Photos by Addie

I had the opportunity to take pictures of my friend Kristi's baby girl Emma. This first post will be her birth story and the following will be the pictures I took of her family and Emma.

"I found out I was pregnant in February 2015, we were very excited because it took us about a year to get pregnant.

My pregnancy started out normal like with my first child. At 14 weeks we went to a 3d ultrasound place and found out we were having a girl, our daughter was very excited to have a baby sister, and we were happy to have a healthy baby girl.

At 19 weeks in the early morning I woke up and felt like I had wet my pants. I ran to the bathroom and the fluid just kept coming. I was pretty sure my water had broke and my heart sank. We went to the hospital and since I was only 19 weeks the labor and delivery floor sent me back to the emergency room. After 4 hours at the hospital we were sent home with the instructions to call my obgyn as soon as her office opened.

We saw my doctor later that morning and she confirmed what the hospital had, my water had broken and my amniotic fluid was pretty low. She suggested that we induced labor because with so low fluid the baby wouldn't be able to develop properly or at all. And she was also worried about me getting an infection because the risk goes way up after your water has broken. We couldn't make that decision right away and decided to wait until my 20 week anatomy ultrasound the following week to see if the fluid had increased. After a week on bed rest my fluid had slightly increased and my doctor was comfortable letting me stay on bed rest as long as I didn't get an infection.

8 long weeks later I was admitted to the hospital to be on bed rest there. I got steroid shots to help her lungs develop the day I was admitted. I was only in the hospital for 3 days when I started having the worst back labor pains, I have never felt anything quite like it. I labored all night long accompanied with heavy bleeding. I was in so much pain I couldn't wait for my doctor to get there on her daily visit. She checked me at 8:00 am and she saw a little foot. Everything happened so fast we hardly had time to think. They rushed me into emergency surgery and at 8:58 Emma was here. Weighing 2lbs 4oz and 12" long.

There were about 15 people from the nicu alone there just for her. Once she was out we didn't hear any crying just a lot of commotion and people talking about saving the cord blood which there ended up being none because my placenta was abrupting and I had lost a lot of blood. After a few min the nicu doctor called my husband over and he was able to take pictures and see her before they took her to the nicu.

After I had recovered for while I was able to go to the nicu for the first time to see her. She was such a tiny perfect little thing. Even though she was so little I couldn't believe how perfect everything about her was.

With my water being broken and her being early they expected her lungs to be under developed, they weren't. She was on oxygen support but not intubated, which basically means she was breathing on her own with help from the machine to keep some pressure in her lungs since they were so tiny. For the first few days we fully expected her to get intubated but each day she kept surprising us and kept getting stronger and stronger.

After the first few days they were able to start giving her tiny amounts of breast milk through a feeding tube. And I was able to hold her when she was 4 days old. Each day she did really well and the doctors were amazed with her, as were we. She didn't have hardly any set backs in the nicu and towards the end she just had to grow and learn how to eat on her own. After 67 long days she was finally able to come home and we couldn't have been happier!"

So its been a month since Emily was born and I am finally able to get the written. Its only happening because she is in my Moby wrap while I type! If there are any mistakes I apologize, I'm trying to type as fast as I can before she wakes up.

