A Perfect Birth
To the mama that finds the process of labor hard
To the mama that finds the strength when there is no relief from the pain
To the mama who has the courage to know that her body is meant to do this very thing
To the mama that finds it difficult waiting patiently
To the mama who is scared in what she is about to do
To the mama who is anxious
To the mama that finds herself on this journey
To the mama that finds God’s mercy
To the mama that knows God will see her through until the end
To the mama with a grateful heart
To the mama who understands that He is bigger than what you feel in the moment
To the mama who draws near
To the mama that cries out to the Lord in her time of need
To the mama that finds her hope in God alone
To the mama that endures hard things with grace
And to the mama who finds the joy that comes after
Having to endure labor always scares me a little. I become apprehensive towards the end of each pregnancy because of the unknown. Even though all my pregnancies have been very similar in regards to how baby is positioned in my womb, my labors have certainly seen its fair share of differences and challenges. I typically go into labor around 41 or 42 weeks along. That, I can expect from my body.
Waiting upon God’s timing was so hard with this pregnancy. We had worked diligently on our little homestead early that spring in anticipation of knowing baby would arrive right after planting season. I may have placed too high of expectations upon myself to literally deliver the goods on time. When 40 weeks came, we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Still, no baby. I had a friend lined up to come stay with us to help with the other children while I labored. She cleared her schedule for the month so traveling wouldn’t be conflicting with our birth. I had an awesome midwife that was so encouraging along the way. Still, no baby. Boy, girl, we had no idea who this little person was that decided to force patience in our family. God knew who this tiny babe was and He was working on humbling me. But this mama was becoming weary.
…So to get my mind off labor, we decide to take some pictures in the backyard 🙂
We took some sweet photos on the swing-set, ate a good supper, and got ready for bed. Around dusk, Jason and I decided to take a walk around the property. It was nice to talk about plan B, lowering our expectations, and enjoying the process. Knowing all was prepared for the morning’s breakfast, we decided to be still and listen to the quiet of the evening on the porch swing. I was still flooded with thoughts on being 16 days overdue. I questioned God’s timing. I teared up. I became a little discouraged in my ability to do this hard thing. Was this baby going to be huge? And to top it off, my friend had to return that morning to her traveling job. That meant our help would be gone and I did not have a back up plan. I was frustrated and questioning why? Why was this happening? God knew my friend had cleared her schedule for the entire month to be here. What was I missing? I thought I had all my bases covered. Then Jason reminded me of my midwife’s words… “Natalie, did you ever think God had planned for her not to be here?”
The comfort of Jason’s arms… I love. He is soft and gentle to my anxiousness. He said nothing more than a smile, and then went straight into praying for me. His words were a salve to my soul. Right in the middle of his prayer, I had a fairly hard contraction. I looked at him in disbelief… and he just continued to pray. I had another but this one was harder. I just breathed heavy and became quiet. I wasn’t quite sure what to think.
I had another, and then another. It didn’t make any sense as my previous labors have always started out slow and then progressed from there. This was completely different than anything I have experienced thus far. I called my midwife and she talked me through some contractions. I still was able to talk through each contraction so she wasn’t too concerned about racing to the house. (She was in the middle of packing up boxes because she was relocating to a new home.) She expressed she was going to pack up her car with more boxes from the house, and she would head my way after picking up her nurse. Jason and I went into the house and started filling up the birthing pool.
I labored some more and they were getting so painful in my lower back (posterior baby) that I decided to take a hot shower. I probably wasn’t in the shower 10 minutes before I ran the hot water completely out. I told Jason to boil some water to fill up the rest of the pool. I started to have a lot of pressure. I reached down and shockingly felt the baby’s head crowning! I jumped out of the shower and hollered to Jason in the kitchen, “This baby is coming!” As I held onto the bedpost, I had one more hard contraction. As Jason was coming in with a hot pot of water, I mentioned getting into the pool. And as always, he said so calmly, “Natalie, it’s okay. You’ve done this before; you can do this again.” I said, “You don’t understand! This baby is coming right now!” He smiled and grabbed some towels.
He came over to the pool, looked down in the water and said, “Whoa, Natalie. I see the head coming.” and of course I had to say, “I told you!” 🙂 He got our midwife on the phone to ask where she was and telling her my progression. She obviously could hear me in the background and told Jason she was waiting on her nurse at the crossroads about an hour away. (Thankfully he didn’t tell me that part until later.)
At this point I was worried about how we were going to birth this baby if she didn’t get here… and with that flooding thought, my body was pushing. Jason said, “The sac is still on the baby.” Out this baby came in her sac, into the water, and Jason brought this tiny little face up to my chest to meet its first breath. The baby had perfect skin color, but no movement, no cry.
Jason, still holding the phone, heard the words massage and stimulate that baby… so we did. And I saw a blink of the eyes and a little whimper of a cry. It was the best sound of our lives. We kept stimulating the baby and kept warm in the water. We didn’t know what else to do but to hang in there until our help came… cord attached and all.
What began as the scariest moment, became the most sacred moment of our lives. The Lord protected this baby in the womb, down the path, into the hands of daddy, straight to the arms of mommy… all protected inside the sac. It was truly the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced… one that we will never forget. Jason and I were so overjoyed starring at this little baby. While we waited on our midwife to come check on us, we decided I would stay in the water while Jason ran to wake the other children up from their sweet slumber. Yes, they actually slept through that entire process. 🙂 I’m washing the baby’s face off a bit and I see Jason run back into the room to say, “We don’t even know what this baby is!” I giggled because I had no idea either. We had been so concerned on doing the right thing and making sure baby was okay, that the gender wasn’t even a question we had concerned ourselves with.
When he pulled the warm towel off the baby, we saw pink! Another girl had decided to join our crew! I couldn’t believe we had not thought of looking! We just wanted her to blink, to cry, to be healthy, and to be safe. I leaned back onto the pool and was so grateful… and completely exhausted! Jason kissed my forehead and smiled. Off he rushed to go wake everyone up.
In the moments of oohing and awing over her were priceless for me to watch my other children just love on their new, tiny baby sister.
About 40 minutes into us loving on her, my midwife and her nurse walk in giggling in amazement at how I was still in the pool. Baby’s cord was still attached so we had to take care of some things before I could get into my bed. Up they helped me out of the pool and we took care of all the details that follow.
To my surprise, 30 minutes into her listening to the baby’s lungs, cutting the cord, and weighing her, she gets a phone call. It’s almost 3 a.m. and that only meant one thing- it was another birth she needed to attend to!
Back to doing what we do best… cuddles and kisses! We sat up for another couple of hours before everyone nodded off to sleep, except for Jason and me. I was too excited about what had just occurred. With my midwife gone to another birth, the kids quietly resting, Jason cleaning up, I sat starring at this sweet, precious baby girl in disbelief of God’s goodness and protection over her little life. Before her parents very eyes, we just witnessed not only His mercy and grace, but a miracle of what we call a perfect birth.
Natalie