Furbaby Birth Team | Manhattan KS

This Manhattan, KS birth story features the most amazing furbaby birth team. Bowser, June, and Finn were at their mama’s side. Along with Daddy, Aunt Shyanne, two amazing midwives (and your favorite birth photographer), Mama Holly felt safe and loved.

These three fantastic furbabies formed the perfect birth team!

Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more attentive hubby or puppy. This furbaby birth team will definitely win your heart over!

Get comfy and enjoy Elayna’s birth video and help me wish her a very happy first birthday today!

You also get a look into the details of this beautiful birth story
as written by Mama Holly!

nov 9 – i started feeling crampy when sitting in the drive thru line at taco bell around 7p and didn’t think anything of it but cramps continued throughout dinner and into the night. i messaged my midwife at around 10pm and informed her i was having some cramping/pain but wasn’t sure if they were contractions and she instructed me to try to ignore them as long as i could and try to get some sleep. i also texted my sister in law shyanne who was planning to be part of my support system for my birth and told her what was going on as well and to get ready to possibly leave in the middle of the night to head over to our house.

nov 10 – i tried to sleep and couldn’t ever get comfortable enough to fall asleep, tried to take a bath to calm things down and that didn’t work either. i finally called shyanne around 3 something in the morning to tell her how i was feeling and she made her way over and we called my midwife to tell her what was going on and inform her how close contractions were and how long they were lasting. she wanted to wait until the morning to check in again since things were still happening pretty far apart. we also contacted my birth photographer to keep her updated on how i was feeling/how things were going to give her an idea on when she could come by. my midwife came by at 7:30a and by that point i was having some pretty strong contractions and had thrown up a couple of times.

she checked me and i was only dilated to about a 3 and had awhile to go yet so she left and we continued to labor at home for a few hours until my contractions were about 1.5 minutes apart and pretty strong which was around 3pm. we called my midwife and photographer again and updated them and my midwife told us to start getting the pool ready because it sounded like i was getting close and could get into the water and my photographer headed our way around 4pm.

i got into the pool and sat in there for awhile and my contractions started to die down and we were at a standstill. i eventually got out and moved back to the toilet to try and get things moving again. my contractions kept coming but they were further apart for awhile. we tried a bunch of different positions to get things moving again, inversion, toilet, exercise ball, squatting, walking around… my midwife checked my cervix again later that night and i was still only dilated to about a 4-5cm which was defeating because it felt like so much more.

eventually we tried to sleep again for awhile when things weren’t progressing. i didn’t rest very well because my contractions never really let up but we tried and got a couple of hours in throughout the night.

nov 11 – morning came and most everyone went home to rest up and it was only me, dalton and shyanne at the house for awhile. we worked hard all morning to try and get things moving along. i worked through my contractions, walked around, squatted, sat on the ball, everything we could think of. afternoon rolled around and people returned and my photographer recommended a shower to try and relax a bit, labor in the shower and wash my hair to get a refresh and keep going.

in the middle of the afternoon, my friends hanna and kayla came over to work the ultrasound machine to make sure she was still head down and everything was positioned correctly and everything was looking good still. evening time rolled around, everyone was exhausted, my midwife checked me again and i was only dilated to about a 5. after laboring all day and thinking we’d gotten somewhere, it was disheartening. i was about 48 hours into labor at this point and so exhausted, dalton and i made the call of heading to the hospital. the drive to the hospital was wildly uncomfortable and i felt so much pressure around my abdomen.

after we filled out all the paperwork and got settled into the room, my water broke on its own around 8:45p right as the nurse was about to start my IV. i got so much pressure relief from my water breaking i had a bit of a break from the pain before my contractions started to ramp up again. i got an epidural around 9:45 after some bloodwork was taken to make sure everything was okay. i ended up sleeping for a couple of hours after my epidural and was checked by the nurse a couple of times. i got a dose of pitocin to try and speed things up a little bit since i’d already been laboring for so long.

nov 12- around 1:30am my nurse told me i was dilated to a 9-9.5 and would be able to start pushing soon. dr. mike newcomer came in shortly after 2am and i began pushing. dalton, shyanne and my photographer were in the room with me. my nurse put a mirror down at the bottom of the bed so that i was able to watch as elayna finally made her way into the world at 2:25am on november 12th weighing 8 lbs 3 oz and 20.75 inches long! it was the best ending to an absolutely exhausting 3 days of laboring!