Baby Kit’s Birth Story | Portland Maine

Kits Birth Story

Kit Laurel was born on May 8, 2026 to parents Sarah and Thomas Macy and 2 year old brother, Leland in Brunswick. She was due to be born a week prior, on the 1st of May, conveniently, the first day parents could tap in to Maines new paid family leave policy. At 39 weeks even, I went into early labor for most of a day, but the labor stalled out and I had experienced no signs of labor since and had no dilation.

At 40 weeks and 4 days we were scheduled for an induction but proceeded to be pushed back because the labor and delivery unit was at capacity. Finally, at 40 weeks 6 days we were admitted and began induction with a prostaglandin. Falling asleep that night, I hadn’t had any noticeable contractions and was beginning to wonder if more interventions would wind up being needed, unlike her brother who was also induced but only required a prostaglandin before my water broke and active labor began in earnest with his arrival occurring 11 hours later.

About an hour after falling asleep I woke up with contractions evenly spaced and a few minutes apart, but they were no more intense than the early labor contractions I had a couple of weeks prior and was wondering if they were going to stall out. I woke my husband and wound up laboring for less than an hour like this when my water broke. I paged our nurse and she performed a cervical check where she announced that I was 7 cm and called in the OB on call. At that point my labor quickly became active. I had planned to give birth with an epidural in place and asked them to page the anesthesiologist on call but the nurse and OB were uncertain if he would be able to make it in time. He arrived in 15 minutes and I was able to hold off on pushing until the pain relief set in but as soon as it did, I pushed through the next 3 contractions, and probably about 5 minutes later, Kit was here. 8 lbs 11 ozs and 20 inches long. Beautiful, healthy and crying. All in all from the beginning of contractions to her arrival it was about 2 hours and felt terrifyingly fast, especially when juxtaposed against what felt like a long pregnancy of 41 weeks. 

Since then, Kit has proven herself to be a joy to in our family. She’s a good sleeper, has taken well to nursing and lights up whenever she sees Leland. We call her the moon to Leland’s sun because she has a very quiet and calm presence so far whereas Leland is sprightly and energetic. However, they both have their sweetness in common, and we feel lucky to have two such lovely babies close enough in age to grow up together.