Chloe's birth story - One year later

The plight of the second pregnancy/child - not nearly as much documentation of the process. I remember taking a photo every month while I was pregnant with Blake. Now I'm lucky I have any photos of myself, let alone while I was pregnant with Chloe. I'm always the one behind the camera. I've reflected on this a lot and have decided to document our pregnancy/birth story, with what I can remember and with the few pictures I have.

My pregnancy with Chloe was easy - tired the first trimester, felt amazing during the second trimester and back to being tired and swollen the third trimester. I have a love/hate relationship with being pregnant. I love it until I just don't any more, usually around the 32 week mark. It FLEW by - running around after a three year old and working part-time will do that.

Joe and I at my cousin's wedding - 27 weeks pregnant

36 or 37 weeks pregnant. My underwater photoshoot. I cried before going - I was huge, I didn't have anything to wear, there's no way I could do this. Probably one of the best things I could have done - I have never felt so beautiful. Thanks Bonnie!

I was ELEVEN days late. My due date was November 25. I remember my dad jokingly saying to me, when I found out when I was due, to hold out for his birthday on December 1.  I thought, that's not very nice! Little did I know, she wasn't ready to make an appearance until much later. 

I had left for Thanksgiving break from school, anxious for her arrival, and when that came and went, my boss texted me that Sunday night before school resumed and said, "Are you really still pregnant?!" I think I ate spicy foods every day. Like, thai hot spicy. I walked everywhere. I ate eggplant. I ate spicy eggplant. I drank a million cups of Raspberry Leaf Tea. I saw two different acupuncturists three times. I rubbed my pressure points. I got a pedicure. I went to the chiropractor. This kid DID NOT want to come out.

It was a Friday. I had my membranes stripped and saw the acupuncturist at the birth center. She thought for sure I'd be there that night having this baby.  The night came and went. Saturday, I went back to have my membranes stripped again. I would be two weeks late on Monday, meaning, if this kid didn't come before then, I'd be transferring my care to the hospital. Low and behold, my water broke at noon that day! To be honest, I wasn't really sure if that's what it was, because it definitely wasn't like how they portray it in the movies. I unfortunately left out that piece of info when I called my midwife later when I was having some pretty painful, but irregular contractions. By 4pm, I was in full on labor, still at home! I couldn't believe how fast it was happening. Joe called Bonnie, our doula and Shaunti, our midwife, and told them the baby was coming!

Thankfully Bonnie lived close to us and was at the house in no time. My mom walked in the door soon after, just arriving from the airport with my brother. We immediately left for the birth center. I remember sitting at the stop light at Foothills and Arapahoe, breathing through my contractions, thinking, good God, this sucks. Joe grabbed my hand, with the most excited look on his face and said, "We get to find out what the baby is!" Murphy's Law, we got every single red light on the way - when we finally arrived, I thought this baby was going to be born in Joe's truck in the parking lot of the birth center! We beat Shaunti there, as she lived in Denver, so Bonnie ran in and immediately started filling the birthing tub. These things are HUGE and take some time to fill. I wasn't going to be able to have this baby in the water unless the tub was filled, so I had to "wait". Ha!

The rest is really a blur of pain and then sweet relief. All I can remember is that we arrived at the birth center around 4:30pm and Chloe Elizabeth Leggett made her appearance at around 5pm. Yup, that fast.

It was such a wonderful, happy, painful, joyful experience. I had the birth experience I wanted and it was beautiful. And here we are, over one year later.