All Things Allison Marie

Disclaimer: This story includes miscarriage.

It’s hard to know where to start with this story. I wrote out Levi’s birth story so that I could remember all of the details, and I knew I wanted to do the same for Hudson. The circumstances are just so much different than I expected, but there is still so much beauty in it. God can be seen so clearly in the details and I want to share His faithfulness with you all.

I guess I’ll start with my anatomy scan. We did genetic testing, so we already knew he was a boy, but we were so excited to get to see him again and bring home “pictures” for Levi to see. Within the first couple of minutes, the ultrasound tech said that she had bad news for us – she couldn’t find a heartbeat. We were shocked. We had heard his heartbeat when I was 15 weeks pregnant, just 4 weeks before. We were well out of the first trimester and really thought everything was going to be okay. I already had one healthy pregnancy.

But there was no heartbeat and we were told we needed to schedule an induction. So we prepared to meet our son 20 weeks early on Sunday morning.

The couple days of waiting we had before the induction was both so hard and also necessary for preparing our hearts for what was to come. I had to go through the whole birthing process knowing that my baby wasn’t going to cry when he was born and that I would never get to hear his rhythmic breathing as he settled on my chest.

Finally, Sunday morning came. I had a lot of peace about the situation and I felt God’s presence so intimately. I honestly was excited to get to meet our little boy and see what he looked like. After being admitted to our room (a beautiful corner room with many windows overlooking the city) and an ultrasound to confirm that Hudson did not have a heartbeat, they started me on Cytotec to help soften my cervix and begin contractions.

I just want to pause here and say that we had the best nurse that we could have ever asked for. She was a Christian and said that God had laid it on her heart to pray for the patients from the exact birth center that we were coming from. She was a God-send and so encouraging. I had been praying for my birth ever since I found out I was pregnant using the birth prayer cards I made, and it was so apparent that God answered the prayer of hand-picking the nurses and doctors that would be present at my birth. I am so grateful. I’ve actually been able to connect with our nurse since Hudson’s birth, and I want to include a screenshot of a message she sent to me about our birth that meant so much to me.

I also want to say before moving forward that Levi’s birth was extremely hard and painful for me. I didn’t have any pain medicine and I was honestly very nervous to give birth again. But one of my goals for Hudson’s birth, especially after finding out that we miscarried, was to do it naturally again. I knew I could; I did it with Levi. It seemed like a way to honor his little life, if that makes any sense. Just because he wasn’t going to be born alive didn’t mean that I couldn’t do it naturally. So that was the goal, but I also wasn’t completely opposed to using pain medicine because I knew the whole situation was going to be traumatic.

So they gave me my first dose of Cytotec, and it made me a little crampy. 3 hours later, I had another dose and it definitely made me even more crampy. I was still able to watch tv, and I remember reading my Bible and some of the fiction book I was reading. 3 hours after I had that second dose, I was given a third dose. That is when things really started picking up, and quickly my contractions became about a minute apart. My nurse had told me that a lot of times she has to give women 6 or 7 doses, but I had been praying it would happen quickly and that he would be born while our nurse was still there.

I wouldn’t call these contractions painful, which is a miracle. I was able to breathe through them and I got to the point where I needed to concentrate to do so, so we turned off the tv and turned on my birth playlist. I labored some while standing, and I used the peanut ball in between my legs for a while to help me dilate. I didn’t necessarily have to get to 10cm since he was going to be so small. I started feeling some pressure and asked my nurse to check me, and I was at 4cm. So I kept laboring and soon, it was almost shift change. My nurse and I knew I was close, though, and I asked the new nurse and doctor to wait to give me the 4th dose of Cytotec because I was sure he was about to come.

I was right, and soon after that, I felt tons of pressure and needed to push. My sweet nurse stayed past the end of her shift so that she could be there when he was born, and at 7:14pm on May 26, little Hudson Thomas was born, still in the sac. That’s when my husband and I really started crying, knowing he wasn’t alive. They broke the sac and handed him to me in a little knit swaddle, and I felt so much peace getting to hold him. He was so little but already had so many intricate features like fingernails and eyebrows.

As I was holding him and looking at him, I noticed the cord was wrapped around his neck…4 times. According to the placenta results we received later, the cord had gotten tightly wrapped around his neck, causing the blood trying to pass through to clot. I remember at our very first ultrasound for him, around 9 weeks, the ultrasound tech said he was very active for how small he was and that they normally don’t move around much at that age. I guess he was just an active little boy and somehow got tangled up in the cord.

Hudson was going to be another big boy. He was 9.5 inches long and weighed about 7.5 ounces. (Levi was an ounce shy of 10 pounds.)

The birth was honestly so peaceful and beautiful, and I’m so thankful for my experience. Afterwards was very difficult as my placenta didn’t stay in one piece, and I lost a lot of blood. That was when I asked for medicine because I was in a lot of pain. But I gave birth naturally and I was so proud of my body for being so strong through it all. Or really, I know it was through God’s strength in me.

Hudson got to stay with us in our room until the next day when the funeral home came to pick him up. It was such a sweet time with many tears, but I loved getting to hold him whenever I wanted.

We miss him so much and I would give anything to be able to hold him one more time, but I am so grateful that he is with Jesus and that we will get to see him again one day. Thank God for the hope of heaven.