“I started pushing at around 6:20 even though it felt more like really intense pressure contractions and not like pushing,” the TLC personality recalled. “I didn’t have the feeling of the baby coming down like I did with [our] other kids. I had crazy back labor and lots of pressure with no feeling of progress. It was painful, and harder mentally because I felt like I was pushing and not getting anywhere.
When Radley emerged 12 minutes later, the infant was born en caul. Audrey explained that her “water never broke and he was born in the amniotic sac,” which isn’t typical. “It’s extremely rare — less than 1 in 80,000 births!” the Oregon State University grad went on to write. “Oh, how I wish I had a good picture to show you, but it was dark and the angle of the photos doesn’t really show it well. My midwife popped the sac while he was still in the water right after he came out, so when I sat up and turned around so she could pass him to me, he had what looked like a deflated balloon over his head. … Pushing out the sac was a very different experience.