My Miracle Birth

Paul just told me how grown up he feels with three children, and I have to agree! I am so happy that she is here. There is no doubt this blog has exhausted the subject of Cori, and it will continue to do so, sorry J I was really touched that several people have asked for a blog about my birth experience. How ideal, since Daddy has to pick up the other kiddos and take them to their own beds and I will be alone. I am truthfully bummed, but trying to be grateful for all of my many blessings. And there are so many.

First off, I will happily share my birth experience. My Mom always told me, “just go to bed, you won’t sleep through your labor!” At 4:40 this morning I woke up with a contraction, not abnormal for me. I have had contractions for my entire third trimester, intense ones even. However, they are not consistent. So after this particular contraction this morning, I hung out for a bit to see if another one would hit. It did. 7 minutes later. So I made a trip to the bathroom, and cuddled up next to Paul. Before I knew it, another one was on its way, so I poked Paul in the ribs and told him I was 60% sure I was in labor. By 5:30 I told Paul I was getting up to brush my teeth and put my contacts in. I returned to the room to find him still in bed, “Hey! We gotta move!” Sonora came in 2 ½ hours, about an hour after we arrived at the hospital. (I thought that was traumatic!) Well, rewind back to this morning. At 6:00 am I called the Deans and told them what was going on and they said to bring the kids on when we were ready. Kids woke up and ate cereal, we threw our bags in the car, and fed dogs, packed some books, diapers, movies. It was 6:30 and I was loading the dishwasher, because it just so happens the ONE night I don’t clean my dishes from dinner I go into labor. Then Paul grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me into the living room, “you know we have to go!”

So he put the kids in the car, I sat in the front seat and we remarked what a smooth drive it was down the interstate. My contractions were every 4-5 minutes, and I was breathing through them fine. We got to the Dean’s house at 6:45 and were out by 6:47. On the way to the hospital I was telling Paul, “I feel pressure, these are intense." Paul was praying over me, all while cursing the multiple stop lights we hit! I am honestly not sure what time we got to the hospital, but the Deans live about 8 minutes from it and we did hit every stop light, as afore mentioned. We pulled into the parking lot where Paul mentioned dropping me off, and I spotted an empty spot right next to the door. “THERE! GO THERE!” Paul wasn’t sure if it was a legal spot because it was just that good, but we didn’t have a choice. So I got into the hospital lobby, where the admitting specialist was on the phone.
“I need to go to labor and delivery, now!”
She covered the mouthpiece on the phone, “Ok you can go ahead. Can you walk?”
“I don’t think so…”
“Ok, wheelchairs are next to the door.” Paul ran to get one for me and came back to the admitting desk, where I sat down in the waiting room area because I was having a contraction. Then I moved into the wheelchair and Paul wheeled me to the closest elevator. Labor and Delivery is on the third floor. We rode up with another couple, that needed to stop at the second floor. We finally made it to the desk at labor and delivery where I told them that I needed a room. They didn’t know I was in active labor so they asked me those annoying questions to keep me talking through contractions, “Is this your first baby? How many kids do you have, sweetie? How old are they? How old are you?” We showed ourselves to the room number they gave us, seriously, we were searching the hallway for it! I sat in there for three minutes with Paul before anyone came to meet me. Another nurse came in, “So, how many kids is this for you?” I am crying, the nurse responds, “I need you to be strong for me.” Paul finally clued her in, “Uh, she usually has fast births so I don’t know what’s happening now…” Thank God the nurse believed us, she ran into the hall and called out, “I need nurses in here, NOW!” I undressed and threw my clothes around the room, held the gown up to my front, but it wasn’t buttoned all the way and I couldn’t figure it out so I literally just laid in the bed on my side and cried out. The nurse ran back in and said, “I need to check you when your contraction is over. I managed to roll over for her, though at this point I was in excruciating pain. I knew something was up when she yelled, “Now! I need you in here now! Get the doctor, someone out there get me a doctor! He’s in room 300!”

The doctor ran in, dressing himself, while nurses helped him tie up his scrubs. At this point two nurses grabbed each one of my legs and handed them to me. “Hold these, and push now, she’s ready.” It was absolute chaos. My doctor was unbelievably rough. In fact, his efforts at stretching me for the baby’s head were almost more painful than the baby’s head crowning. He told me to stop screaming, but I have never been in such horrible pain in my life! Ok, I know this isn’t positive for those of you that are pregnant. Yikes, it was intense, that’s all I will say J . And after five minutes of pushing, she was here. She was in my arms, and I was mostly relieved that I was no longer in pain. I didn’t notice her long fingers, or purple toes, or sweet hair…I was in shock. I trembled, and begged for water, and when the nurse wanted to bathe her, I handed her off. It was just the place I was at. Some people say this is the way to labor, and maybe it is. I’ve never had a labor slower than 4 hours. But having the baby ten minutes after arriving to the labor and delivery is not my idea of fun. Although I did get to skip out on the IV. That was kind of nice. Right now in my head I am thinking of A) not having any more children, despite the fact they are incredibly wonderful blessings, B) requesting an induction next time so I can definitely get an epidural before pushing time comes, or C) requesting a C section. I’m sure that goes against every law of “healthy all natural childbirth” pamphlets everywhere, but after what I went through, I think I am entitled to my opinion ;)


