At 3:41 on a June morning, our littlest
love was born. EK entered the world after a quick labor for this second
time momma. As far as birth goes, EK's was amazing. It was everything I wish my
first birth would have been. But maybe this baby’s birth seemed so great
because of the difficultly associated with my first birth experience. My best friend Kate described EK’s birth as redemptive, and I
think the word redemptive perfectly encapsulates EK's labor and delivery.
Kate was with me and Stephen for the birth of our first kiddo,
J. She knows the whole story, all 15 hours of labor, the pain I
experienced during transition, the pushing that didn’t seem to be accomplishing
anything, the fear that entered the room when our midwife couldn’t detect the
heartbeat, the episiotomy that had to be done, the driving to the hospital to
repair a third degree tear, the subsequent three day hospital stay full of less
than pleasant interactions with some of the staff, and the very real struggles
of adjusting to life with a newborn while recovering from the surgery. She was
there for all of it and could compare J’s story to EK’s and speak
redemption over it.
The only experience I had to look back on was J’s
birth, and the labor with EK’s birth was so different that my husband
and I were caught off guard. Up until
the last 10 minutes of J’s birth, my labor fit the textbook examples to a
T. This was not the case with EK. The morning before EK was born, I woke up around 3:30 with very mild contractions. I started timing them, and
they were about 20 minutes apart. About an hour and a half later, I woke
Stephen up to let him know I was having contractions and that they were 10
minutes apart. They still weren’t lasting very long, but I thought it would be
a good idea for him to take the day off from work just in case. I got up and
started moving around more, and the contractions started spacing out again. I
had a contraction at 8:40, right before going into the office of the
chiropractor we were seeing at the time. Dr. Mark gave me an adjustment and
said, “Most women have their babies within 24 hours after receiving that
adjustment.” I didn’t have another contraction until 9:50, so just like I doubted Dr. Mark about being pregnant the second time,
I wasn’t convinced I would be having a baby within 24 hours. Many of my friends
had days of false labor before the births of their second born kiddos, so I
figured it would be the same for me.
Stephen and I stopped at Chick-fil-A on Cherry Road because
I had to have a chicken biscuit, went to the pharmacy in Publix to have the
remaining prescriptions filled that I needed for a successful homebirth, and
came home. I spoke with my midwife Lori to
fill her in on everything. She told me to note the intensity when contractions
began again, time the contractions while doing various activities to see if
they continued to come regularly, and that I would know when true labor was
upon me. It was almost noon and there had been no more contractions, so I told
Stephen he should go to work. At 12:15, I lost my mucus plug, signaling that
labor could start within hours or days, so that wasn’t helpful.
Contractions continued off and on throughout the afternoon.
I had friends over but the contractions were so mild they didn’t know I was
having them, and I didn’t tell them. That evening, we had some friends stay
with us who were moving over the weekend and needed somewhere to sleep. We
stayed up talking to Jose and Stephanie until around 11:00 Friday night, and I
had a few contractions during our conversation with them. Again, I didn’t think
the baby would be making an appearance that night, but Stephen and I thought we
should probably give them a heads up about the whole homebirth thing before we
went to bed. They didn’t know we had J at home, so they were very shocked
when we told them that we had a homebirth with him and were planning one with
baby number 2. Jose asked, “So we could wake up and there could be a new baby
here tomorrow?” Stephen’s response was, “Yeah, like Christmas!” I told Jose it
was a possibility but it wasn’t likely to happen. Our houseguests moved from
surprise to curiosity fairly quickly, wondering if they would hear anything. We
assured them that they wouldn’t, based on the past experience with J where
I wasn’t very vocal, but that they may see a light on in the living room if
Lori was here. We told them good night, got in bed, and Stephen was asleep
within minutes of our heads hitting the pillows. I, however, had a contraction that
felt a little stronger followed by another one a few minutes later.
Around midnight, I began timing my contractions while
switching positions to see if they slowed down. For the next hour and a half, I
ran water in our bathtub, sat on the birthing ball, went to the living room to
sit on the couch, and walked around. It was kind of comical that Stephen had no
idea what was going on while he peacefully slept. I got the Crock-Pot ready with
oil and water for compresses to use during labor, and I woke Stephen up around
1:30 Saturday morning. By this point, my contractions were coming every 3
minutes and were lasting 30-40 seconds.
The intensity of the contractions ramped up as they lasted
for 45 seconds to a minute and stayed 3 minutes apart. During this time, I told
Stephen a few times that I thought we should call Lori. Based on J’s birth
and the 5-1-1 guideline, Stephen thought it would be best to wait for the
contractions to be lasting a full minute and for them to be that long for an
hour.
Around 3:00, the transition phase hit hard as I clenched the
bathroom counter while contractions came one after another. This is also the
point where Stephen tried to get me to breathe and relax because I was tensing
up. Instead of happily receiving his advice, I glared at him and snapped, “Shut
up! You did this to me!” If you know my super sweet and amazing husband, you
know how bad I feel about this now. I didn’t feel so bad about lashing out at
him in the moment, though. I directed Stephen to call Lori and staggered to our
bed, but I fell to the ground as another contraction gripped my body. When it
passed, I had enough time to get on our bed and repeat, “Jesus, help me. I’m
gonna die.” As I absorbed another wave of contractions, I writhed in pain. When
those passed, I asked Stephen what Lori said. His response was, “Oh, I was
timing the contractions.” I lost it. This is the point where I may have used an
expletive as I yelled at Stephen to call Lori right then, followed by an
exasperated, “My water just broke all over me.”
It was 3:13 when Stephen called Lori, and I cannot even
communicate how thankful I am that she only lives about 10 minutes away. When
he got off the phone with her, I told him I needed to start pushing, so I did. With
each push, it felt like my energy was being renewed and excitement grew knowing
I would soon be seeing my baby. It didn’t bother me that we were doing this
alone, and it hadn’t occurred to me that there had been no monitoring of the
baby’s heartbeat during the most difficult stage of labor. I was just listening
to my body, and somehow I knew what it was saying.
Lori quietly entered the room and said she would be calling
her assistant, Pam, who lives about 30 minutes away. By this time the baby’s
head was on its way out, so Lori quickly said, “I’m going to put on my gloves.”
No sooner had she snapped her gloves on than I announced, “The head is out.”
Lori jumped into action with a, “Yes it is” and prepared to catch the baby
after another push. When she passed our little baby up to me at 3:41, I
couldn’t believe we had an EK. I had honestly been prepping myself for the
birth of LJ. I stared at EK in amazement and breathed out, “You’re
our little EK.” I planted a kiss right on EK's fresh out of the womb lips
and laid down cradling EK close to me, feeling peace and joy I can’t even
adequately describe.
EK’s labor was still labor, but it was a whole new
experience. J’s birth was redeemed in a way as EK’s arrival ushered
in the healing of many wounds. We didn’t know the gender of our little one
until EK was born, but we had the name picked out months before we saw EK's face. My mind continually
went back to the meanings of EK's names as I prayed for our little one to be
made whole and complete in Christ and to live a free life. Reflecting on EK's birth experience, I see how it parallels the
redemption I encountered at the cross of my sweet Savior Jesus. Christ took all
of my impurity onto Himself and exchanged it for His perfect purity. By trusting
in Him for the forgiveness of my sins, I was made whole and complete. Not only
did EK’s birth herald restoration in the hours following the delivery,
but I can reflect on EK's name daily to remember the eternal redemption that is
mine in Christ Jesus. So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that EK’s birth
was redemptive.
