Spencer and I met seven years ago today.

As I type, our infant daughter — our sweet second child — is snoozing next to me, her tiny hands clasped beneath her chin.

Hadley Rose arrived on March 10 — 17 days before her due date. At nearly 38 weeks pregnant, I wasn’t technically full-term, but you know what? After our premature journey with her brother, it wasn’t even a blip on my radar. She arrived hollering and beautiful, 6 pounds and 12 ounces of joy.

It started that Thursday. I actually had my stuff together enough to throw steak and vegetable soup in the slow cooker that morning, chopping vegetables before Oliver woke up. I wore a cute tunic. I did my hair. As though I knew that would be my last “normal” morning, I enjoyed a cup of coffee over “Good Morning America” and rejoiced in the quiet before my toddler started calling from upstairs.

Dropped Ollie off at daycare. Drove north. When I ran into a Wawa before work, I noticed quite a few men tripping over themselves to help me as I dropped or reached for things. I’ve been visibly pregnant since the fall, but I can’t say I noticed much “special treatment.” Which, you know, is fine. I consider holding doors to be a basic human courtesy, you know?

But these guys were holding doors. Like, standing there and waiting for me because they were concerned such a super pregnant lady wouldn’t make it over the threshold unassisted.

I texted my husband about that afterward. “Guess I really look ready to pop,” I wrote.

My 37-week appointment with my doctor was just after noon. Her office is directly behind my own, so I usually walk, but something told me that extra exertion wasn’t a good idea! So I made the 60-second drive and headed in, taking in the curious glances of other patients. Seeing their tiny bellies for contrast, I definitely felt ready to explode.

My blood pressure was slightly elevated during my exam. After my experiences with preeclampsia, developing the severe complication at 32 weeks pregnant with my first child, we’ve been on red-alert for any anomalies since I learned I was expecting. But my blood pressure has been fine. It was still OK that Thursday — but had jumped 20 points from the previous week.

My OB initially ordered blood tests and said she’d call me the next day with the results. But after a third high-ish reading with a nurse, she met me in the hallway instead. I knew what she was going to say.

“Labor & Delivery?” I asked, already mentally running through who I needed to call (Spencer, namely). We’d been through this rodeo before.

“I would just feel better,” she said, noting that they could run tests and hook me up to monitors that would confirm everything was fine sooner than she could.

At the hospital where I’d once hoped to deliver Oliver, I hung out in a triage room in L&D listening to another woman in labor down the hall — just as I had two years ago, waiting to learn our fate as I got sicker. Honestly, I’m proud of myself. I did not panic. I had serious post-traumatic stress after Ollie was born and that moment — hearing another woman having a baby, while I desperately hoped to hold my own baby in — is very sharp in my mind.

Less than 12 hours later, I’d be the one with screams echoing down that hallway. But I didn’t know that yet.

My labs all came back clear: no preeclampsia, no issues. But while I was being monitored, the nurse kept hovering around a snake-like print-out, looking it over periodically. “So everything looks good,” she said, “but do you feel all those contractions?”

Apparently I was contracting every five minutes or so — a pressure I guess I’d noticed, but only in passing. I’d been experiencing uncomfortable Braxton-Hicks contractions for months. These weren’t painful or particularly noteworthy, though they were consistent.

As always, I kept thinking a doctor was going to come in and release me with instructions to “take it easy.” I kept in touch with Spencer as he got Oliver home, reminding him about the soup in the slow cooker. “I’ll probably be home soon,” I wrote.

When the nurse popped in to check on me an hour later, she was dressed in scrubs for another patient’s surgery. She checked the print-out of my contractions again.

“Do you think I’m heading out of here soon?” I asked. “I’m just trying to get my son situated, and wondering if I should call my family? I don’t want to alarm them, but . . .”

She gave me an incredulous — though not unkind — look. “I would call them,” she said. “You’re definitely in labor.”

My hands began to shake, but I called my husband and relayed all this information. I contacted my sister next, then my dad. Everyone answered the phone warily, as though they knew immediately what I was going to say: it’s time.

I finally had that moment. It was scary, but also felt good.

Spencer arrived with our hospital bag after getting Oliver settled with my sister and brother-in-law. My parents stopped by to see me at the hospital. My contractions were already picking up. By midnight, they were so intense that I was struggling to breathe through them — but I clutched the rail of my bed and just held on, riding the waves as long and calmly as I could.

