This last week has been a hot mess battling colds, navigating potty training struggles, and working on a few projects I’m really excited about (new math courses!) that I can’t wait to share. They are almost ready…
Anyway, last week I shared about the week between learning about the loss of Myla and her delivery. This week I’ll share her birth story - it was both everything I hoped WOULDN’T happen and everything I hoped WOULD!
I left you Tuesday evening, June 17th , 2025. Ian and I had gone to bed, Falling asleep was hard, but contractions had spaced out enough that I was able to fall asleep.
We both slept hard till 2:30am, when something woke me up. I rolled over to check my phone to see what time it was. I noticed that there were several recent messages from Ian’s mom, Trina, so I checked them, curious as to why she was texting in the middle of the night. His sister had asked us if we were all good. I was puzzled, cause why wouldn’t we be?
Little did we know, that was the beginning of the marathon 24 hours between then and Myla’s birth!
An hour before, about 1:30am, a tornado had ripped through Trina’s neighborhood, significantly damaging only 2 houses - one of which was Trina’s! Ian called his mom, and we got the story. Fortunately, Ian’s sister and 2 year old niece, who also live with Trina, were not home - otherwise it would have been a very different story.
Trina's home after the tornado
Ian, of course, was wide awake then and even more stressed than before, worrying about me and now worrying about his mom who had just lost almost everything. Sleeping was out of the question!
Ian’s sister and her husband got Trina’s call and were able to head over and help her out almost right away. They managed to save the most important things, and Trina spent the next several days at Ian’s sister’s house, so at least she wasn’t homeless!
So here we are, a week after we got the news about Myla, planning to head to the hospital later that morning, thinking things couldn’t get any worse, and the tornado happens. When it rains, it pours!
But even through that additional tragedy, God’s hand was at work.
Remember when I said that my two kids ended up staying the night with my brother and SIL? The Lord was protecting them - I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if they were at Trina’s!
We did go back to bed around 3am, but didn’t really sleep, and ended up getting up for the day around 6am. I was still having regular contractions, but they were still just uncomfortable and not super intense yet.
We had already decided to go into the hospital that morning to induce and hopefully get things moving, but we pushed back our plans a little bit because of the house situation.
Two of my sisters were already planning on coming over, so Ian was able to go over to his mom’s and help them move stuff that was still in one piece without worrying about me too much - another piece of God’s provision!
Ian spent the morning with his family, and I spent the morning helping clean, finishing up prepping the last few things, and packing our hospital bags.
I feel like I got most of my tears out the night before. I had definitely spent some time crying my eyes out, arguing with God, but that morning I was at peace with our decision. Getting to spend some time with my sisters was also so needed and definitely helped my frame of mind.
Ian got back around 11am, and we ate lunch, gathered the last few things, and then around 1pm my sisters (and their husbands who were there!) prayed over us, and we left for the hospital.
Almost, lol.
We stopped at Trina’s house to pick up a few things first. By this point it was around 2pm. Contractions had picked up and were super uncomfortable and about 3 - 5 minutes apart. I was really hopeful I was actually progressing, and prayed that was the case…
…but it wasn’t. And honestly, I’m wasn’t super surprised! I struggled with prodromal labor with my first two births, and with all the emotional trauma and grief, how could I let go, when letting go is the last thing I wanted?
We arrived to the hospital, and around 3:30pm got to our room. The OB on duty came in. I didn’t like him, but it’s not his fault - I wouldn’t have like anyone at that point, I’m pretty sure! 🙈
He immediately jumped into how the induction would work, but I was like, WOAH. Hold your horses!
I rarely ask for cervical checks, but in this case I felt it was needed to figure out the best plan moving forward. I was having contractions, but it was definitely prodromal labor - I wasn’t dilated or effaced hardly at all. So we opted to start with one dose of cytotec and see how things went from there.
By this point, my back up doula, Leslie, had arrived (my doula wasn’t able to come cause her baby was having a hard day). Leslie had agreed to come support me last minute, free of charge (another one of God’s blessings!) and she was AMAZING and exactly what I needed.
This email is already super long, sorry, so I’ll try to keep this next part somewhat abbreviated. 😅
The first 7 hours (from one dose of cytotec to the second) wasn’t all that hard and actually went by relatively quick . The first 2 hours were ROUGH cause of my initial reaction to the meds (deep cramping, uncontrollable shaking, and restless body).
One of the ways God really provided in that first 2 hours was through Leslie’s daughter, who JUST SO HAPPENED to be an amazing MASSAGE THERAPIST! So during the rough first two hours I had my mom and my sister in law helping to distract me (they brought a few things I had forgotten), while getting the most amazing massage.
It was EXACTLY what I needed to relax and give me the peace I needed to get through the last 3.5 hours of Myla’s birth. Before the massage, I was so tense and anxious that I literally couldn’t drop my shoulders. So God sent me Leslie’s daughter, and through her sent His peace.