The morning of August 6th I went to my prenatal check up. My doctor checked the baby's heartbeat, measured my stomach, and did a pelvic exam to see if I had started to dilate. When she did the exam she told me I would feel some pressure while she checked my cervix. Im not going to lie, it felt a lot more than pressure, it hurt a little! But I was dilated to a 1 1/2 and was 50% effaced, thats pretty great to hear when your due date is August 21st. Later that day I noticed some very light brown spotting. I sent my doula a text message asking if that was normal and she called right away. She told me that wasn't normal and she said the doctor might have stripped my membranes a little bit, she said it was common for doctors to do that just to help speed things up. Whether that actually happened Im not sure. But my doula told me to take it easy for the next few days just in case, that was pretty easy being a little over 38 weeks! Friday came and went and everything seemed to be normal until I started getting ready for bed, I had gone through the normal bed routine and had just finished going pee when I noticed there was a little bit of light pink liquid dripping from me. I called my sister and asked her if that was what your water looked like when it broke since her water broke on its own, but she couldn't remember. This was around 11pm, hoping it wasn't a false alarm I got a pad on and double checked to make sure our hospital bags were ready and everything was in order just in case. Josh and I went to bed but about 30 minutes after my water broke I started having contractions. I tried calling my doula, Tori, to let her know what was going on but couldn't get a hold of her so I called the on call doula, she stayed on the phone with me for a little bit to make sure I was doing good. A few hours later josh and I decided to head to the hospital because the contractions were about 6 minutes apart and we still couldn't get a hold of my doula. We headed to the hospital, about a 15 minute drive, but made a pitstop at the store because I wanted to buy the nurses cookies! We got to the hospital and were in the little waiting area they put you in to monitor you and make sure you are actually in labor, by this time the contractions had slowed down (of course!). They did a pelvic exam to see where I was at and I was still a 1 1/2 but was 90% effaced, they checked to see if my water had actually broken but decided it had not. The on call doctor told me that it was probably discharge, it was common for it to increase in the last trimester. I just looked at him like he was an idiot ha! It was NOT discharge that was coming out of me, and on occasion gushing like I just went pee! After the doctor checked my vitals and the baby's vitals he said that I could stay at the hospital but run the risk of getting pitocin if I don't progress fast enough, or I could go home and labor there. I chose the later option, I did not want pitocin if have to! As soon as we got home the contractions started up again and started to get a little more intense and within an hour they 2 1/2 minutes apart. At about 5am we called the on call doula and told her we were headed back to the hospital and she said she would meet us there. I will tell you that was the worst drive I have ever experienced, I never realized how many bumps were in the road! We got to the hospital and pulled into a parking stall and as soon as I got out and started walking another contraction started up and it made me throw up in the rocks by our car. When that happened I new it was going to be a fun night. After checking in, again, we were put in the same bed we were in an hour previous and had a pelvic exam. Thank heavens I had progressed to a 3 and was admitted, the on call doula got there just as we were about to head to the room I would be delivering in. When they did the pelvic exam the second time they told me my water had broken, its almost like they didn't believe me the first time when I told them it had broken at 11 friday night. Thank heavens the on call doctors changed and I got a great doctor named doctor Watson. When he came into the room he talked to me about my birth plan and said he wanted me monitored for at least an hour before I could walk around or go into the shower. While they were hooking me up to everything one of the nurses saw I had specified I did not want the vitamin K shot given to the baby after she was born. She asked me why and I told her it was a personal choice, right after I said that another contraction started up again and I started moaning to ease the pain. When the nurse heard my response she then proceeded to lecture me on how 10 babies last year had bleeding in their brain and 6 of them died, her voice kept getting louder so I could hear her over my moaning. Im so glad josh was there because he turned to her and said thank you in an abrupt tone, she didn't say anything else about it after that. Because I couldn't move around the room I decided to sit on my yoga ball for a while then switched to lying on the bed to try and get some rest before things picked up. I found out when I woke up from my little rest that my doula was on her way and would be there in a few minutes, I was super happy about that. The on call doula was great but I wanted someone there that I knew and who knew me! Tori arrived and the contractions started up again, the nurse came in and told me I was able to get off the monitor. As soon as I was off the monitor and the IV was disconnected I headed to the shower with my yoga ball, it was so nice to have hot water running on me! After a few hours the contractions started getting more intense and closer together, I got to the point where I