Birth Story | Millie Mae Johnson

It was February 19, 2018. It was a Monday.

Our little babe was due on February 18, but since that was a Sunday we didn’t have our 40 week appointment until that Monday morning.

I was feeling like there might be some contractions starting. This was perfect! Our midwife was working that day, our photographer would be able to make it, and it was a great day for everyone else we invited to join us (it’s a party in the delivery room!).

There is this thing called “sweeping the membrane”. I won’t explain the details, except to say that, if your body is ready, it’s a natural way to get labor started. I had this done with Reagan, but she hadn’t been ready as it was 5 days later before she arrived.

We were ready for this baby so our sweet midwife, Chillon, did what she does and then we headed home to wait for more signs of labor.

We didn’t wait long.

Contractions began coming more regularly so I let Brandon know he would need to head home from work, I checked to make sure I had bags packed, and then I did what all laboring women do…I gave Tor a haircut! 🙂
Okay okay, this might be laughable, but I KNEW we would be taking photos and he was such a shag monster! I went the easiest route and just buzzed his whole head. Simple and quick.

My parents arrived at our house. Grandpa would be babysitting and Grandma would join us at the hospital.

We arrived a little before 3pm.

The Hospital

My water hadn’t broken yet so my contractions, though strong, weren’t as painful as I knew they would get. After checking on me and baby, Chillon asked if I’d like her to break my water or if I wanted to labor a little longer first. I chose to labor longer…I’m not gonna lie, I knew those contractions were gonna be rough after the water broke and I wasn’t quite ready for it! I figured I’d rather get a little further and see if it would just break on its own and we’d be off and running.

I labored until about 5:15pm. Around this time, I was starting to think I’d like to just break my water and get this done. Given my history, I knew when my water broke it wasn’t going to be long before I delivered. I planned to tell Chillon to get it done when she came back in, but before that thought process could make it much farther, my water broke on its own!!

Water Breaking

Here’s something you might not know. Every woman is different when it comes to their water breaking. Some have very little, some have a lot, some don’t know when theirs breaks, others have theirs break and this is what starts labor. It’s all very different and what the movies show you is not necessarily accurate (as if we didn’t already realize that).

Well apparently I carry a lake inside of me. It was a good thing no one was standing too close or they would have legitimately had wet shoes.

The contractions came hard now and I immediately made sure they were filling the tub for me. I wanted in!

About 15 minutes later the tub was filled and I was up on my feet to hurry over. Though “hurry” is not how it went. On the way across those 10ish feet, I had to stop twice for contractions. I really thought baby might just be born while I was standing there. I made very certain that I didn’t push AT ALL while those contractions happened! Chillon even told us later that she was sort of holding my belly up to try to prevent baby from getting out right there!

I made it into the tub (hallelujah!) and then I had one contraction. With the next one I pushed.

Two pushes

TWO PUSHES and out baby came! I told you that once my water breaks those babies are determined to get out!

Our babe had a fairly short cord so they hardly made it up to my chest. We had to wait for the cord to stop pulsating before we could cut it and find out if we had a boy or girl!

We got the cord cut (that pulsating didn’t last long with this one) and turned baby over to say,

“It’s a GIRL!!”

We were so excited! We had been leaning toward girl, but have never put a lot of stock in what we think for gender. Reagan had been set on baby being a girl and I was so excited for her!

I passed her off to Daddy for measuring after getting in some snuggles.

She weighed 7lb. 6oz., was 20.25 inches long and had a head circumference of 13.5 inches. Just a wee bit smaller than her brother.

And that red hair.

Many have asked us where the red hair comes from, clearly neither Brandon or myself have red hair.

We actually have it on both sides of the family and have always been hopeful we might have a red-head. Great Grandpa “Red” (Ronald), Brandon’s grandpa, and Grandpa Pete, my dad, both had red hair. And now we have a little red-head too.

This was our first baby that we knew EXACTLY what we would be naming her without a question. With our other two we had names, but we hadn’t 100% decided on Reagan’s first name and we hadn’t 100% decided on Tor’s middle name. But there was no need to wait with this one.

Named for her great-grandmother on Daddy’s side and for her Auntie Merideth Mae, we had a beautiful, red-headed, blue-eyed baby girl: