baby steps to brave: a birth story

 

Today I’m sharing my youngest’s birth story. Guys – it was craziness. Throughout the pregnancy, I found myself anxious about this delivery, and guess what? Pretty much all my fears were realized. But you know what? I feel like God walked me through every part, even the hard parts. It was challenging, but I felt strangely capable, and marveled at the victories I was able to have. It wasn’t a scary or difficult delivery by any means, but it was personally challenging for me.

***

It’s a Monday, and I start the day with a doctor’s appointment I had hoped I wouldn’t make it to. My doctor lets me know that I’m progressing, but still sends me home. To my dismay, he advises me to make another appointment for next week. (?!)

I go home and start feeling contractions around lunch time. When they are 10 minutes apart, I call labor and delivery. A positive, but calm voice on the other end tells me to lay down, drink some water, and see if it passes. I hang out with my mom, dad, and my oldest, waiting to see if it goes away.

It doesn’t. I call back an hour later, ready for them to tell me to come in. The same nurse instead instructs me to wait until contractions are 5 minutes apart, and I can’t breathe through them. That sounds a little too close to giving birth for my comfort. (And definitely my mom’s!) But after panicking and going to the hospital the past Thursday, and finding out I wasn’t even close, I am too embarrassed to rush in now. So sure. We’ll wait it out.

The contractions start getting intense, to the point that I just want to lay down and do nothing else. James gets home, and I tell him this could be it – but I’m waiting until closer to five minutes. We try to eat dinner, and my mom looks nervous. Her second delivery was much faster, and she feels like it will be the same way for me.

Finally, it gets to the point where I don’t think I can wait any longer. Even though contractions are more like 7 minutes apart, I tell James we are going in, and I don’t care what anyone says. I start to get that rush of adrenaline, and feel like those women in the movies. Like I’ll punch anyone who gets in my way to the delivery room. We drive over.

After waiting out one last contraction, I head into the hospital while James parks the car. When I get to the nurse’s station, they are kind, but still have looks on their faces that say, “Aw, look at this mom jumping the gun.” I don’t care. I settle into my room, and James arrives. It’s about 6:30pm.

We go through paperwork, questions, and blood work. Meanwhile the contractions are getting close and much more painful. At one point the nurse has left the room too long, and James goes after her, because I am pretty insistent that the anesthesiologist needs to be here, NOW. We wait it out for him to arrive, because he is in surgery. I make probably the highest pitch noise I’ve ever made through a particularly intense contraction. They are so fierce that I am almost crying with relief when they are over. No one says it out loud, but the looks on everyone’s faces says, are we even going to make it to the epidural?

The anesthesiologist arrives around 7:45, we sign more papers, and he explains the process. Of course, I barely take anything in. Just get it done, I am thinking through contractions. He starts, but has a hard time getting the needle in where it needs to be.

It’s getting more and more intense, and the epidural is still not in yet. I’m bracing myself through the contractions, again hoping for relief, when a strange feeling comes over me. Although he is not done yet, the words burst out: “I NEED TO PUSH!” It’s like it came out of someone else’s mouth. But I’m fearful that the baby is going to come out before the epidural is ready and before the doctor arrives. The nurse rushes out to go get him.

Sweet relief, as the anesthesiologist finishes and I get to lay back down, the pain from contractions lessening. The doctor arrives and examines me, and to everyone’s surprise, I have gone from 4 centimeters dilated to 9. They call nursery and tell them a baby is about to arrive. It’s 8:30.

While I can’t feel the pain of the contractions, I can feel the pressure of the baby. I push and push, following the directions of the doctor and nurse. But it feels like nothing I can do will get the baby out. I say multiple times, “I can’t do it,” but eventually prove myself wrong.

The baby arrives a little after 9, and they get him out and into my arms right away. And then information starts flooding in – that he is over 8 pounds. (Holy cow!) That he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but the doctor caught it just in time. And above all of that, he raises his own voice to show us he’s feisty.

After all the waiting, the pushing, the pain, and the fears, I’m holding my little boy. He’s wailing, and I talk to him, telling him it’s okay. He blinks his little eyes, this boy I’ve been carrying for nine months, and I’m full to the brim. Even though he remains nameless until the next morning, we love him so much already. We can hardly believe we have made it past the hard part (and into the next hard part).

***

Having him was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. (Although the following weeks are a close second.) My husband says I could very well have done without the epidural, for as far along as I got. It had long been a fear of mine to ever go through delivery without the help of pain meds, so to have gotten as far as I did is still a surprise to me.

The lesson learned? Bravery comes in baby steps. (Pun intended.) Of course, my worry throughout the pregnancy did nothing for me, and I didn’t have much of an option to stop it as it was happening. All I could do was take it one step at a time.

That’s all any of us can do when we face challenges. Many times we can’t choose or change the circumstances, and we just have to go with it. But God is there, right with us, every step of the way.