Everett Troy Hooker | Birth Story

Everett Troy Hooker
August 10th at 1:28pm - 9 lbs. 5 oz. | 21.5 Inches

It is the deepest honor + privilege to introduce you to our son — Everett “Rhett” Troy Hooker. He made his arrival on August 10th at 1:28pm after just two pushes at a whopping 9lbs. 5oz. and 21.5 inches! His entire birth story was the wildest, hardest, sweetest, most redemptive gift from God. It feels like we’ve waited a lifetime to have him in our arms and we could not be more overjoyed that he’s finally here.

For those of you who don’t know, Addilyn was delivered via emergency C-section at 39 weeks. You can read more about that story here! She was born perfectly healthy, but due to the C-section, there were some additional risks to consider for delivery this time around. My entire pregnancy, I prayed and prayed that I would get the chance to deliver via VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Thankfully, my entire OB team was 100% on board and fully supportive throughout the entire process!

As we inched closer to my due date, we started to discuss what it would look like if Rhett didn’t come on his own. With a VBAC, it is typically ill-advised to deliver too long after your due date, as the risks for uterine rupture increase pretty significantly! Each provider is comfortable with different things, and many will NOT allow for the induction of labor with a VBAC, but my team was willing to induce if my body was doing a good job of preparing for labor on its own. I was thrilled to hear this because that meant if it came down to it, I could avoid a scheduled C-section!

When the time came for my 40-week appointment, Rhett was still comfy and cozy as can be inside my belly. But, I was already 2cm dilated and my cervix was favorable. So after a lot of prayer and discussion with my team of doctors, we decided that scheduling an induction the week after my due date (should Rhett not come on his own beforehand!) was the best option to avoid a repeat C-section!

On Sunday, August 8th (my due date), Rhett seemed to know he was going to be evicted soon. Erick and I attended a wedding ceremony for some dear friends, and then went to dinner that evening in Downtown Greenville at Halls Chophouse to celebrate one last time before becoming parents of two! Contractions started coming through the afternoon and into the evening at dinner. I had to pause a few times while eating to breathe through some pain. Erick and I giggled most of the way through dinner, hopeful that labor would start on its own that night! But we went to bed and morning came… no baby just yet.

We had our induction scheduled that next evening, so we took the day to relax and soak up time with Addie. I was contracting fairly regularly for most of the day — we took Addilyn to the park, I tried my best to take a nap… eagerly awaiting our sweet boy’s arrival! We had Erick’s parents come to town, and that evening after putting our sweet Addie Grace down for bed, we headed into the hospital to get our induction started.

9:00pm: We arrived at the hospital after stopping for a quick bite of Chick-Fil-A on the way. We unloaded the car and headed right up to the Labor & Delivery floor. It took a little while to fill out paperwork and get checked in, but we finally got settled into our room around 9:30pm. I got changed into a gown and we unpacked some of the items we brought for labor! We met our nurses for the night and they were all fabulous. They took care of all of the logistics — bloodwork, consent forms etc. — while we waited for the doctor to arrive!

10:30pm: Around this time, my doctor arrived! I had just seen him a few days earlier for my 40 week appointment, so there wasn’t a ton to discuss about our induction plan. My cervix hadn’t changed at all since my appointment, so our plan remained the same.

11:00pm: For a VBAC induction, our doctor does not use cervical softeners, as it can increase risk of uterine rupture. Instead, they use a foley bulb to manually dilate the cervix! They inserted the foley bulb and let us know that it would fall out on its own once I was 4-5cm. They said it usually takes 8-10 hours! Sadly, it was really uncomfortable, so I wasn’t able to fall asleep. We started watching a movie instead! At this point, I was having mild contractions every 10 or so minutes. The hope was that the foley bulb would cause my body to go into labor on it’s own!

1:00am: My contractions gradually got stronger and grew to be a more consistent 7-8 minutes apart. I couldn’t pay attention to the end of the movie because the foley bulb was getting incredibly uncomfortable. I remember not being able to get into any comfortable position in bed! It wasn’t painful… just really, really uncomfortable.

1:30am: I decided to get up and go to the bathroom to try to ease the discomfort. The bulb fell out on its own! I assumed it was a mistake, because it had only been a couple of hours… but when the nurse checked, I was already 4cm dilated. I was super excited about how quickly I progressed up until this point! My contractions were still mild, but had gotten closer to 5 minutes apart. Since we were hoping labor would progress on its own, we decided to rest for the next few hours before doing anything else. I actually was able to take a short nap!

