Kayla’s Birth Story
Baby Girl James
A Note Before You Read
As a fellow mom and a therapist, I want to gently offer a content note before you read this birth story. It includes personal details about labor, delivery, and the emotional and physical intensity of childbirth.
Birth stories can stir up all kinds of feelings—especially if you’ve experienced a difficult birth, loss, or are navigating your own journey to or through parenthood. Please care for yourself as you read. It’s okay to pause, step away, or choose not to read at all.
You know what you need. Trust that.
There are moments that change you forever. My daughter’s birth was one of them. As a therapist and a mother, I’ve come to understand birth not just as a beginning, but as a profound emotional journey. I want to share this story not just as a personal memory, but as a moment that deepened my empathy, redefined my strength, and continues to shape the way I support others.
Part One:
The Quiet Shift
Friday, January 14, 2022
At 38 weeks pregnant, my days had taken on a steady rhythm—familiar, quiet, and tinged with anticipation. I was originally scheduled to see Dr. Holden that morning, but a minor flooding issue at the clinic pushed my appointment to the next day, Saturday. At the time, it felt like nothing more than a small inconvenience. I rescheduled without much thought, not knowing how significant that change would turn out to be.
I spent the day moving through my usual routine, balancing the needs of my three-year-old son while checking off small tasks and mentally counting down the days until I’d meet my baby girl. I felt calm, grounded. She was growing, kicking, always reminding me she was there.
By 8 p.m., the house had settled. My son was asleep in his bed, and Michael and I had settled into our favorite part of the evening—quiet time on the couch, feet up, a show playing in the background. I always enjoyed this time of the day as this was usually our time—my baby and me. She’d start dancing, flipping, and kicking in a way that always brought a smile to my face and reminded me she was right there, growing stronger by the day.
But this night was different.
As the show played, I realized something unsettling—there were no kicks. No nudges. No familiar little thumps to distract me from the screen. My little girl, usually so active, was completely still.
I had never needed to do formal kick counts before; she was always so full of life. But that silence in my belly—so unlike her—wrapped around me like a fog of worry.
At first, I tried not to panic. The last time I’d had these concerns about her movements, I ended up at the case room, and within minutes of eating a popsicle and being connected to the monitors, she was flipping and kicking like usual. All that worry had turned out to be nothing. So, I talked myself down. I told myself she was just tired or running out of space. I reminded myself that everything had been fine so far. I convinced myself I didn’t need to worry—that maybe I was just overthinking it.
I shut down that small voice inside and I did my kick counts, slowly and anxiously, and it took me a full hour to finally feel her move. It was just enough to calm the loudest alarms ringing in my head. I told myself it was okay, and with that uneasy reassurance, I went to sleep.
Part Two:
The Stillness That
Spoke
Saturday January 15, 2022
But when I woke up the next morning, I knew something wasn’t right.
While Michael was in the shower, I sat at the kitchen table, silent tears slipping down my cheeks as I watched our three-year-old, Grayson, play in the living room. His laughter rang through the house—innocent and unbothered—but I couldn’t shake the tightness in my chest. I felt far away, almost suspended, watching the morning unfold around me.
Grayson noticed. His small face crinkled with concern, and before I could brush the tears away, he ran into my arms and held me tight.
I wrapped him up, burying my face in his hair, trying to breathe through the rising anxiety. I didn’t want him to carry my fear. I didn’t want him to feel the weight of something I couldn’t name—but I knew, deep down, that something had changed. Something I couldn’t control.
When Michael was ready to face the day, I shared my concerns with him. I told him I was still unsettled by the lack of movement, the quietness that had followed me through the night. We made the decision together to head to the clinic early.
Because of COVID restrictions, Michael stayed in the car with Grayson while I went in alone. I don’t remember much of the walk from the parking lot to the elevator—only that the world felt muted. Like I was moving underwater. Each step felt distant, disconnected, like I was floating slightly above my body, watching myself go through the motions.
The elevator doors opened on the third floor. I stepped out into a hallway that felt both familiar and completely surreal. The beige walls, the soft hum of fluorescent lights, the quiet of a Saturday morning—all of it felt impossibly far away. My feet moved on autopilot, but I could barely feel the ground beneath them.
