The Birth of Della Dae Stock- Women's Hospital, Columbia, MO
Daelynn and I talked towards the beginning of her pregnancy about me capturing her maternity photos. As time grew closer, I reached out to her a few months later asking her if she would be interested in capturing her birth story. She was excited, and agreed this was something she wanted to capture being this is her first baby. We finalized her “due date window” for May 13th, and met in person a week later.
On Friday, March 11th, I was preparing for a birthday party for my middle daughter when I received a text from Daelynn. The week prior, she sent me a message that she was being admitted to the hospital and the doctors would not allow her to carry her child past 32 weeks due to some complications with her placenta not providing the proper nutrients her baby girl needed.
I looked down at the text from her, and we were both facing a major ‘plot twist’ as she called it, haha. The doctors would be inducing her that afternoon, and she would soon have her baby in her arms. I assured her that I would still be there to document the birth of her baby girl. I dropped everything, prepped my bags, and waited. We all know that inductions can sometimes take hours, if not, days to push mom into true labor.
Around 10:30PM, I tucked my kids into bed, said goodbyes to the family, and went straight to the Women’s Hospital in Columbia. It was such a calm atmosphere and the nurses were caring and very diligent.
Members of her family were there, as well as her husband. Daelynn was surrounded by love and laughter.
After the nurses telling her they were thinking C-section, we weren’t sure what was going to happen. I captured everything as much as I could to tell her story, which is something she really wanted to do. Around 1 in the morning the next day, the nurses came in and said the baby was no longer having issues with her contractions and would continue the vaginal route, sticking closer to her birth plan after so many changes to what she truly wanted.
I stayed by her side all night with little to no progression. I left her around 5 in the morning after finding out there was no further dilation, she was still sitting at a 4. I came home, made breakfast, and did my normal self care routine as fast as I could and continued my prepping for the day.
10:48AM, she let me know she was now 6cm dilated and they were going in to break her water. I arrived at 11:30AM, she transitioned, and the contractions were coming in steady, and hard. After one of the longest contractions, she told her nurse she wanted the epidural. The doctor came in to check her, but there was no time for epidural… BABY IS COMING!
At 12:53PM, Daelynn had her beautiful baby girl, Della Dae Stock, weighing in at 2.5lbs.
