Macy Marie Shaeffer's Birth

Macy Marie Shaeffer

August 24, 2025 

4:08 am

6 lbs 4 oz

20.5 inches long

I had an induction scheduled on August 23 at 10:30 pm so Marty and I headed over to Broadway around 10 pm from our apartment to hail a taxi to the hospital. When we moved here I was really looking forward to taking a taxi to the hospital. It just seemed so magical in my mind to take the taxi to the hospital in labor. Because it was an induction it didn’t quite seem as magical, plus, we were struggling to find an available taxi! Haha. I was getting a little worried that we weren’t going to find one and were going to be late for the induction…so we headed over to Amsterdam. I remember thinking in my head at this point that I could relate to Mary and Joseph haha I was ready to have this baby and no one was willing to take me to the hospital! Luckily, after getting to Amsterdam we were able to get a taxi and off to the hospital we went!

When we arrived at Lenox Hill they sent us up to L&D and we waited in a room for just a short while.  They got details about insurance, etc and then took me back to my L&D room. I had a debriefing with the nurse and the hospital doctor and then they put a balloon in me. They told me the purpose of the balloon was to get my cervix to dilate. What happens is they put the balloon in you and then it slowly fills up with a saline solution. As it fills up it helps your body dilate, and the balloon usually will fall out when you’re dilated around 4 cm. They told me this usually takes 4 hours.

So they put the balloon inside me and they eventually added Pitocin with the balloon. Marty and I were both just relaxing—he was trying to sleep—and I was trying to sleep/enjoying listening to my birth playlist. Time passed and the contractions started getting more intense and there was one contraction in particular that was very intense and I thought “I’m ready to have the epidural” and then pop…and a huge gush of fluid came out. I knew this feeling from when my water broke with Emi. It’s such a satisfying feeling! I called the nurse in and sure enough, the balloon was out and my water had broke. From when they started me to that point was only 2 hours! My body was working quickly.

The nurse had recommended that if I wanted the epidural, a good time to get it would be after my water broke because things can progress quickly after that. I took her advice and she called in the anesthesiologist. He came in and was very quirky haha. He started putting in my epidural, and then he paused to say “Huh that’s interesting” as he’s taping up my back. It made me super nervous like he’d done something wrong. I was freaking out internally that I was going to have all these bad things happen to my body because he’d inserted it wrong. He later asked me if I lifted weights because my back was muscley haha. So I guess that’s maybe what he was commenting on? But regardless…we made it through the epidural!

Then he left and they put me on Pitocin again. I tried to use the epidural medicine sparingly so that I could feel what was happening. The next few hours are a bit of a blur, but at 3:42 (I just checked the hospital notes) the hospital doctor and resident came in to check if I was feeling a bunch of pressure/the need to push. I told them no and they seemed surprised. They told me baby was really low and getting close. They did a quick cervical check and I was 5.5 centimeters dilated. They left the room and I called them back in a few minutes later. I was feeling the need to push and it hurt really bad!! Even with the epidural. My doctor, Dr. DiGregorio, came in with everyone and I started pushing. It was hard, and I was having trouble concentrating because it was painful. Dr. DiGregorio coached me through pushing (and I had also done more prep with this baby) and after several pushes, Macy Marie made her appearance!! They put her on me for just a minute, and then took her to the other side of the room to get all the fluid out of her. I remember feeling bummed that I couldn’t just hold her a few more minutes, but that they wouldn’t have taken her over to the other side of the room if they didn’t need to so I didn’t say anything. Marty remembers that Macy was very purple—something I hadn’t noticed because I was just so excited she was here!!

Macy’s birth was honestly my dream birth experience. I had done so much more preparation and my body knew better what to do this time around. 

I was forced into preparation because I was told a few weeks before she was born that my platelet counts were low, and I may not be able to have an epidural if they went below a certain threshold. Because of that I took preparation much more seriously—read, watched birth videos, practiced techniques, made a birth playlist (my favorite thing ever! I will definitely be doing that again), etc. I’m so grateful to have had such a beautiful birth experience.