Marshall’s birth story didn’t begin in a hospital delivery room. It began four years earlier, with hope, disappointment, and a determination that refused to disappear.
When Victoria and her husband decided to start a family in 2016, they expected the journey to be straightforward. She was only twenty-seven, and after her husband’s successful vasectomy reversal, they assumed pregnancy would happen within a year. Instead, they found themselves entering a world of fertility clinics, injections, procedures, and endless waiting.
First came three medicated IUI cycles.
Then five IVF egg retrievals.
Then seven embryo transfers involving fifteen embryos.
Most of them failed.
One finally worked—but at nine weeks, they lost their daughter.
By the time they prepared for the seventh transfer, they were emotionally exhausted. Victoria wasn’t sure how much strength she had left to keep fighting. Yet one tiny embryo somehow survived against every expectation.
She would later call him “the little embryo that could.”
From the moment she became pregnant with Marshall, something felt different. Despite everything they had endured, there was an unexpected sense of peace she couldn’t explain. For the first time in years, she allowed herself to believe this baby might actually come home.
At fourteen weeks pregnant, she hired Dallas as both her birth photographer and doula. Throughout the pregnancy, Dallas became the person Victoria messaged with every question that seemed too small for her obstetrician but far too important to ignore.
Although she was considered high-risk from the very beginning, Victoria approached pregnancy the same way she had approached infertility—with calm acceptance. She had already spent years surrounded by doctors, specialists, scans, and medical interventions. To her, another high-risk pregnancy simply felt like the next chapter.
Her birth plan was refreshingly simple.
“Mom and baby leave the hospital alive and well.”
Everything else was secondary.
At 37 weeks and 6 days, around five o’clock one morning, she woke to what she later described as becoming “an Olympic-sized swimming pool of amniotic fluid.” She had severe polyhydramnios, meaning there was far more amniotic fluid than normal, and when her water broke, it seemed never-ending.
Completely unfazed, she calmly texted Dallas, told her husband to go to work because she wasn’t having contractions yet, took a long hot shower, called her mother, and only then contacted her midwife.
On the way to the hospital, they even stopped at Starbucks.
Looking back, her biggest regret wasn’t delaying the trip—it was not ordering a larger breakfast.
Once she arrived at St. Vincent’s Southside, however, everyone realized something unusual.
Despite her water having broken, her body simply refused to begin labor.
Marshall seemed perfectly happy where he was.
Victoria joked that her body had always been terrible at anything involving reproduction, and apparently labor was no exception.
Doctors started medication to soften her cervix and trigger contractions.
Instead of responding normally, her body reacted dramatically.
Her blood pressure suddenly skyrocketed into the 190s over 110s.
She had developed severe preeclampsia.
Oral medications failed to lower it, forcing doctors to begin a magnesium sulfate infusion—a medication that can save lives but often leaves mothers feeling nauseated, overheated, exhausted, and mentally foggy.
Months earlier, Victoria and Dallas had discussed exactly this possibility.
Originally, Victoria hoped to avoid an epidural so she could move freely during labor.
But if magnesium became necessary, everything changed.
She knew the medication would leave her confined to bed anyway, so she immediately chose the epidural they had already discussed.
That single conversation before labor gave her enormous peace of mind when everything suddenly became complicated.
Throughout the night, Dallas helped her manage the relentless side effects of magnesium.
Cold washcloths eased pounding headaches.
Peppermint oil relieved nausea.
Ice packs cooled intense hot flashes.
Water and ice chips soothed her painfully dry mouth.
Even while feeling miserable, Victoria continued advocating clearly for herself, calmly explaining what she needed and what she didn’t.
Then her blood pressure swung in the opposite direction.
Instead of dangerously high, it suddenly crashed to 80 over 60.
Her oxygen levels dropped.
An oxygen mask appeared.
The room became blurry.
Victoria barely remembers those hours, but she distinctly remembers hearing one calm voice repeatedly encouraging her to breathe.
Slowly, labor finally began progressing.
A Foley balloon catheter helped her cervix dilate.
Pitocin strengthened her contractions.
After an exhausting night of blood pressure swings, oxygen concerns, and constant position changes to keep Marshall’s heartbeat reassuring, the epidural finally allowed her to sleep for about three precious hours.
When she woke at shift change, she was already seven centimeters dilated.
A short time later, she reached ten.
It was finally time to push.
The first pushes felt surprisingly good.
Then she realized something wasn’t right.
The burst of energy she felt after each contraction wasn’t adrenaline.
It was her oxygen dropping again.
She alternated wearing the oxygen mask while pushing as her husband stayed beside her every second, holding her hand and encouraging her through every contraction.
Magnesium made coordinating effective pushes incredibly difficult.
She knew exactly what her body needed to do.
Convincing it to cooperate was another matter entirely.
For three exhausting hours, she pushed with everything she had.
Again and again she asked the same questions.
“How much longer?”
“How many more pushes?”
“How close is he?”
No one could honestly answer.
Eventually, her doctor suggested trying a vacuum-assisted delivery.
Rather than rushing into the decision, they carefully discussed the benefits, risks, and timing together. Everyone understood one important fact: vacuum assistance only works if the mother still has enough strength left to push alongside it.
Victoria still did.
She gave everything she had left.
After just a few more determined pushes, Marshall finally entered the world.
The moment they placed him on her chest erased years of heartbreak in an instant.
He was covered in vernix, crying loudly, and wonderfully alive.
Victoria held him tightly, unwilling to let him go.
Every injection.
Every failed cycle.
Every embryo.
Every devastating phone call.
Every tear shed after losing their first baby.
Every frightening moment during labor.
Suddenly, none of it mattered anymore.
She later said those first moments with her husband and son remain some of the clearest memories of her entire life.
Everything they had fought for was finally resting in her arms.
Later that day, Victoria’s parents—who had waited patiently at the hospital since early that morning—were finally allowed inside to meet the grandson they had spent four years praying for.
Looking back, Victoria realized something unexpected.
Years of infertility had quietly prepared her for childbirth.
IVF had taught her resilience.
It had taught her to adapt when plans changed.
It had taught her to keep moving forward even when things didn’t happen the way she hoped.
What could have become a traumatic birth instead became another challenge she overcame—because after everything she had already survived, she knew how to endure uncertainty.
She had learned long ago that the goal wasn’t achieving the perfect birth plan.
The goal was bringing home her baby.
And after four years, fifteen embryos, countless procedures, one heartbreaking loss, and one incredibly difficult labor, she finally did.
