On June 20th, Marcus and I had a family vacation planned to go to the beaches in Florida with Kai. I love the ocean more than words can even express (both of my daughter’s have names with an ocean meaning) so I was looking forward to this opportunity for some R&R so much. As it got closer to the 20th, we began making plans for getting off work, I sent emails to all my clients, and we were getting mentally prepared. Kai was extremely excited!

The weekend before our trip, we decided to go to Tekamah, Nebraska (where my brother’s family lives) to support my brother’s non-profit, KAMO, Inc. (and one of my clients). KAMO stands for K-9 Adoption and Mentoring Outdoors and it focuses on adopting out and re-homing sporting dogs and gun dogs who have a lot of love to give, but aren’t able to continue working in a professional setting. They also take people who might not get the opportunity, on outdoor mentoring adventures to give them an outdoor experience. It’s an amazing charity! (www.kamoinc.org)

During that weekend, on Saturday, I had some pains and probably stage one labor from Saturday to Sunday on the trip. On Saturday, I had the chance to swim and it allowed me to float and ignore gravity for a while. It felt amazing. That evening, I went on a sporting clay shoot with Marcus. After about 7 stations, I asked Marcus if he’d be upset if I withdrew myself from it. The constant standing and holding the shotgun in front of my body was really hurting my back so I just needed to sit down. Of course, he was ok to shoot my share of the shells and I just kept score for him then. The next morning, we packed up and went back to Omaha to shop before heading home. We went to 2 stores and on the way back to the pickup, I wasn’t even able to walk the whole way without stopping for a back pain break. I had a feeling something was up because of that but this entire pregnancy (all 32 weeks of it so far) had been filled with pains I did not experience with Kai’s pregnancy. During our shopping trip, we were invited to a BBQ in our friend’s yard. We hadn’t seen these friends in 4 months and I really missed them! She also didn’t know we were expecting and I was jumping at the chance to show her! She also has a swimming pool and I thought, “I’d really like to float again to relieve this back pain.” On the way home, the back and front pain was so intense, I told Marcus, “I feel like we’re going to have a baby tonight.” He laughed at me and told me that’s funny not to joke like that.

So after getting home, we left Kai with my parents and Grandma JeaJea so she could play board games with them. Sunday nights are always game night with Grandma JeaJea! I really hated to miss it, since we would be gone for the next Sunday game night but I really wanted to see my friends. In hindsight, I think God had me knowing it’d be best to be in the town where my doctor and hospital were.

We got to Michelle’s at 7:45pm and I ate the delicious brats and a bunch of watermelon around 8:30. Just as our friend Kris was about to leave, she noticed I was in some coming-and-going pain. She asked if I was alright and I told her I felt really weird and thought I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions because these were way too low and hurting my back too much to be real contractions. But regardless, at 9pm and I decided to have Marcus and our friend Casey time them. For about 15 minutes, I had 3-4 contractions a few minutes apart. I really couldn’t believe myself when I decided to google, “How to time contractions.” I thought to myself, “I must really think I’m going to have a baby if I’m looking this up.”

I decided to use the restroom because even with Kai’s labor, I always felt better using the bathroom – probably because things don’t feel so secure when your uterus is clamping down.

But I still thought they were far too low, under my belly button, and weird that they were starting in my back, going to the front and radiating down the right glute, hamstring and leg.

So I called my cousin who knows SO much about birth since has 8 kids and when she told me to get to the hospital asap and call the doc, I knew they must be real. She heard me try to talk to her through one of the contractions so I think that’s how she got the understanding that these were real.

I went into Michelle’s living room between contractions and got down on her floor on my hands and knees because it just felt better. That’s when I also realized I was probably in labor. Braxton-Hicks don’t hurt for this long and they never made me want to get on my hands and knees. I called my doctor’s office and the on-call doctor called back. This doctor was so dry and kind of funny (not intentionally), he said I could go in but it was up to me- they really only recommend it if I’ve had 6 contractions in an hour and I said I had 6 in the last 15-30 minutes. So when Casey came in the house, he saw me in my (what had to be hilarious) position and asked if he could get me anything? Normally I’m the type to say no, thank you, I’ll get it but this time I told him, “Yes, you can go get my water bottle and fill it with ice and water. I knew I was going to be leaving. Marcus and Michelle came inside and I informed Marcus what Amy had said and what the doctor had said. I told him, “We need to go to the hospital.” He agreed and we started to leave realizing that we had brought our puppy, Mele. I asked Michelle if she’d be ok to watch Mele and she said “absolutely, let me know if I can bring you anything too!” They wished us luck and on the way out, we called my mom to ask if Kai could spend the night with them. My mom was shocked, I imagine, because it’s not like I was too drunk to drive home. I told her, we might be having a baby. She was extremely surprised and hoped they could stop the labor if it was real.

