DUNCAN, OK | C-SECTION BIRTH | BABY R

So here’s what happened.

It was the Tuesday before the Thursday that school was going to be out for Duncan students. Robbie is a teacher, so my plan was to wait until she finished up her last day of school to touch base with her. It’s been a crazy year after all, and the pregnancy had been nice and healthy. Waiting till that Thursday to text her seemed like the best idea. Ha.

It true, unpredictable, birth fashion, Baby R would come sooner than we thought.

I had just gotten out of the shower and just so happened to have my phone in my hands when the message came across my screen. Not a message from Robbie, the Birth Mom, but from her sister-in-law, Cassie.

“Hi! Robbie is in the hospital! Csection tonight!”

And I’ll admit it took a whole two minutes for that to sink in. I was able to get on the phone with Cassie and told her I would be there ASAP. She was going to let her friend know who was working at the front desk that I was coming, and I was going to get there as fast and as legal as possible. I put my hair up, put a hat on, and raced out the door with my camera bag yelling, “My Baby Momma is having a csection!” to my husband.

Once I parked, I left all my bags in the car and just ran inside with my keys, phone and camera in hand, waved my camera at the nurse in the ER who gestured me on down the hall towards the Birth Center, and made it to the regular room at 8:25pm. They called Micah back to the OR at 8:33pm.

Even after being able to be in the OR with several birth moms, I’m still amazed at the care they receive. It is still a delivery after all. The anesthesiologist is always so calm, and I love when the doctors hold up the brand new babe over the curtain for Mom and Dad to see. The nurses are always so thorough. Baby R needed a little bit of oxygen to get him going, and there was zero panic about it. Imagine getting woken up from a nap too early! It was just a little bit of a shock to his system. After the nurses got all of the checks done, and he was breathing great on his own, they weighed and measured him where Mom could see. Then they brought Baby to her so she could get some skin to skin.

Micah’s Mom was able to be waiting in the room when Baby Rex came in, and she was overwhelmingly smitten. “He has a mark like you did when you were born, Micah!”, she said, referring to his sweet stork bite. Her mind had to have been flashing back to when Micah was born and those first moments. What a tremendous blessing it must be to see the Baby that your Baby made.

When things settled down, I asked Robbie for the full story.

She had gone in for a growth ultrasound and her blood pressure was high. After some monitoring, the choices were to start a slow induction or to go ahead and go get Baby Rex out with a c-section. Robbie made the informed decision to see her son sooner rather than later. I watched her look back down at her tiny little 6 lb, 12 oz babe, and say, “I’m know we made the right decision.” She was so joyful and peaceful to be holding him. He was healthy and she was healthy, and that’s all she needed.

And I heard her students were thrilled to see pictures of Baby Rex the next day at school!