guttural noise (very atypical for my normally composed self.) But let me tell you: THAT was effective.

Nurses and staff came RUNNING. They just materialized out of what seemed like thin air. (In my imagination, I think I saw someone jump over the nurse station desk.) Someone yells, “Whose patient is this?” Someone answers, “No one’s yet… Amy, I think she wants a midwife. She’s yours!”

(Do you feel like you are in some ridiculous, drama-comedy sitcom yet? Yeah, it gets better. You can’t make this up.)

At this point, I am unable to walk on my own. I just stop. Completely frozen. My dear husband grabs gets behind me and grabs me under the arms. He then proceeds to yell, “WHAT ROOM DO YOU WANT HER IN?!?!”

An anonymous voice yells back, “Put her in Room 2!” (Which is the closest to my standing/landing place.)

Then comes my second favorite part of this whole ridiculous experience… My husband, with his hands currently occupied carry/dragging me toward room #2, is unable to hit the button to open the double swinging doors. So, in true army infantryman style, he literally KICKS the double doors opens, Chuck Norris style. (Totally not exaggerating, friends. It still makes me laugh. Hopefully insurance would cover the broken doors, because he’s so strong and stuff.)

We stumble into room #2, they throw me into bed, and the midwife on call says, “Ok, let’s do this.” (My kind of gal.) Midwife Amy also instructed a nurse to take the ponytail holder out of her left pocket and pull back her (Amy’s) <amy’s> hair since she didn’t have time.)

And boomshakalaka, folks… Three contractions later, my very excited husband exclaims, “IT’S A BOY! A BOY! WE GOT OUR BOY!” (For those of you just joining us, we did not find out the gender beforehand. Sure added to the excitement of the day. Like we needed any more at this point.)

So at 0820 on Friday, February 17th, our sweet, amazing (always hungry!), 7 pounds, 15 ounces, 20.25 inches long son, Malick Merrill Knobloch was born.

For the rest of our very brief hospital stay, everyone who came into our room said they had “heard” our delivery story and how we set some hospital speed records from parking the car to baby’s arrival (14 minutes.) They also said that “was the way to do it.” No IV, no hospital gown (yep, totally gave birth in Lularoe!) and no waiting around the hospital. What. An. Experience. (And can I just say THANK YOU Jesus for the 14 minute buffer… and how grateful I am that we didn’t birth our kiddo in the car or on the side of the highway?! <Even though every doctor everywhere told us we would “just know” when it was the real deal and the 45 minute drive to the hospital would be a piece of cake. #WrongAnswerYo)

So yes, friends. That’s where I’ve been. Malick is now 7 weeks old and is the icing on our Knobloch family cake. We are overjoyed (albeit, a bit drowsy) and excited for all the future holds.

Hope this brought a flicker of entertainment to your day… I look forward to (hopefully) blogging more regularly, or at least whenever I can get some hands free.

In the meantime, we give all the glory to God for this experience.

For Him,