A bypassed the waiting room full women, some rocking their babies in their strollers while others rubbed their bellies absentmindedly. Their chatter and laughter seemed distant as I walked past them, holding back my tears with every step. At the desk, I explained to the secretary why I was so early. My voice trembled as I shared that I hadn't felt her move since the night before. There was no hesitation in her response - without missing a beat, she immediately ushered me into an exam room.
As I sat on the examination table, I tried to hold it together, but my mind felt strangely detached, slow. There was no room in my thoughts for hope or dread—just emptiness. That hollow space in my chest was terrifying, more unsettling than any worry or fear. I felt like I was standing at the edge of something, knowing I was minutes away from a fork in the road. My life—our life—was about to take a turn, and I had no idea which way it would go.
I lay down on the exam bed, the sterile smell of the room mixing with the overwhelming silence. Tears slipped silently down my cheeks, tracing paths of worry I didn’t want to feel, but couldn’t suppress. My heart ached for the baby girl growing inside me, for the unknowns I couldn’t control. I tried to grasp threads of reassurance, that everything would be fine—that this would just be another false alarm. But deep down, I felt a quiet knowing sitting heavily in my stomach. It was a sensation I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much I willed it away.
When Dr. Holden finally entered the room, I answered his questions quietly. He moved quickly but calmly, bringing in the ultrasound machine. He didn’t waste any time; his focus was sharp as he moved the wand across my belly, eyes fixed on the screen. The seconds stretched on, unbearable in their stillness. Every flicker of the image on the screen felt like it was going to carry the answer to the fear that had built up in my chest. The screen was pointed away from me. All I could do was look at the ceiling tiles above me and feel the tears drawing lines down my cheeks.
Then, after what felt like an eternity, I heard it, the whooshing sound of a pulse.
He found movement in the placenta first—a small reassurance that something was there, still active. But it was when he found her heartbeat, steady and rhythmic, that the tight knot in my stomach loosened, if only slightly.
The silence lifted, but the weight of it hung in the room. Everything appeared fine, at least on the surface. Her heartbeat seemed strong. The monitor showed movement, there was sufficient amniotic fluid in the sac. I felt a fleeting wave of relief—my baby girl was okay, she was alive. It was the reassurance I so desperately needed, and for a moment, I allowed myself to settle back into the bed, my breathing slowing, able to exhale for the first time in what felt like hours.
Dr. Holden, always so calm and kind, gave me a small, reassuring smile as he continued to look over the images on the screen. He never rushed, never made me feel like I was asking too many questions or that my worry wasn’t valid. His gentle demeanor was the steady anchor I needed in that moment, but as the seconds ticked by, I could sense his concern. He continued to observe in silence, his focus never wavering.
After a period, he looked up from the screen, placed his hand on my shoulder and, in his quiet, reassuring way, encouraged me to go to the case room for monitoring "just to be safe".
Since I’d been in for monitoring once before, I wasn’t too worried. We took our time—dropped Grayson off at his grandparents’, grabbed some food, and even brought my sister along to keep Michael company while I went in. He wasn’t allowed in the hospital because of COVID restrictions, which, though frustrating, had become just another layer of stress we’d gotten used to managing. Everything felt routine, and we were just going through the motions confident that things would turn out fine. I’d gotten the reassurance I’d needed and I was clinging onto the facts. Her heart was beating - my baby girl was okay.
I truly believed that the moment they hooked me up to the monitors, she’d start kicking. That’s what had happened before. That’s what was supposed to happen.
Part Three:
Pink Socks
and Paint Stains
Saturday January 15, 2022
I was lying in a triage room, curtained off from other mothers who were also being monitored. The soft murmur of nurses and beeping monitors drifted through curtained partitions. In my little corner, it felt calm, almost reassuring.
There were sensors strapped to my belly, wires running to a nearby machine that printed out strips of paper with graphs—a visual trail of my baby’s heartbeats and mine. A nurse placed a clicker in my hand and smiled, explaining that I should press it every time I felt her move.