It felt awful, all-consuming. But I was only 2 centimeters dilated.

So I never intended to have a “natural” birth. I wanted drugs. All the drugs. My labor with Oliver was long and traumatic and painful, capped off with a failed epidural. I didn’t want that again. I wanted to feel calm and in control — as much as one can, anyway — and had planned to try the epidural again.

Given I was already in the hospital, I never imagined that would be an issue. But things move fast.

After one of the longest nights of my life, I was checked about 6 a.m.: just 3 centimeters. The doctor said she would check again in an hour. If I didn’t progress more, they would start pitocin to move me along. I moaned and cried and clung to that rail, with Spencer next to me trying to provide comfort. I was back in Pain World, where nothing exists outside that pressure and hurting.

When the team came back in around 7 a.m., 7:30, the announcement was equivalent to getting struck by lightning: I was “complete” and ready to push. I’d somehow gone from 3 centimeters to 10, and now there was no time for the epidural.

If I thought I was scared before, now I was terrified.

After squeezing my eyes shut against all the lights and instruments that descended from the ceiling, I felt the calm presence of my husband and OB at my side and just did the darn thing. I pushed for a long time — long enough to feel totally exhausted, wanting to give up; long enough to pull my leg muscles — but eventually the pain gave way to relief, and she was here.

Hadley arrived at 8:16 a.m. with a head of dark hair. They put her on my chest immediately, both of us crying. That sweet weight is not something I’ll ever forget. I held her for a while — an opportunity I never had with her brother, who was whisked off immediately to the NICU. It was surreal.

And quick, I guess — in hindsight, anyway! I was so flooded with relief afterward: no longer anxiously running through possible labor scenarios in my mind; not obsessing about having to be transported to Baltimore again; not worrying about delivery complications. No more fears about preeclampsia and it coming back, being worse. Stealing one or both of us away.

It was over. We were fine. I’d done it!

We have a daughter.

 

Hadley is a sweet, calm, quiet little baby — so quiet that I frequently stare at her chest to make sure she’s breathing, watching her snooze in a bassinet next to the couch. From the time Ollie came home, he would snuffle and coo and whimper and whine; you never doubted he was nearby. But Hadley? She’s so chill that it almost . . . makes me nervous.

And so far, none of Ollie’s antics seem to disturb her. Which is kind of a miracle. Our almost 2-year-old toddler has lately earned the nickname “the tornado,” ’cause this kid is sweet chaos in sneakers. He’s nonstop action and energy, a 30-pound tank of opinions, and we love him so very much — but he is exhausting.

Hadley, it seems, is his opposite.

Of course, she was born 11 days ago — hardly enough time to make sweeping judgments on her little personality. But given the Tornado really has been the Tornado since he left the NICU, perhaps we’ll get lucky with our second.

And if not? That’s OK, too.

Because we have a little more figured out this time. We are all adjusting. Having just found our footing as parents with Oliver, I knew the transition to mom-of-two would be easier in some ways and more complicated in others. The lack of sleep is less soul-destroying this go ’round, certainly, given Ollie is still up many nights and we’re used to existing in a zombie-like state. That’s what coffee is for.

Spencer and I have our “shift work” arranged pretty neatly: he takes the first one, staying up with the baby and sleeping intermittently until 2 a.m. or so, when I come downstairs and take over. So far we’ve avoided disturbing Ollie too much; though with as quiet as Hadley is, there isn’t much to disturb him. This process allows both of us to get a three- or four-hour chunk of sleep, as well as other cat-naps, and I actually . . . don’t feel that bad. All things considered.

It’s weird being home so much. I’ve been fighting some of the old anxiety that emerged after Ollie was born. But I know this is the only time in my adult life I’ll have this uninterrupted time with my newborn daughter and son; as hard as it is (and does often feel hard), I know I’m also fortunate. I’m trying to just take everything as it comes and not project too far ahead.

For the moment, my job is just to be their mom. No need to multitask, obsessively check email or hop on conference calls. Though my go-go-go personality has struggled a bit with this, I’m embracing the blessing of time. Of sitting. Of just . . . holding my baby.

Oh, how I know they don’t keep.

❤