Although I had been telling my family that I thought our son would arrive early, I couldn’t help but be surprised when I was awakened from a deep sleep by contractions that were already ten minutes apart. But that is how our story begins.

I spent most of the weekend getting our home ready for the arrival of a new baby. Washing one last load of laundry, making a trip to the grocery store and making sure the cabinets were stocked, cleaning and re cleaning, I guess it was safe to say I was in nesting mode. I had our bags mostly packed and lists written out on what we would still need to pack, I didn’t want to forget anything. Baby Abrahm was due to be delivered by cesarean section on Tuesday, January 10 at 12:30 p.m.

I went to bed on Sunday evening, thoughts racing through my head of what I should do on Monday. I had everything ready to go so I figured I would try and relax that next day. I wanted to stay home in case the baby decided to make an early appearance. I also wanted to rest knowing that I was about to have surgery on Tuesday.

At 1:08 a.m. I was awakened with an incredible urge to use the restroom, nothing out of the ordinary for a nine month pregnant woman. I came back to bed and had no sooner laid my head against my pillow when I felt a strange and painful sensation. With the sensation came a small trickle of fluid. I had a pretty good idea what was happening but denial took over. I used the restroom again (still nothing out of the ordinary for a nine month pregnant woman) and laid back down.

Ten minutes later I felt the same mildly painful sensation and another small trickle of fluid. About ten minutes after that, same thing. I don’t know what I was thinking (or that I was even really thinking at all) but I decided to let this go on for about an hour and a half before I got out of bed to review a worksheet given to me by my doctor. This worksheet provided information on recognizing labor signs, at what point I should call him and what number to call. At that point I felt another contraction and woke up my husband. He took the news pretty well and remained calm.

After two hours of steady contractions I finally admitted to myself that I was in labor and called my doctor. This was three o’clock in the morning, needless to say he sounded a little tired when he answered. He asked me a few questions about my labor, I reminded him that I was a scheduled C-section for Tuesday and he told me to head to the hospital. This was really happening! At that point I called and woke up my mother to meet us at the hospital. Between contractions I finished packing the bags while Mike woke Aeva up.

Have you ever tried to wake a three year old up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night? Well, it isn’t pretty. Kicking and screaming on her bedroom floor, we got our little angel dressed. Then we broke every parent rule and did what no parent is ever supposed to do…we bribed our screaming daughter with gummy worms. It worked! One gummy worm later we were loading our suddenly sweet daughter and our bags into the car. Off to the hospital we went.

We were admitted into Labor and Delivery shortly before four in the morning. They hooked me up to monitors and began asking a slew of about 800 questions. My mother and stepfather arrived shortly after us to help take care of Aeva. My father and sister also made the middle of the night trip. By five o’clock it was confirmed, the C-section was being rescheduled for seven o’clock that morning. They gave me medicine to stop the contractions and continued to monitor me. Before we knew it my husband and I were being taken back to the operating room and my husband and I were about to meet our son for the first time, a day earlier than expected!

Abrahm Ellis was born at 7:31 a.m. He weighed 6 pounds, 5 ounces and was 20-1/2 inches in length. We couldn’t have felt more blessed, our little family was complete. The nurses cleaned Abrahm up while the doctor continued working on me. It turns out that during the contractions my uterus had torn along the previous C-section incision. Had I continued to labor and attempted to deliver naturally our birth story could’ve ended tragically, a thought I am still not comfortable with. But instead we were blessed with a sweet and healthy baby boy, and for that we are eternally grateful.