My Birth Story-Chase Emmanuel

Introducing…..Our sweet little Chase!
Our amazing baby #6 was born the morning of Sunday, March 15th.

I can’t believe that Chase has been with us for over a week!! He was born right at the start of the Covid-19 shut downs… the kids school was canceled the last two days before I had him.
We’ve been quarantined since we’ve had him to protect ourselves and others. Those first weeks with a newborn are already a blur…. but adding the unknown, unstructured new normal of isolation with the family… and you better believe I have NO IDEA what day it is! haha. We are starting to get our sea legs and I’m excited to share with you guys, while it’s fresh in my mind, the birth story for our beautiful sixth baby!

We are for sure in those sleepy, foggy, sweet and overwhelming first days….I legit feel like I shouldn’t be able to be functioning on this much sleep…..but somehow we are and every time I look at his little face I fall more and more in love! I think that’s what gets us by–it’s just too amazing thinking he was in my belly and now he is here!! He was the missing piece of our family and I can’t imagine us without him!

Chase came early at 37 weeks.
With all of my pregnancies I have intense and countable contractions for at least a month or 2 before baby arrives. Good ol’ Prodromal labor.
I felt like he dropped early because my sciatic nerve pain was less than normal…like he had gotten into a position that didn’t cause as much pain in that area.
With this being my sixth baby, I was warned, that the pressure near the end down there might feel pretty crazy and they were right. I felt like the baby was going to drop right out haha.

Around the end of my 36 weeks I started having constant lower back pain. On a Tuesday I lost my mucus plug and my contractions started to get more timeable. Even getting to every 10 minutes for an hour and then every 5 minutes for an hour…I was SORE when they slowed down but I’m glad I didn’t go in. I hate false alarms but I might have made everyone panic because the doctor said come in if they get to every 10 minutes- don’t wait. I also started to have a constant cramping feeling. On Saturday morning I had my bloody show. At that point I knew that with this throbbing constant back pain and the bloody show something was gonna happen soon. Looking back it makes me feel so confident in how I knew my body because I was right! I had said it was going to be either Saturday night or Sunday morning and guess what…… Saturday night I found myself being woken up from contractions. I put them into my phone to keep time…but once they were consistently coming every 7 minutes for an hour and then every 3-4 minutes I woke ben up and said we gotta go to the hospital!! He jumped out of bed so fast haha. Luckily my sister was staying with us that night because of how I felt like it could happen. She held down the fort while we drove off to the hospital at 2 am!
Contractions kept coming every few minutes. When we got up to labor and delivery and they realized this was my 6th baby they said you know better than us if it’s go time! haha. I was standing filling out the paper work they gave me while holding my belly and working through contractions. I kept signing and initialing and finally said oh my gosh so many papers! They told me “no no just the first two! you for sure are in labor when your brain stops working!” haha. I was seriously just going to town on those papers in the zone with the contractions haha.
They took my to a triage room and checked me. I had progressed to 4 cm and 60% effaced. (At my last appointment I was 3cm  and 50% effaced.)

I was most concerned about not having enough time for the epidural. With my contractions coming ever 3 minutes I thought there was no way it was gonna happen and I was going to do a natural labor again like I did with Micah. I feel like I’m pretty tough with the contractions – When I had Micah I was transitioning while sittinggggggg to get my epidural and I said I NEED to roll over and he came right out!! INSANE. SO I was so afraid that was going to happen AGAIN. The only difference this time was that my water hadn’t broken yet… so I think that was my saving grace to getting the epidural in time. It wasn’t going as fast. They had to get fluids in me and something else before I could get the epidural but they had the cart in there ready…and the anesthesiologist next door. They checked me once during this waiting time to make sure I wasn’t progressing like with Micah. Luckily I was able to get the epidural and the guy was the best person I’ve had do it for me. He was not the friendliest guy but he knew how to get his job done well and quick! One thing that was different this time around was that I felt soo nauseas before the epidural. My blood pressure is alwayssss low and they also said it might have been the adrenaline. Right after the epidural I threw up into a bag a lot. They gave me medicine into the IV to make my blood pressure go back up. Soon it evened out and the nausea faded.
The epidural kicked in and I think it’s the reason my contractions slowed down. I didn’t need petocin to keep things going. My doctor broke my water and that got things chugging again. I was so happy with the epidural and how I could still feel down there. It was just the right amount (I typically have a great experience with it.) After a while I felt the urge to push and with one contraction and three pushes Chase arrived!!! They put him right on my chest and I cried!! It was an amazing moment. He had all this dark hair and it looked coarse like it’s going to be curly. Immediately fell in love with this sweet babe that had been with me all these months.

Ben and I stayed just over 24 hours in the hospital with baby and then we went home.
Those first hours together, just the three of us, are such special moments and memories.
We just stared at him constantly gushing over every little feature, movement and sweet baby noise.
(You can see what I took with us to the hospital in this post: My Hospital Bag for Baby 6)

Because of COVID-19 the kids weren’t able to come to the hospital to meet their new baby brother. The big kids understood and were so excited for us to come home with him!
We did a lot of FaceTime and told them first it was a boy and what the name was. They all were cheering it was the best thing!
Our older girls cleaned the whole downstairs before we arrived home. I’m talking they organized the pantry and the kitchen drawers….haha. Love them.
It’s always pure MAGIC when the kids meet their new sibling… I could relive those moments over and over and never get tired of it.
Of course the girls were like little mamas obsessed with him. Micah and Asher were surprisingly calm and very into the baby too! Their smiles are etched in my mind- they couldn’t stop beaming!
Hunter was the wild card…he was excited at first and then also timid mixed with fear and disgust. haha. He calls the baby Chase or it. haha. it’s interchangeable to him.
“Me hold it” is his favorite thing to say… but then after about a second of holding him he’s like nope. done. haha.
I can’t wait to see their relationship grow! FOUR BOYS! We have 4 boys! haha.
They are going to bring so much joy and crazy into our family from here on out…a little pack.
I’ll share the video of bringing him home soon- it’s amazing and makes me cry every time!!

My mom was in Atlanta with my brother and his family (they had their 4th baby a day and a half before we had Chase!!)
One thing that has been hard was not being able to let my family hold and snuggle up Chase – better to be safe and make smart choices with the Virus. When I went out for Chase’s check up I swung by my parents’ and sister’s neighborhood and they had a quarantine style introduction of baby Chase!
My mom watched via their doorbell camera. We will get through this time and they’ll be able to get all the baby snuggles. Thankful for technology and how it can bring us together even when we have to be a part!

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude…and sleeplessness. haha.
So thankful for a healthy beautiful baby boy.
I’ll try to share more of my postpartum journey!
You can follow along on Instagram for daily family updates and newborn cuteness!
—-> @athomewithnatalie
Thank you for celebrating this new life with us!!