Waylon Tate's Birth Story | Meekly Loving by Sydney Meek

Born August 11th at 4:51 AM | 6 lbs 12 oz | 19 inches long

The title of this should really be “Waylon’s Wild Ride” because boy, this third baby really knew how to make an entrance.

Here are links to my first and second trimester updates. I still need to work on the third, but wanted to get his birth story out for y’all while it’s fresh in my mind! I’m sharing a lot more details here than I have in the past, because I want to show just how perfectly God wrote them into place.

At my 20-week anatomy scan, I was diagnosed with placenta previa, and they noticed baby had fluid in his kidneys, which is apparently common in boys. At 32 weeks, we found out both of those things resolved themselves, but I now had a high amount of amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios). I had this with previous pregnancies, which was actually the reason I was induced with Dolly Jean, but the cause is unknown in my case. Because the fluid continued to increase every week, I risked out of my midwife’s care and had to transfer to high-risk OBs. After every weekly ultrasound, the OB on rotation would suggest getting an induction at some point in the near future, but eventually I convinced the one at my 37-week appointment to hold off until 39 weeks to keep baby cooking as long as possible.

I always had a weird peace about how things were going. Of course I was disappointed to risk out of my midwife’s care and told to be induced, but towards the end of my pregnancy, I noticed my prayers shift from being about me and my plans to “God, may you be glorified through this baby’s birth, however it goes,” and WOW, he sure was.

A few days after that 37-week ultrasound, Mason and I went on a date night for our anniversary. We even brought sticky notes to hopefully settle on a baby name (spoiler alert: we didn’t until after he was born). On the drive to dinner, I texted my midwife to ask what hospital we should go to if I went into labor on my own before my induction – which I did not think would happen since I went a few days over my due date with Lainey Rae. Little did we know, that would be 6 hours later.

1:30 AM

After getting an hour of sleep, I wake up to what I thought was peeing the bed. I didn’t feel a pop like I had before, and my contractions were not at all painful, so I was doubtful that my water actually broke. I called my midwife who lives down the road to bring a swab to test if it was amniotic fluid, and it was. I was officially in labor!

2:00 AM

We quickly packed a bag, called a friend to come over while the girls slept, and headed to the hospital. We spent the car ride calling more friends to pick the girls up in the morning and take care of our animals while also reading through a birth plan I had saved in my phone to talk through later that week.

3:30 AM

After being admitted and talking through plans with my L&D nurse, my contractions started to become painful. We also found out baby somehow flipped during labor without me knowing and was now breech! Since the hospital staff is not trained to deliver breech babies, we had to prepare for a c-section.

My midwife and husband both prayed over me while so many thoughts ran through my mind, thinking “there’s no way this is happening,” and “why did I go through all this effort and eat all these nasty supplements just to have a c-section?” I don’t think I ever fully processed everything, but I remember feeling like I was in a state of surrender. My midwife and I actually joked later that we both silently prayed that baby would come on his own before they took me away for the c-section.

4:30 AM

After waiting an hour for my labs to be confirmed, my contractions started to get intense. I could tell I was in the transition phase of labor and that baby was coming soon. Instead of getting an epidural, the OB decided I needed to be put to sleep for an emergency c-section.

They wheeled me away from my husband and midwife and into the operating room. All I remember was my angel of a nurse saying, “God’s the only one who knows how this baby will get here,” as the rest of the staff rushed all around me.

As soon as they helped roll me onto the OR table, baby boy began to come out “frank breech” (booty first, folded in half like a taco)! I could tell his head was stuck as my contraction was coming to an end, so I told myself I could either push him out on my own or they would find a way to pull or cut him out. Somehow I pushed beyond my limits every possible way, and he made his arrival at 4:51 AM!

Because he was breech, the fluid in his lungs didn’t get expelled properly, and he needed help breathing. They immediately took him back to the NICU for about 45 minutes before we were reunited. Over the next 24 hours, I pestered the nurses enough to let us leave early, so we got to come home the next day.

What a wild ride. I got to experience a rollercoaster of emotions, testing of my faith, and full surrender to God’s sovereignty. It’s kind of funny to look back and see glimpses of his graciousness and sense of humor. We achieved the natural birth I desired, just in the most stressful and hardest experience. Little man defied the odds and surprised us in many ways, while I successfully avoided an induction AND emergency c-section with zero time to spare – all in God’s perfect timing.

Over the past few days, I’ve thought about all the “what ifs”:

What if I never had the follow-up ultrasound at 32 weeks?
What if I allowed the high risk doctors to induce me earlier?
What if our friends didn’t answer the phone to babysit?
What if I had already packed our bags and we arrived at the hospital sooner?
What if we hadn’t made it to the hospital at all?
What if my labwork hadn’t taken so long?
What if we didn’t know he was breech?

I fully believe the care I received through my chiropractor and midwife was what made this labor, delivery and postpartum healing so much smoother than it could have been. Because we prepared my body with nourishing foods, supplements, a healthy lifestyle, and my pelvis was in perfect alignment, this healing process has been my best yet. Even after such an intense birth, I had one tiny tear, no hemorrhage for the first time, and minimal pain/bleeding afterwards.

I truly believe every little detail was a miracle. My prayer for God to be glorified through this birth sure was answered.

Welcome to the family, Waylon!!