4:00am: Unfortunately, I almost completely stopped contracting by this point. We decided to start the lowest dose of pitocin (0.5mU/min) to see if things could pick up.

4:30am: Contractions started back up pretty quickly and my water broke! We did a cervical check and I was at 6cm.

5:30am: For the last hour, my contractions were consistently 3-5 minutes apart. They were growing in intensity, but I was managing well. I could tell my body was working hard, and each contraction was bringing me closer to meeting our sweet boy!

Once my water broke, I started feeling the contractions 100% in my lower back and hips. I truly don’t remember feeling any pain elsewhere — likely because it was so intensely concentrated in that area! Erick was a really great support at this point, helping massage my back as the contractions came. Due to Rhett’s position, we were having a really hard time keeping a monitor on his heart rate! The nurse told me he was likely posterior (back to my back).

7:00am: Contractions continued to grow in intensity and I had to change positions every few minutes to manage the pain. Leaning over the bed, rocking on the birth ball, leaning against Erick. I didn’t think I would be loud during labor, but somehow, making noise helped! It had been a few hours since our last cervical check, so we did another check to see where I was… still 6cm. Whomp, whomp. This was discouraging because labor had been pretty hard up until this point, but they increased pitocin and we continued on!

10:00am: In the hour after they upped my pitocin dose, things got intense really quickly. I spent a few hours with painful, intense, back-to-back contractions. They were coming every 30 seconds, which didn’t give me any break in between. I was still moving around and Erick was doing his best to support me, but I was getting tired after having been up all night! We chose to have another cervical check to help decide what our next steps for pain management would be. Still 6cm! I had gone almost 6 hours of active labor with no progression. As you can imagine, this was very, very discouraging. I was so emotional. So exhausted. And in a lot of pain. Immediately, my mind went to — “oh no, I do NOT want to have another C-section after all of this work.”

10:30am: We decided to go ahead and start an epidural at this point to see if relaxing would help things progress! After the labor I had so far, getting the epidural was truly a breeze.

11:00am: It took about 30 minutes to start feeling relief from the medicine and we decided to take a nap! I figured we had a while until the baby would come… so why not rest while we could.

12:30pm: The nurse came in to help me roll over and start rocking on a peanut ball. She asked if I wanted to do another cervical check, and I quickly refused. All I had done since my last check was nap and I did NOT want to hear I was still 6cm.

1:15pm: The doctor was doing rounds and stopped in to ask how I was feeling! I was doing great, feeling not one single bit of pain or discomfort. For the last 15 or so minutes, I had felt a little bit of pressure occasionally, but I assumed the baby was just slowly moving lower and lower. The doctor said that’s normal, and that I would know when it was time!

Before she left, I asked for help rolling over to the other side… when she started to help me, in the most nonchalant voice she said: “no wonder you’re feeling pressure, your baby is crowning.”

The next few minutes were a whirlwind. The doctor and nurses were all so calm and joyful! No one was in a panic — they just quickly got everything set up because our baby was coming! She told me I could reach down and feel the top of his head, which was the most surreal thing I ever did.

At this point, Erick was still ASLEEP. I had to yell his name to wake him up. He was in such a daze that he jumped up and started packing his bag. We were minutes from having a baby, and this man was folding his blanket — LOL. I kindly told him to drop what he was doing and come stand with me.

Erick came over and grabbed my hand. Since I couldn’t feel anything, the nurses instructed me when to push. I didn’t get to this point with Addie, so this was completely new to me! She said to push slowly and steadily… and then in just two short pushes, Rhett was born at 1:28pm!

The nurses immediately put him on my chest and we got to meet our sweet boy! Everyone in the room commented and said — “wow, that’s a big baby!” The next few hours were some of the very best of my life. We snuggled. We nursed. We kissed his little face. After a little while, the nurse took him away to get all of his official stats — 9lbs 5oz. Wow!

By 4pm we were moved to the postpartum floor where we got to keep loving on our sweet boy! Erick Doordashed Chipotle for us to eat for dinner. The next 24 hours were a bit of a blur… Rhett had a hard time maintaining his blood sugar, so he was getting heel pricks almost every hour all night long. But, by the morning they were holding well! We got to take some sweet photos of our new son, and by 4pm we were on our way home to meet Addie.

Everett’s birth was wild and fast and wonderful. It was everything I hoped and prayed that it would be! We are so incredibly grateful for the amazing team of nurses and doctors that took care of all of us while we delivered our little guy.