And for a while, I felt grounded. I was smiling. Laughing even. Her heartbeat was steady, clear and strong on the monitor. After the fear and weight of the morning, that sound was a lifeline. I felt okay again—hopeful, maybe even a little silly for how much I had worried.
They brought me a popsicle, and I sat there, eating it slowly, relaxing into the relief. It felt like the hardest part was over. She was okay. I was okay.
But as the minutes passed, that quiet reassurance began to crack. I finished the popsicle and realized—I still wasn’t clicking. She still wasn’t moving. I waited. Shifted. Pressed on my belly. Nothing.
Eighty minutes passed. Still—nothing.
The doctor returned to do another ultrasound. That’s when they discovered my amniotic fluid was low. The nurses hovered near the monitors, exchanging quiet glances. No one said anything alarming, but I felt it again—that subtle but undeniable shift in the room. The atmosphere grew tighter, the calm thinning into concern.
After a short, hushed conversation in the hallway, the doctor came back and recommended inducing labor. I was past 37 weeks, and between the low fluid and her continued stillness, it felt safer to begin now than to wait.
Michael had been waiting in the parking lot with my sister. He left to bring her home, and to grab our hospital bags and the car seat—those “just in case” items that were now no longer optional. While he was gone, the nurses moved me into a birthing room and began preparing for what was next.
Despite everything, I found a strange comfort in the soft beep of the monitor. Her heartbeat was still there—reliable, steady. That sound became my anchor. If something was wrong, I was where I needed to be. I managed to laugh with the nurse as she struggled to insert the IV—my skin resisting every attempt. After a few tries, we both sighed in relief when it finally took. That moment reminded me I was still in my body, still tethered to something real.
Next a nurse came in and broke my water with a long plastic hook. I winced at the pressure and the sharp discomfort. Only a small trickle followed—nothing like what I had experienced before. Just a quiet confirmation that something really was different this time.
I sat in the bed, staring down at my feet in my pink woven socks, noticing the paint stains around the toes. I hadn’t expected to be delivering my baby that day. I wasn’t ready - not emotionally, not mentally. It all felt surreal, like I’d stumbled into the middle of a story. I didn’t remember writing.
This wasn’t how I pictured it.
But here we were. Hearbeat still strong. Popsicle stick in the trash. And everything slowly shifting into something real.
Part Four:
The Choice I
Didn’t Want
Saturday January 15, 2022
When Michael was finally allowed into the room, he stepped into a space that was still and quiet. The birthing floor wasn’t chaotic. It was calm—almost serene. A few nurses stood nearby, waiting. There was a softness to their presence, a quiet anticipation. Nothing about the room felt alarming.
I was excited, even though I was in no way prepared for what was to come.
After all the uncertainty of the morning, it felt like we were finally stepping into the moment we’d been waiting for. My worry had found a direction—it turned into purposeful action. The monitors were in place, and I was hopeful. I’d made it this far. She was still with me. I was ready—ready and waiting for my body to do what it needed to bring her into the world.
For a while, it was peaceful. We waited.
There was an undercurrent of uncertainty in the room - a hum of low conversation, the occasional glance exchanged between nurses - but I chalked it up to normal monitoring. I truly believed we were simply waiting for labor to begin.
Then her heart rate dipped.
I was instantly reminded of Grayson’s birth—how his heart rate had dropped too, how they’d asked me to change positions to improve blood flow. So when the nurses gently guided me onto my side, then my other side, I followed without question. It felt familiar. It felt manageable.
But this time, there were no contractions.
My body felt quiet. I felt nothing.
Still, each time I shifted, her heart rate returned to normal. It became a pattern: the dip, the reposition, the recovery. And again. And again. The nurses remained calm, but the tension began to build. This wasn’t a temporary blip. It was a cycle—and we all knew it couldn’t continue forever.
After what felt like a long stretch of repetition and waiting, the doctor and resident came in. They stood at the end my bed. There was no panic in their voices, but there was an undercurrent of urgency. They spoke with clarity and honesty. They told me it was my choice how to proceed.
But gently and directly, they told me that they recommended an emergency C-section. It was the safest option - for her. They said I could get an epidural and wait it out, but there was a real possibility that if I tried to delivery vaginally, that she wouldn’t survive the labour.
