Chelsey sent text me on a Friday letting me know she was being induced the following Monday. Great!! Monday morning I was meeting with Baton Rouge General staff, along with other community doulas, to introduce ourselves, and told Chelsey I’d check in with her after the meeting around 8:30.
When I messaged her that morning, Chelsey said she was still only a 3cm and would update me as things progressed. An hour and a half later, she was 4cm and we decided I’d come about noon. ONE hour later, I received “10cm!” ONE HOUR, AH! Thankfully, I was just chatting with another doula in the Baton Rouge General parking lot and only 15 minutes away from the hospital she was at versus the typical 30-40 minute drive I have.
For births, I usually use a rolling camera bag to hold all my gear. I rarely use it all, but I’d rather have it all than not have it and need it. Well, I was not going to attempt running up AND rolling a bag (try imagining that… comical for you, not me lol). So, every red light I hit, and I hit them all, I’m dumping out my carrying camera bag — that I had packed with personal items for other births I was on-call for — and was blindly grabbing camera bodies, flashes, batteries, and lenses out of my rolling bag and tossing into my carrying bag. Didn’t have a clue what was in there until after birth. If I were only a fly on the wall in that moment…
When I get in the parking lot, I look at my phone and I have another text message, “This is her mom. They were rushing around. They said it’s coming.” (surprise baby!) NO!! I run upstairs (ok take the elevator), the security desk ses’s my badge and yells “Door open!”, and rush into labor/delivery. As I pass the nurses desk, I ask disappointingly, “Has she delivered?!” — “Nope! Still pushing!” YES!!
Chelsey was a phenomenal pusher for a first time mom and sweet baby Savannah made a swift entrance earthside shortly after I arrived to meet her parents.