There is the birth story. But as I said, tonight my husband and kids are at home. They also happened to be my only visitors given that we have only lived here for a little over a month. I was overwhelmed and touched by all of the wonderful comments and well wishes on facebook. I am grateful that I have so many people who care for me, and though they can’t be in Redding with me, they would be if they could! Given my solitude, and a sleeping baby, I wanted to take some time to reflect upon the mounting spiritual battle my family has found ourselves in, and share some testimonies of God’s great love and provision, especially concerning this pregnancy and Cori.

This pregnancy was the hardest I have ever had. For a good part of it I had great difficulty walking. At 6 months pregnant I sat most of my day. I was wondering how I would make it to the end. I had the opportunity around 8 months to receive prayer at The Red Church’s new worship service on Saturday night. We were two weeks away from moving to Redding, and I wanted prayer for our new endeavor, but most especially for my hips that were having a difficult time holding Cori up. So the worship team prayed over me, and over the pregnancy. A particular moment stuck out to me. One of the men told Paul that the Lord showed him a vision of Paul on his knees, holding my pregnant belly in his hands speaking “shalom” over my womb as Jesus had spoken to the storm in Matthew. It was a really intense moment of prayer. When we got in the car I was struck by the nature of the prayer….why did you need to speak peace over my womb? I stroked Cori and felt afraid, like something greater than just “achy hips” was going on in me. From that moment on though, God touched my hips and I was able to get around just fine.

Of course, at 35 weeks pregnant Cori tried to come into the world. And for whatever reason, my firm belief is prayer, my labor came to a halt. And in the weeks to follow, I went from a 4 cm to a finger tip dilated. Yes, I reversed! That morning in the hospital I had a sharp pain in my upper abdomen, right on top of my pregnant belly. I didn’t say anything because in less than an hour it faded. The next week it happened again and I began to research and came to the conclusion that I was having a gall bladder attack. I’m not sure if that’s what it was or not. But it definitely hurt! I mentioned it to my doctor because while I was researching the pain, placental abruption came up in several searches. But I wasn’t bleeding, nor was the pain consistent. I did however, several times a day have contractions that cramped down and lasted for 3-5 minutes at a time. They were intense but I was told not to worry unless they came at regular intervals.

Honestly, I still don’t have answers. What I do know is that this morning after Cori was born a nurse came in to talk to me about my pregnancy. "Was it normal?" Aside from the 35 week scare, it was fine. She explained to me that my placenta had several pockets of blood throughout it, and places where it had clotted itself off. When I asked her what that meant, she said that my placenta had abrupted, and not just once. She said, “Cori is absolutely fine though, babies are so resilient, I see them get through the craziest things!” In her cute nurse way she said, “But man, that placenta was nasty!” I was kind of taken aback by this conversation, and even more so when my second nurse came to check on me and her first question was, “Was this a normal pregnancy?”   Well, I thought so! She continued, “I am trying to figure out why on earth your placenta looked like that. It’s obvious abruption but we just don‘t know the timing of it all. Cori is absolutely fine so I guess we won't worry about it.” Her conclusion was simply that babies are amazing specimens. I told Paul that I refuse to let this pass by without giving God all of the glory. Even if it was caused by an abnormally fast labor, though my water was clear. I am not sure if that’s what I was feeling and calling “gall bladder attack,” or not. But in either case, Cori is a miracle.

I am in a bad habit of looking at a situation and saying, “God isn’t moving here,” because I feel hopeless, lost, or lonely. For one, I wondered where on EARTH my God was when I was laying in that hospital bed pushing out a baby ten minutes after getting to the hospital. OUCH! I had prayed for a favored birth. What was that? Sometimes I remember what the Bible tells me, that so much of what we see is a product of the unseen battle. Don’t think that I look for a “devil” behind every bush. I am not naïve either. And it’s naïve to look at this whole picture and not see how triumphant our God is, even when little things are crumbling, the things that matter are holding together. Sometimes barely. But we are winning nonetheless.

So Cori is here. My sweet, precious Cori. She nurses constantly, always wants to be held, and I gladly consent to both because she is one day old and I already see God’s fingerprint on her. She is here, perfectly normal, so much so that when the maternity ward filled up, I was the first one to get bumped to pediatrics. I learned, ten minutes after Paul left for the night, that my night nurse is married to a third year intern for Bethel School. So I have talked to her for over an hour now (I am her only patient), and it turns out, though some of my family is 3000 miles away and others a five hour drive, and my husband and children are sleeping in their own beds while I am in a rock hard hospital be-at a time when I should be the most alone, I am not at all. In fact, I think I have just made my first “mom” friend in Redding.