Their words landed with force, even though they were spoken with care.
It was true.
My baby was struggling—and there wasn’t a single contraction in my body.
I didn’t stop to think. How she arrived no longer mattered to me—only that she arrived safely and healthy.
A part of me had dreamed of rewriting my first birth story with her arrival. I had imagined feeling every contraction, every movement, the powerful journey of bringing her into the world. I had believed this pregnancy was my second chance to experience that.
But those hopes and dreams vanished in an instant.
All that mattered now was her safety.
I looked at Michael, then at the team around me, and said simply,
“Let’s do the C-section.”
In that moment, I let go of control—trusting, hoping, and believing that my daughter would be gently guided into the world, safely and soundly.
Part Six:
A Quiet Beginning
to the Loudest
Love
Saturday January 15, 2022
Everything started moving so fast.
Before I knew it, I was lying in the operating room, completely exposed under harsh, sterile lights. The cold air seemed to seep into my skin, making me shiver despite the blankets they’d brought. My body felt heavy, overwhelmed by the whirlwind of events that had brought me here. I was tied to the table, vulnerable and bare, while the nurses quickly gowned up around me.
Then, fabric was draped over me, cutting off my view of everything below my chest. I was hooked up to anesthesia, and a quick jab in my thigh told me it was working—slowly dulling the sensations, taking me out of the moment just enough.
The only thing I could focus on was Michael sitting by my side, holding my hand with quiet strength. I stared up at the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, searching for something steady, something constant.
Then I felt it—the tugging, the pressure—as the doctors and nurses moved in perfect sync, carefully working together to bring our baby into the world.
The seconds stretched long, heavy with anticipation. And then, finally—someone said it.
“She’s out.”
But there was no sound. No cries. No congratulations. Only the sharp, jarring creak of a swinging door moving on its hinges. A silence so heavy it seemed to press down on everyone in the room.
I waited. Held my breath. Told myself any second now, I would hear her—her sweet, tiny cry, her first voice in the world.
But the silence stretched on, thickening the air with every passing moment.
No one said a word. Time seemed to freeze, broken only by the steady beeping of monitors and the soft rustle of nurses moving quietly around me.
Then the anesthesiologist spoke, his voice steady but edged with worry.
“She looks very pale,” he said.
“The NICU team is with her now.”
His words didn’t fully register at first. I kept waiting for reassurance—a voice to say it was a false alarm, that she was okay, that everything would be fine.
But there was only silence.
The door with its small square window blocked my view, keeping my baby girl just out of reach, unseen for the very first time.
An unbearable emptiness settled deep in my stomach. I knew—something was wrong.
We waited. And waited.
I lay frozen, staring up at the ceiling. Silent tears traced slow paths down my cheeks, while a song I’d played on repeat for the past eight months quietly echoed in my mind…
"I love you, I love you, I love you, I do
I've loved you before I even knew you."
As they stitched me up, the minutes stretched into hours. Each passing second was a sharp reminder of the fear I couldn’t shake. Michael held my hand tightly, but the worry etched across his face mirrored the storm in my own heart.
Eventually, the anesthesiologist checked on our daughter again. His voice was calm but heavy with concern. He told us she was having trouble breathing—still very pale. With every word, my heart sank deeper, my chest tightening with a fear that seemed impossible to contain.
Time felt suspended as I was wheeled into the recovery room, my body still numb from the anesthesia, but my mind racing—a whirlwind of shock, worry, and helplessness. Nurses wrapped me in warming blankets, trying to bring stability to my trembling frame. I didn’t want to give in to the fear, to the weight of the unknown, so I made a joke about how warm the blankets were. A small moment of levity in a space that felt otherwise untethered.
I felt like I was floating—disconnected from my body, from the sterile room, from everything—except the song that played quietly in my head. It became a fragile thread I held onto, something soft and familiar in a moment that was anything but.
"When you breathe for the first time
When you see for the first time
When you love for the first time
I'll be here…"
“’Cause I love you, I love you, I love you, I do
And I've loved you before I even knew you.”
