My pregnancy was really easy. I didn’t have morning sickness, I didn’t gain a ton of weight, I didn’t have swelling, wasn’t too uncomfortable, and that all continued right up until we were close to the end. Right around 34-35 weeks, my blood pressure decided it wanted to act up. I did some initial testing for pre-eclampsia and they came back negative, but after another week of high blood pressure, my doctor decided to do the test over again. In just a week, my protein levels quadrupled and my blood pressure continued to rise.

The night before I was sent to labor and delivery I had a feeling it would happen. I spent hours and hours trying to get last minute things done, install car seats, set up her room, etc. When I went into the doctor, I told Brett to continue working because I felt like it might be bad luck to assume I would be admitted, even though I knew deep down that I would be. I was right. I went in to my appointment and was pretty much immediately sent over to the hospital to be admitted. I told Brett to come, bring all our stuff, and that the baby was coming.

The doctor on call let me know that they were going to check me and then begin to induce labor. When she did a quick ultrasound, what she found was that my girl was breech. Since my doctor was coming in the morning, we scheduled my c-section for bright and early at 7:30am. It was not my plan, but again…I kind of had an inkling that she was breech! Mother’s intuition, I guess!

Clara Elliott was welcomed into the world at 8:13am and Brett says he remembers hearing the doctor say, “That’s it?” when she was born. Countless nurses let me know how they had never seen the look on my doctor’s face that they saw when Clara was born. That the usually so sure of himself and steady man was clearly shaken…by such a small surprise. Our Clara was born at 2 lb 11 oz. It was such a shock to everyone. It was terrifying to hear and seeing her was surreal.

I’m frequently asked WHY or HOW DID YOUR DOCTOR NOT KNOW? The answer to WHY is simply that my placenta didn’t fully develop and she wasn’t able to get the nourishment she needed to grow. (Technically considered inter-uterine growth restriction.) At my 20 week ultrasound, everything was perfect and on track for a normal sized, healthy baby! I continued to have a very normal, non-complicated pregnancy and was not considered high risk until a week before I was rushed over to deliver. I didn’t have additional, seemingly unnecessary ultrasounds. My doctor suspected she would be small, but I don’t think anyone ever expected her to be so small!

Another thing to note is that people keep mentioning my “preemie.” While she’s preemie-sized, she was born full term at 37 weeks. She’s what they consider “small for gestational age,” but not premature.

Cece was a strong girl from the beginning. She never needed oxygen, a feeding tube, or anything like that. She was a perfect babe, just tiny! She was moved to NICU shortly after Brett got to hold her and remained there for 18 days before we got to bring her home. I’ll definitely do a post or two on our NICU time, because it’s truly such a unique experience!

That’s the story of Clara Elliott! Nothing went to plan, but everything worked out. It’s insane to know that she’s almost a month old already…and she’s still got room to grow into her preemie clothes! Please, make time slow down!!