trigger warning: NICU experience discussed.

Hali Johanna McEwen joined us earthside on Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 at 5:27 AM weighing 8.6lbs and 22 inches long.

Here is the story of her birth:

Early on a December morning, I was rushing out of my house to get to Bryson City, NC for the third and final day of the Brevard High School Lady Devil’s Christmas Basketball tournament. Before I left the house, I decided to finally take a pregnancy test, for the 13th month in a row assuming it would be negative, again.

I fell to the floor in a puddle of tears when I saw two pink lines. The relief, the excitement, the realness of it all sank in deeply. I would finally get to be a mom. I couldn’t believe it!

Overall, my pregnancy was pretty rough. I wish I could report that I had some glowing, lovely pregnancy full of joy and excitement, but honestly… I was mostly sick, and when the puking quit, the prodromal labor stepped in. I enjoyed the moments when I could, but truly I was just so ready to meet my baby girl.

Callum, my husband, and I made a guess on when we thought Hali would be born. I guessed August 28th, and he guessed August 29th. We were both wrong, but we weren’t far off.

On August 29th, I had my 38-week check-up scheduled for 9:20 AM. I nearly canceled this appointment because I had just had one the Friday before, surely nothing could change so tragically to warrant driving the hour trek to Asheville again already?

Well, I decided to go anyway. Begrudgingly, very pregnant, and over all the false labor contractions, I walked into my appointment ready for the same old “everything looks great, see you next week!"

But, instead, my nurse decided to hook me up to the contraction monitor after our initial conversation led her to believe that my prodromal labor contractions may actually be the real thing. After having consistent contractions for over an hour, my OB came in and found that my water was leaking, so she sent me to the hospital.

When I went to check out, the lady at the desk was confused about why my doctor didn’t have an order for my next appointment and was very excited and shocked when I said, “it’s because I am going to the hospital now.” Everyone wished me good luck and off I went.

A few things to note here:

I was by myself… My husband was at work nearly 2 hours away.
My contractions were not intensely painful at this point
Gratefully, my car was packed and ready to go.
My maternity leave was not supposed to start for several more days…

Upon arriving at the hospital, I got most of my things in and got checked in pretty quickly. Luckily for me, I had warned my husband early enough that he arrived at the hospital not long after me. It was around 11:40 AM when I arrived, and Callum arrived around 1 pm with lunch in hand (did you know you can’t eat once you’re at a certain point in labor? It’s so your stomach isn’t full if you go into the OR for a C section!).

At 3 pm, my doctor checked me and said my water bag had accumulated more water which is when we decided to go ahead and have it broken. From that moment on contractions quickly got very intense.

I dilated from 2 to 6 centimeters in a matter of 3 hours. You could have told me it was 5 minutes or a lifetime, I wouldn’t have known the difference. The pain was so intense, I couldn’t do anything but wail and lean into the pain in my hips. My husband did counter pressure, held my hand while I screamed, and quite literally cheered me on through every wave reminding me to breathe and of my strength.

By 6 centimeters I decided there was no way I would be able to push without an epidural. It took some time for the epidural to work, my right leg was fully affected while my left leg still had total feeling. It was wild. They asked me to turn on my side, pumped higher doses, gave me some more time, and eventually my left leg went numb.

Callum and I almost immediately fell asleep after I got the epidural. Two and a half hours later, they woke me to do a cervix check, and to my surprise, I was 9 centimeters dilated.

At this point, it was 10:40 pm on August 29th, and we weren’t sure if Callum’s birthdate guess would be true or not. We were so excited and spent the next several hours updating family/friends and talking about how excited we were to meet our daughter.

At 1 AM I started to push. This part was the most taxing part of labor, but it was also the most peaceful. In the room was my nurse, the doctor, Callum, me, and our daughter who was about to make her grand entrance. I had asked for the mirror so I could hopefully watch her enter the world, but also to help myself visually see if my pushes were productive or not.

Through every single push, I squeezed Cals’ hand while the room cheered me on. This was when I truly felt the embodiment of “it takes a village.” More on that later…

After 4 hours of pushing, my doctor said to me, “Kayla, we need to get this baby out.” I knew that I could keep pushing, but ultimately, Hali wasn’t able to get under my pubic bone on her own. My doctor suggested two options: a vacuum-assisted birth, or a c-section.

The catch was that the c-section would not have been a normal c-section procedure, as they would have had to do a lower cut on me in order to pull Hali up and out of the birth canal. My doctor did not list the explicit risks with this but made it very clear that it was * very * risky for us both. However, a vacuum-assisted birth had a few risks that weren’t as scary as the c-section: Hali could have head trauma, and I was at a greater risk of tearing. If the vacuum didn’t work after half an hour, we would do an emergency c-section.