Since Michelle lives about 6 blocks from the hospital, we got there right around 10pm. The Emergency Room front desk lady was awesome. As we told her what was happening, I gave her my ID and insurance and Marcus came in behind me. She told me she had people coming to get me and Marcus went to get me a wheel chair. I told him, I think I can walk but the front desk lady said, “No, you sit down now!” I obeyed and let them wheel me up to Trauma Room 1 or 2. As I got on the hospital bed, they started asking me all the questions. “When’s your due date,” “Any allergies, what’s your pain control desire for labor,” etc. Even though I had been loosely thinking that I’d be having a baby earlier that day, I was still in denial that it could actually be happening. The nurses were awesome. I went to college with one of them. The other nurse, whom I’d just met, told me she was going to be checking on me after I got changed into a hospital gown. Upon checking my cervix, I was already 5cm dilated. When she shared that with us, Marcus said, in a very surprised voice, “5 centimeters? As in half way?” “Yep!,” the nurse said. “We’ll be moving you to a new room now.” Marcus and I couldn’t believe it was that far along already. I’d only been contracting an hour. With kai, getting to 5cm took 8hrs

So then they moved me to a labor/delivery room and I saw them set up a bunch of supplies on a table. I asked them, “Are we fixing to have a baby?” The nurses kind of chuckled and said, “Yes… tonight!”

I was pretty surprised because I just assumed they’d be trying to stop the labor but maybe I was too far along.

So at 10:50 or so they gave me a steroid for the baby’s lungs and I had to sit up for it. As I did, I said, “Could you check me again? I feel like there’s a head down there. The nurse checked me and she said I was at 8cm! I was relieved because with Kai, it felt like I’d been laboring all day with little progress and this time, there sure was progress! The best news of all, was that my doctor, a general practitioner/family doctor, was miraculously in the hospital busy with a C-section so right at 11:00pm he came right in. As he sat down, he told me he’d just been camping with his family for the past 3 days so I was extremely grateful she didn’t come when he was camping! After my doctor broke my water, I knew the contractions would get even more intense and they did, but not as different as they were when they ruptured it with Kai.

I told the team, the pain was pretty significant and I felt like I just wanted to push. So I started pushing at the next contraction from about 11:15 to the birth at 11:30… right before she comes out, he says, “It is breech!”

For the last 15 or so minutes, I had been what I thought was my #10 pain but that last push, and the moments afterward were my new #10. After Kai’s birth, my cousin (and doctor) asked me if I had a new #10 and I told her nose surgery was still my worst. Kai’s birth was maybe a 7-8 compared to this. Finally I pushed the last push and he gets her out, and I kept saying, “I’m still in pain… it hurts so bad.”

Then they put her on my belly to work their magic and that’s the last I touched her for 2 hours or so. We waited till I stopped shaking and had less pain and then got tested for COVID-19. That test was extremely unpleasant as they stuck a long, stiff black thing clear up into my sinuses. Then 60-90 minutes later, after discussing our final baby girl name options, we got our negative results back and walked to the nursery before heading to our room.

Then we finally got to touch our new daughter and try out some names on her. It was really fun to meet her before having a name selected. With Kai, I had chosen her name when I was 14yrs old so there was no surprise there. We decided to name her Kehlani Kawikani Lee- a strong person of the sea and the heavens.

What started as a backyard barbecue, ended as a frank breech pre-term birth in a matter of just 2.5 hours that night. It was a wild day having went from my brother’s house, to shopping in Omaha, to a barbecue, to having a baby all before midnight.

As I’m finishing writing this, it’s actually the time we would be boarding a plane to fly to Florida for our pre-Kehlani family vacation. But Kehlani is like her mama, she wanted us to wait for her to go see the ocean.