felt the need to push. My doula told me to do my best not to push but I told her I couldn't help it. Thats when she called in a nurse to have them check me to see what I was dilated to. When the nurse to into the room she helped Tori take me to the bed, they wanted me to lie down but I couldn't sit down because it hurt so bad and I started having another contraction that made me push. When I told the nurse I couldn't get on the bed cause it hurt and she saw I was pushing she told me to stop and to get on the bed. I thought, yeah right, you try! While this was all happening a second nurse came in and the first nurse said they needed to get me onto the bed. It felt like they grabbed my legs and flung me onto the bed, it probably wasn't that crazy but it totally seemed like it at the time! It was super uncomfortable and more painful to lie on my back, I don't know how people do it. When they did the pelvic exam they said I was dilated to 8 cm, after the exam I switched to my side and that is where I stayed for the remainder of my labor. I wanted to get onto my hands and knees but the contractions were so close together I wasn't able to get there. I went from 8 cm to a 2+, where the baby was in the birth canal ready to come, in about 30 minutes. The nurses kept telling me to not bare down and were trying to figure out where the doctor was. Im so glad I had a doula, if I got distracted with what the nurses were saying she would get my attention and help me focus on my breathing. Her help became especially handy when I was trying to push her out and started hyperventilating, Emily started to get stressed. Tori got me to calm down enough to take more normal breaths, it was very hard to do because I had no medication to help with labor pains so by this point it was very intense! When Emily was crowning there was a nurse who kept saying here's the ring of fire! I think Tori wanted to slap her cause she was afraid she was freaking me out, all I could think about was getting Emily out! Because she came so fast I wasn't able to stretch enough on my own so when the doctor finally got there he asked if I wanted an episiotomy or if I wanted to tear on my own. I chose to tear on my own, I did not want to have to worry about if I would feel him cutting me. He tried to help me stretch so I wouldn't tear as bad, I'm grateful he did but at the time I thought he was trying to rip me open. It actually made me scream even more when he was helping me stretch. I did tear, it was just barely a 3rd degree tear which means I started to tear to my butt hole. Thank heavens I didn't! If the doctor didn't help to stretch me I for sure would have! Doctor Watson asked Josh if he wanted to watch Emily be born and he said yes. I was finally I was able to push her head out and then the rest of her body. When she was out they held her up so I could see her through my legs. Im not going to lie, I thought she was the weirdest looking thing I had ever seen. She looked like a mix between Josh's dad and a monkey. I thought I would feel a rush of emotion and/or start crying but none of that happened. Josh cut the cord and she was put on my chest, it was the most bizarre feeling. It was so unreal that I had actually carried a human being inside me for 8 1/2 months and pushed her out of my body. Im proud to say I had a natural birth vaginally, I did not even ask for any kind of medication. When I was near the end and the contractions were really intense I kept thinking I couldn't do it anymore, but then a little voice kept telling me I had gotten through the last contraction so the next one couldn't be worse. I also think it helped that I had prepared myself for the worst, I kept wondering when transition was going to come because I was told you would know if you were in transition because you would want to die. I don't know if I would explain it in that way, but then again I can't really remember it so I don't know how I would explain it! I did lose my voice because I screamed so intensely at the end. When I was talking to Tori when she was helping me learn to nurse Emily I sounded like a man going through puberty for a second time. She was born August 8, 2015 at 10:48 am. She weighed 5 lb 10 oz and 17 1/2 inches long. Im so glad she was that small I don't know if I would have been able to push her out if she was any bigger! Recovery has been amazing, my mom, my sister, and my sisters two little girls Susie and Fay came down from Utah the day we got out of the hospital to help for almost a week. It was really nice to have them here, Emily came a few weeks early and so I never had a chance to really clean the house, I never got that nesting feeling people tell you you get just before the baby's born. The little girls loved Emily and always wanted to be looking at her, Fay kept putting little stuffed animals that I had up her shirt and acted like she had a baby in her tummy. She was the cutest! Well that is my birth story, I hope it makes sense!

There is rarely a flattering picture right after a woman gives birth, but somehow they are always beautiful.

Josh holding his daughter, I'm not sure if its for the first time but you can tell he is so happy!

Emily at a few hours old, she is the cutest!

Fay has a stuffed animal up her shirt. She walked around the house like that for the longest time! The next day my mom bought Susie and Fay their own little babies, Fay went crazy!

My sister with her little girl Fay holding Emily.

My sister and her daughter Susie holding Emily.

Emily in her carseat. Don't be fooled by her cute little gas smile, she screams like a banshee whenever she is in it or is riding in the car. She was so small the buckle covered her entire torso!