Fast forward and it’s now around 11:30 pm. Contractions had picked up, and I felt like I had made some progress. It was time to decide if I needed a second dose or not, so I let them check me. I was about 2.5 cm dilated and around 70% effaced.
Now, to most people, that would be so depressing - like, SEVEN HOURS later, and we are not even at a 3!?
To me, it was a ton of progress. My body always struggles to get to 3cm, but boy, once I hit that it’s a race to the finish! The nurses and OB were all ready for a loooonng induction, but I knew it wouldn’t be long…
I decided to accept the second dose of cytotec. I probably didn’t need it, but I wanted to make sure I would be able to get over that 2.5cm hump.
And almost immediately after that second dose started the hardest 2 hours of my life. The shaking began again, the deep, uncontrollable cramps, this time combined with active labor contractions. I felt like I had fallen under the wave and couldn’t get back on top.
Throughout those two hours, Ian and Leslie were AMAZING, doing everything they could to help me work through each contraction. They prayed over me, and despite the intensity and pain, I could feel God’s hand helping hold me up. I had been listening to worship music throughout everything, which really helped keep me calm.
Around 2am I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I decided to hop in the shower. One of the things I was most concerned about going into this was transition - the birth pool had been such a huge relief for me in my previous two labors, I wasn’t sure how I would handle not having that.
So, I tried to hop in the shower…BUT IT WAS BROKEN. Like, seriously!? The moveable sprayer didn’t work, but the shower head did. I was desperate, so I made it work!
I settled in, and the water helped just enough to take the edge off. I turned on my worship music and did my best to embrace and relax through each contraction. I had essentially been up for 24 hours at this point, with only a cat nap here and there, and was so tired I was dozing off between contractions!
I stayed in the shower for about an hour. Ian came to check on me and scared me half to death cause I had dozed off, so we decided it was probably best to get out. I figured I would try moving around to see if I could help things along. Contractions were close and INTENSE, so I thought maybe moving would help.
Turns out that wasn’t going to be necessary!
Now, through this whole night, I was CRAVING pretzels. But I didn’t want to leave, and I didn’t want to wake my family and ask them to bring me pretzels in the middle of the night. But I was hungry, and I needed food, so we decided that Ian would go to the gas station and pick up a bag of pretzels…but he never made it 😅
I sat on the toilet before I moved to the room, and Ian walks in to tell me he was heading out, looks at me, and is like “uuuuuuh…..” - my water had partially broken!
I literally said out loud, PRAISE THE LORD WE ARE ALMOST DONE!
Cause I know my body, and when my water sort of breaks like that, its only a short time to baby!
The nurse came in and helped me to the bed, and I told her it wouldn’t be long to baby, but she and the other nurse didn’t believe me. After all, I was only 2.5cm dilated only 2 hours ago, surely there was no way…
They tried to check me and see if it was indeed my water that broke, but I couldn’t lay still long enough so I told them to stop and flipped back over on my knees.
I had Leslie help me lean over the back of the bed like it was the side of a birth pool, and almost as soon as I got into a comfortable position, a strong contraction hit and my water broke for real!
I was already feeling pushy, and so the nurse went to go get the doctor (taking her sweet time), but then the next contraction hit and I could feel Myla descending and told Ian she was coming.
Leslie ran to get the nurse, and she came back. They wanted to check to see if I was fully dilated, but obviously I said no - this baby was coming whether they were ready or not!
After just 2 pushes and maybe 10 minutes, Myla Claire was born, caught by her daddy on June 19th, 2:30am, and the doctor missed the whole thing…
Just like I prayed for! (I’m not comfortable with male OBs, and I just prayed he wouldn’t make it lol).
So yeah. It was hard, but I still didn’t use any pain meds, I was able to feel in control most of the time, and Ian got to catch Myla and the doctor missed the whole thing. It went as close to perfect as I could hope for!
God’s hand truly was in the middle of everything. He was with me every step of the way.
Another silver lining: The hospital is no longer an unknown. I’ve been there, done that, and so I don’t have the fear of having to transfer out of my midwife’s care in future pregnancies cause I’ve been there done that.
I was going to share about the hours after Myla’s birth, but I think I’m gonna wait till next week. This email is long enough, and I’m not quite ready to revisit those precious hours after she was born…
If you read this far, thank you for listening to my story.
I hope it was encouraging to you!
Even in the tragedy, even in the situations you couldn’t possibly have imagined yourself in, God is there.
He loves you.
He wants the best for you.
And if you ever want to ask questions or talk (about anything!) please reply! I’d love to hear from you!
Until next time,
Mrs. Holman
P.S. If you missed the beginning of this series, and would like to catch up, you can read it here.
