10 on 10 – October 2019

I’ve been looking forward to this month’s 10 on 10 post for the better part of a year now. Nine months ago (a little more than nine months actually, but who’s counting?), I found out I was pregnant again. After a missed miscarriage January 2018 and a year’s worth of trying, I was finally pregnant.

The pregnancy was rough. Lots of nausea and vomiting. Some new aches and pains. Heartburn too, which was new for me (but look at all of her hair!). I generally love being pregnant, but this time I just struggled way more and had a hard time connecting to the pregnancy. Still, it wasn’t *that* bad and I’m pretty sure I want to do it one more time… eventually.

We didn’t find out the sex this time. My husband wanted to know, I didn’t, so we compromised and didn’t find out. I was 95% certain that I was growing another boy. I had a super inaccurate gut feeling that it was a boy. Almost everything about this pregnancy was different from my boys and lined up with the old wives’ tales about carrying a girl, but I was still convinced. I had a growth ultrasound at 32 weeks because baby was measuring pretty humongous thanks to some super long legs and I thought I caught a glimpse of a baby penis. Obviously that’s not what I saw, but like I said, I was certain I was having my third boy.

September came and brought my mom and photographer with it. After two weeks of prodromal labor, I finally thought I might be going into actual labor on the night of September 23. Around 1am on September 24 (40w 5d), I finally woke everyone up, just in case. Things felt different, but I wasn’t convinced that I was in labor and that the contractions weren’t going to die down yet again. Pretty soon after, I hit transition and accepted the fact that I was indeed in labor.

The problem was that when I reached that point with Arlo, I only had about 30 minutes left before he was born. The hospital out here (no home birth options on Guam) is 35-40 minutes from our house. I kept waiting for things to progress at lightning speed but it was all much more reasonable this time. While I had a bit more time than I did during Arlo’s birth and might have made it to the hospital in the nick of time, labor was still fast. Once I was in transition, I knew we likely weren’t even going to attempt to drive in. I felt much more comfortable delivering at home with my mom’s guidance than on the side of the road in the middle of the night.

Shortly before 3am, just two hours after I woke everyone up, I started pushing and after 20 minutes, I delivered baby number 3. Once baby was born, my mom immediately covered us with a blanket so that no one could get a peek at its parts. After a few minutes I finally looked, fully expecting to see a little penis and instead saw that I was holding a girl. MY girl. I said in complete shock, “It’s a fucking girl!” and then immediately started bawling.

We took our time, but eventually made it in to the hospital to get checked out. Yara Eloise weighed in at 8lbs 11oz and was 22in long with a full head of hair and legs for days.

I went into Yara’s birth with Arlo’s 39w 4d precipitous labor at the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t exactly expecting another 30-40 minutes of active labor and two pushes, but in the moment, anything more than that felt like an eternity. Looking back, I feel like the 2-3 hours of labor I had was a perfect length of time. I didn’t feel overwhelmed the way I did during Arlo’s birth or completely exhausted and defeated the way I felt during Silas’s. It was fast enough to still feel familiar to me, but just slow enough to give me the chance to wrap my mind around what was happening. Third time’s a charm!

Interested in a Storytelling Session or online mentoring? Email me at Kayla@kaylamaltesephotography.com to find out more and be sure to follow me on Facebook.