His Birth Story.

January and February 

Winter has always felt like a season that asks us to slow down.

The world outside grows quiet beneath blankets of snow while life inside becomes smaller, softer, slower.

Days were spent curled up under blankets, binge-watching Netflix, stealing afternoon naps, warming cold hands around mugs of hot cocoa, watching winter berries peek through the snow, listening to the wind rattle the windows during blizzards.

And in the middle of all that winter…

The greatest surprise of our lives arrived.

Five weeks early.

I had imagined the ending of my pregnancy a hundred different ways. I secretly hoped he’d hang on just a little longer so we could share a birthday.

Instead, he chose his own story.

And yes!!! 

A boy! 

Bright blue eyes. 

Fuzzy strawberry blonde hair and his daddy’s nose. 

All 4 pounds 9 ounces and 17 inches of pure love! 

By far, my easiest birth.  

I started the new year with a horrible cold and cough, and little did I know my water had broken and I didn’t even realize it. 

I just knew something was wrong. 

Something felt off. 

Every time I coughed or moved, I was leaking fluid.

Saturday morning, January 3rd, I called my doctor and told them my concerns. I told my husband I was going to get checked out and they would probably just send me home. 

Luckily, he wanted to come with me and figured he would head into work afterward.

The only thing I grabbed was a phone charger.

I told the kids and my niece I’d be right back home.

We got to the hospital.

The room quiet. 

A few tests.

A little waiting. 

My midwife came back into the room and told us…

My water had, in fact, broken.

We were having a baby!!

I immediately started crying, not because I wasn’t happy, but because I was worried- he was five weeks early.

I still had things to do. I wasn’t ready. 

We didn’t even have a name picked out.

The Christmas tree still glowing in the corner of the living room. 

My midwife was so incredibly kind. 

She sat with me, reassured me that everything was going to be okay, and gently quieted so many of my fears. 

She reminded me that we were exactly where we needed to be, that they were going to take good care of both of us and that baby looked great. His heartbeat was strong. 

They started me on antibiotics because they weren’t sure how long my water had been broken, and there was a chance of infection. Then they started Pitocin. (Yuck)

And then… labor began.

With every increase of Pitocin came stronger contractions. I was in labor for maybe three hours. Unmedicated — exactly how I had hoped.

I had only had one birth with an epidural, and I hated it. As I sat there riding the waves of contractions, I thought to myself…

“This is 2026. They made pain medicine for a reason. Why am I not using it?”

I asked my midwife to check me so I could see how far along I was.

5 centimeters.

I asked what my options were because I didn’t know if I could do another 5 centimeters like that.

But she didn’t want me to have anything. She thought it could slow labor down and I was progressing along so well already. Because I had a cold, I couldn’t have laughing gas (which, honestly, I didn’t want anyways).

So I got out of bed and walked around, trying to relieve some of the pain.

Breath in. 

Breathe out. 

Again. 

And again. 

And through the hardest parts of labor, with each wave of contractions, I focused on getting through one moment at a time.

Breathe in. 

Breathe out.

And through the pain, across the room I found my husband’s eyes, no words were needed. 

Love has a language all its own. Love knows. I knew I wasn’t doing this alone. 

About 15 minutes later my body took over and knew what to do. 

One contraction. 

One scream from me. 

One big push. 

And I felt him slide out. 

Cutting through the chaos.

The sweetest sound was heard. 

A baby’s cry. 

A deep sigh of relief escaping from my lips followed by a smile. 

The kind that only comes when you’ve done something that you once thought impossible. 

Our tiny baby had entered the world. 

Everything happened so quickly, the room barely had time to catch up.

My midwife scrambling to catch him because no one expected him to arrive that fast. I ended up having him on the floor since no one knew I was about to push him out and no one was ready. 😳

At 5:41pm, Daddy announced to the world…

“It’s a boy!!”

Everyone helped me and baby back into bed, where I got to hold him against my chest and close to my heart for the very first time. ♥️

My husband hung over us, his face close to mine and to our son, telling me how proud he was. Those words meaning everything to me in that moment. 

Daddy cut the umbilical cord after we collected all the blood from it, and our tiny baby latched right onto me like a champ.

I was so proud of myself for having the unmedicated birth I wanted. I loved that the staff trusted my body and let me do my thing. Unlike my previous births, no one was telling me not to push when my body was telling me it was time.

We got to soak him in for an hour or so and then he went and spent 12 hours in the NICU to be monitored because he was so tiny. 

They needed to watch his temperature, monitor his blood sugar, and because he arrived so unexpectedly on the floor, they wanted to make sure he was okay.

Motherhood asks you to do impossible things.

One of them is watching someone else wheel your baby away while your arms still ache from holding them.

So we walked those halls.

Again.

And again.

Every two hours. 

I nursed him and soaked in every chance I had to snuggle him.

They sent my placenta to the lab to see if they could figure out why my water broke early, but sometimes these things just happen and there isn’t always an answer. 

The important thing was…

Mama and baby were healthy.

Sometime after 6am, as the sun was beginning to rise, he came back to us.

Where we got to learn each other more.

No wires. 

No monitors. 

Just two heart beats that were once one.

The long night was giving way to a new day, and my baby was back in my arms. 

On Sunday our room was overflowing with family, love and buzzing with excitement. 

We got to go home on Monday.

Unfortunately, our journey wasn’t quite over yet. 

Jaundice. 

We headed back to NICU on Thursday evening to spend some time under the bilirubin lights. 

I was a mess; I stayed right there with him and took him out of the lights every two hours to feed him. 

Mother’s aren’t wired to watch their babies from across the room.

We’re made to hold them close.

He didn’t seem to mind it which made it easier.

By 6am the next morning, his treatment was finished. They just needed to check his blood work, and then we got to go home.

Grandma came to keep us company while we waited and drove us home since Daddy had to work that day.

We made it home before the siblings got home from school…

What a special surprise that was.

We were all exactly where we belonged. 

My heart and hands are full!! 

Winter had brought blizzards.

Sleepless nights.

Hospital hallways.

NICU monitors.

Blue lights.

More tears than I ever expected.

But it also brought the tiniest miracle.

The little boy who arrived before we were ready…

His three big siblings are so smitten with him. He’s stolen daddy’s heart and mommy’s camera roll and is just what we waited for and needed! 

Our family, once waiting for someone we hadn’t named yet- finally complete. 

Beckett Warren is so very loved.