My quiet delivery room quickly went from 4 people to 8 or more. The moments between pushes must have only been 30 seconds, but I would fully fall asleep in between. I was exhausted, the quiet ushering of extra bodies into the delivery room was lost on me. All of these women came in and yelled for me to keep pushing harder, encouraging me through every wave. I didn’t even understand why they were all there, but without them, I’m not sure I would have had the stamina I found.

At 5:27 AM on August 30th, Hali joined us. Through the crowd of women standing around me, I saw my husband with tears in his eyes staring at me while I held our wailing daughter on my chest. That moment is the most euphoric moment of my entire life. He came to hug us, and we had those first few moments together in pure blissful magic.

When they took Hali from me to weigh her, etc, is when they quickly shared that I had a third-degree tear and that they would be doing a fundal massage.

I screamed harder than I had screamed all day long. A fundal massage is the absolute worst part of birth, you’ve just had the best moment of your life, quickly followed by a pushing upon your stomach that is torturous and necessary.

The next few hours were a blur. We moved from labor and delivery to the mother and baby wing, had hundreds of texts and calls to reply to, and no less than a dozen doctors and nurses made their way into our room to introduce themselves.

It was around 11 am that the pediatrician came in to tell me my daughter’s head trauma was concerning to her and that she had ordered an ultrasound. They took Hali down to get the ultrasound and my heart sunk. My husband, dead asleep after having been awake for longer than 24 hours, wasn’t aware of the news yet and I wasn’t able to walk to get up and wake him. Luckily a friend was there and could shake him for me to tell him the news.

Hali may need to go to NICU… He couldn’t understand me at first, but it eventually settled in. They thought her head trauma could be 1 of 3 things, the most dangerous being a subgaleal hematoma. After the first ultrasound came back inconclusive, they opted for another. This time, they let us go with her.

When the pediatrician came back to tell us it was, in fact, a subgaleal hematoma, it felt like my heart was in my stomach. Was it my fault? Was there something I could have done to make birth easier on her? Should I have said yes to the vacuum-assisted birth? They said the best place for her to be was in the NICU to be sure her bleeding wouldn’t become fatal, and so they could proactively treat her for jaundice.

The next several days became a series of waking up, eating food, seeing doctors, going to the NICU, repeat. We would spend the majority of our day in the NICU only to come back to our room searching for rest but only to find that lactation consultants and nurses were looking for us.

All of this, and my body was still learning how to walk after a strange epidural reaction (most people are up and walking within 2 hours of the epidural, it took me over 6), still trying to figure out peeing with a 3rd-degree tear, and desperately trying to catch up on lost sleep.

My heart was on the floor above me, and my body wasn’t able to just get up and run there to feed her like I so desperately ached to do every time the NICU nurse would call to say she was ready to eat again. It pained me to watch my baby hooked up to machines, surrounded by other babies fighting for their lives. It wasn’t the energy I anticipated being around in those early days.

Hali spending time in the NICU opened my eyes to an experience I never thought I would have. NICU nurses are literal angels from above, and breast milk donors deserve all the world’s fortunes. And while there are some things I wished I could have been better prepared for (like the feeding experience when your baby is in the NICU), there are silver linings: she doesn’t need to be held at all times, she is happy to sleep in her bassinet or swing when it’s time, she is well.

We prayed that she would be discharged with us when it came time, and that prayer was answered. The condition was that her bilirubin was to be tested by her pediatrician the very next day. We eagerly agreed, loaded our car, and joyfully prepared to go home.

Hali’s bilirubin was at an 11 when we left the NICU, and a 19 the very next day. Luckily for us, her pediatrician was able to send us home with a “Bili blanket” which allowed us to treat her while she was at home with us. For the next two weeks, we went to the doctor all but 3 days for Hali to get a heal prick and have her blood tested. It wasn’t until her 3rd week of life that we didn’t have a single doctor’s appointment or heal prick, just a week of snuggles and sunshine.

Now, our sweet girl is one month old. She is in the 73rd percentile for height, and as badly as Callum wanted a chunky baby, he got a mini version of himself. She is long, lean, and has her father’s nose. Her eyes are still blue/grey, and her hair is a gorgeous auburn color with blonde wisps in the front and red undertones.

She doesn’t cry much but wails when she’s ready to eat. She doesn’t love tummy time but is wildly strong (she’s already rolled over by accident — oh boy!). She does the most adorable arm throw when she is startled. She poops A LOT, so we call her our stink bug. She is calm, and curious, and often spends her awake time just staring. She loves to be held over the shoulder and loves a good head rub. The dogs love her, and she doesn’t mind them much either. She isn’t bothered by the vacuum, dogs barking, or basketballs dribbling when she comes to practices.

We are in love with her. Hali, you are one special girl, and we are two special parents.

If you’ve read this far BLESS you. Thank you for reading.

All my love.

Kayla