The last seven weeks have been full of lots of baby snuggles and adjusting to life as a family of 4. And I’m finally just taking time to write out our birth story. Our (not so) little Kayden, joined us on September 13th at 9 lbs. 3 oz and 22 inches long. We are all completely smitten with him. I’ve been excited to share about his name because it has a very special story behind it. Our daughter, Isabel, picked her baby brother’s name.

One evening while Phil and I were still tossing around name ideas, my mom started teasing Isa about her Baby brother “James” and she got upset and yells “His name isn’t James, it’s baby Kayden!” We hadn’t even discussed names with her, and it took me by surprise, but I actually liked the name and texted Phil to tell him. Name meaning is always a big consideration for us when we are thinking about a name, and we looked up the meaning of Kayden and it means “Companion”. Isa had been praying with unwavering faith for a little brother or sister for the past year and it didn’t take long for us to know that this was the right name for our future son.

He had been so eagerly awaited for, and the last couple weeks of waiting were hard on us all. Kayden was measuring a bit ahead and I had been having Braxton Hicks on and off from the end of the second trimester. As we got closer to his due date, I was having other signs of labor, but nothing was progressing, so I felt discouraged. Each night Isabel would pray for brother to come, and one morning after his due date (September 8th) she said “Mama, this is outrageous! I am tired of being patient for baby brother!”

I laughed. Me too, girlfriend, me too.  I was trying everything to go into natural labor to no avail. Two days after my due date I had an appointment and was finally one centimeter dilated and was able to have my membranes stripped. My hope was to have a completely natural delivery and successful VBAC. My first birthing experience with my daughter in April of 2020 was an induction turned an emergency C-section and was a rather traumatic experience for us (read that birth story here). While not everything went how I hoped with this birth, it was a much more positive and redeeming birth experience and obviously resulted in the most important part, our healthy baby boy.

At my appointment my doctor asked again if I wanted to get induced and agreed to let me schedule an induction for 41 weeks (Sunday the 15th), to give me more time to go into natural labor. She also requested an ultrasound to check on fluids since I was measuring big. During the ultrasound fluids looked good and I went home without getting to follow up with the Doctor. The next day I got a call from the nurse saying that the Doctor had reviewed my ultrasound and was concerned about the size of my baby, and they wanted me to get induced the next day.

I felt discouraged, because I so wanted to go into labor on my own, but Phil and I talked about it and wanted to give the best chance to have this little one vaginally, so we agreed to move up my induction. When they called me to schedule, however, the earliest opening they had was for Saturday morning, only a day sooner than my original request. It felt like a lot of back and forth but turned out to be a blessing to give my body more time to do its thing.

During the day on Thursday, my mom had offered to watch Isa and have us for dinner, so I was able to rest, relax, and spent some time doing spinning babies exercises. Mid-afternoon I thought I may be having real contractions, but wasn’t sure, due to weeks of on and off contractions. They continued throughout the evening and night, and then at about 2 am I woke up and was too uncomfortable to go back to sleep. Eventually I got something to eat and then decided to take a shower (that had stopped my false contractions in the past).

They continued to intensify and at 5:45 I called for Phil to time my contractions and they were coming every 2 minutes and lasting for 45 seconds or so. We knew that with attempting a VBAC they didn’t want me to labor too long at home, so we called, and they told us to come in as soon as we could. We grabbed our bags and woke Isa up and then dropped her off with our friends on the way to the hospital (Read Birth Story Part 2 Here).

Photos by: Faith Focus Photography