We sat in the quiet, dark room, waiting. Then suddenly, a nurse rushed in. Her face was urgent, yet her voice remained calm and steady.
“We need permission to give your baby blood products,” she said.
I barely registered the request. My mind was foggy, clouded with confusion and fear, but without hesitation, we responded, “Yes. Please, help her.”
And just like that, she was gone, rushing off to do everything possible to save our little girl. Once more, we were left alone in the stillness—surrounded only by the warmth of the blankets and the anxious rhythm of our breaths.
Part Seven:
The Distance
Between Us
Saturday January 15, 2022
I don’t know how long we stayed in that room, waiting—wrapped in silence, holding onto hope—but eventually, I was wheeled, still in my hospital bed, down the hallway to meet my baby girl for the first time.
I wasn’t sure what I expected—maybe a little color in her cheeks, maybe a small cry or movement that would reassure me—but instead, she looked like a porcelain doll. Still. Fragile. Almost unreal.
She lay in a tiny bed, her body connected to tubes running through her belly button, her nose, her mouth. She looked too delicate for this world, as though the slightest touch might shatter her. Her skin was pale, translucent, almost blue-tinged. A soft pink hat rested on her head, too large and slipping down over her brow. Even that small piece of fabric overwhelmed her. She seemed impossibly small—and impossibly far away.
All I could do was reach out and rest my hand gently on her head. I was still confined to my bed, unable to sit up or move freely because of the epidural and the fresh incision. I couldn’t cradle her. I couldn’t lift her to my chest. I could barely move—and even if I could, the nurses wouldn't have let me hold her. She was too unstable. The fear of dislodging a line or disrupting her fragile state loomed over everything.
I felt frozen. This was my daughter. She was right there—close enough to touch—but it didn’t feel like she was mine yet. I couldn’t wrap her in my arms, couldn’t feel her weight against my body. I was terrified to even touch her.
The doctors stood nearby, explaining things I could barely hear, let alone process. Their voices were muffled, abstract, like they were underwater. They told us her hemoglobin was dangerously low—that a blood transfusion was already underway. The line through her belly delivered blood, while the tube in her mouth was there to relieve air trapped in her stomach.
None of it made sense. No one could tell us what had happened, or why. No one knew yet what had caused her to be so sick, so weak.
The reality of it hit me like a wave.
Joy, relief, despair—all of it crashed over me at once. She wasn’t coming with me. This tiny, perfect girl I had carried for so long wasn’t going to rest beside me. She wouldn’t be swaddled in a bassinet next to my bed. Instead, she would stay in the NICU—alone, surrounded by machines, watched over by doctors and nurses in a place no newborn should ever have to begin. But she was alive.
I couldn’t comprehend everything I was feeling.
Inside, everything went quiet. I had no options. I had no say. There was nothing I could do except nod along, agree with the nurses, and let them wheel me away—away from her, away from the only place I wanted to be. Two floors down, to a maternity ward that now felt foreign and wrong without her.
That night, back in my hospital room, I was alone.
The adrenaline had worn off, and the exhaustion hit like a wave I couldn’t outrun. My body trembled—from surgery, from shock, from everything I had just lived through. The nurses urged me to rest, to sleep while I could. But how could I?
My baby was two floors down, hooked up to machines, and I wasn’t with her.
The guilt was crushing. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face—so pale, so still—with that too-big pink hat slipping over her tiny features. I hated being apart from her. I hated knowing she was lying there without me within arm’s reach. I wanted to be strong enough to get up, to sit beside her and watch her breathe through the night. But my body wouldn’t let me.
I kept telling myself that healing would help me get to her sooner. That rest was necessary. That this was temporary. But logic had no place in my heart that night. All I could feel was the ache of separation. The fear that I was already failing her by not being there every second she needed me.
I lay in that bed, buried under the weight of blankets and a silence that didn’t comfort—it haunted. In the rooms around me, I could hear babies crying. Newborn cries piercing the quiet. And I couldn’t help but wonder—was my baby crying too? What did her cry even sound like?
I drifted into a restless, numb sleep, my body too tired to fight, my arms aching for the baby I had not yet held.