It’s crazy to me that my latest love is already three months old! I always say that time stands still when you have a baby while it moves on for everyone else. So even after all this time, I’m still having requests to hear Asher’s wild birth story and I’ve wanted to document it for myself, so here goes… I’m sure he’ll be so thrilled to one day to read this!! Oh and I promise to make future blogs less wordy. I’m not a fan of a lot of words.
For those that like less detail, feel free to jump down to the last couple paragraphs.
(This is God’s sense of humor that less than 12 hours after graduation, the fun would really start–and about five weeks earlier than planned.)
4 a.m. I wake up from a deep sleep with a horrific leg cramp and while I’m attempting to get up, I get that lovely water gush feeling and think to myself, “No, this can’t be the real thing. Maybe I’ll just go back to bed and sleep it off.” Nice reasoning but it wasn’t gonna work. My water had broken. The contractions started coming about 2 minutes apart but they were not intense. However, the timing was close enough that we needed to re-pack (since the birth center couldn’t take me this early, I now was going to have to pack for a hospital birth). Oh, did I mention that I had worked really hard to finally get approved for a birth center natural birth with one of the most amazing midwives ever? There was definitely some disappointment that this dream wasn’t going to happen. Once again for me, another baby was coming early.
6 a.m. The contractions stopped. Like totally. Nothing.
7 a.m. Went on a walk with a friend around my neighborhood. This will be one of my fondest memories from this birth. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and I was trying to soak in the realization that this baby is coming TODAY and be excited even though I wasn’t in any pain yet. It was one of those surreal moments…
9:30 a.m. Talked with the doula and she suggested I take a nap since things weren’t moving along.
10:15 a.m. Jordan’s mom and friend come over. I can’t sleep due to the kids’ excitement of Grammy’s arrival so I get up. After visiting with them a little, I start to get concerned that my labor is not progressing. I know that hospitals require babies to be born within 24 hours of ruptured waters or they start talking c-section. (Not something I wanted since I was hoping for “au naturale.”)
11:30 a.m. Head out for some Black Cohosh and castor oil. Nothing like washing it down with a Starbucks Peppermint Java Chip Frappucino. Seriously if you ever need to take anything nasty, wash it down with a fun drink. I never knew the oil was in there!
1:00 p.m. Headed up to our neighborhood clubhouse to walk on the treadmill. Oh the joys of living in Florida–it’s so hot in May that I didn’t want to get all sweaty outside and have to shower again. So, I opted to “walk” in some air conditioning. After about 5 minutes on the treadmill, the sensation hit and I had to run to the potty. The castor oil had kicked in! It was mild but nevertheless, not fun to have happen when you’re not at home. Lol!
2:00 p.m. Jordan’s mom leaves and I’m starting to panic that nothing is happening. I’m getting close to the 12-hour mark since my water had broken.
3:45 p.m. My sweet neighbor at the time (who used to be a labor and delivery nurse) came over to check on me (literally). It was pretty hilarious! She said that I was 2 cm and proceeded to teach Jordan how to check laboring women since I’m sure he will one day have to deliver a baby on the side of the road. This was rather comical. I guess I’d rather be his guinea pig than someone else’s! Ha! Anyway, it was right after that I had a doozy of a contraction and I mean a doozy.
4:15 p.m. She and I chat for a bit and then she leaves. I’m laboring on the birth ball at this point and I’m focusing on everything I’ve learned and trying to put it in to practice.
4:38 p.m. Our sweet babysitter, Christiana comes and takes our kiddies for the evening. I remember feeling badly and apologizing for not being more social. Um, what was I thinking?
4:48 p.m. Cassie (my doula) arrives! I’m still hanging out on the birth ball and I’m now really starting to hurt. I was trying to focus during the pain and then chit chat between contractions with Cassie. (And yes, that is totally my personality to still try to be hospitable even during the worst pain of my life.) Anyway, she made mention that I wasn’t in active labor yet and I remember saying, “What?! I’m not in active labor?” Talk about feeling like a wussy. It wasn’t long before the birth ball wasn’t cutting it for me and I found my fun place slumped over the kitchen counter. (My contractions were now an average of five minutes apart or less.)
5:30 p.m. Jordan remembers that we should probably eat before we get to the hospital so he runs out to Chipotle… He’s back around 6ish. I remember that was a fun dinner to get through.
So after dinner, I want to go for a walk until I walk outside my front door only to run back in and slump myself over my kitchen counter again. That was the only position I could handle. So Jordan and Cassie start talking about when to go to the hospital… Jordan thought maybe I should walk a mall or something so we could be in closer vicinity to Winnie Palmer Hospital… Lo and behold, I suddenly get this sheer panic that I’m not going to make it to the hospital. Things were progressing quickly. So we head out the door and I can’t make it to the car without the help of my doula… Nothing like having a major contraction on your front walkway. Jordan opted to drive Cassie’s truck and have her drive our Jeep Cherokee since Christiana had taken the van with our other kiddos. I must ask, have any of you actually ever ridden in a Jeep Cherokee? First of all, there’s not much room and secondly, you can’t recline at all so you’re totally upright. Yeah, not a blast.
6:45 p.m. Now I’m buckled in for the car ride of a lifetime. We headed to the hospital and I realized about 5 minutes into the ride that I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. We were right by the Publix near our house when Jordan called Cassie. The time then was 6:51 p.m. and it was after that my eyes were sealed shut. We were on a familiar winding road and I could tell where we were from the curves. I was in hurting more by the second. Then, I remembered that you’re supposed to make low groans when in labor. I made low groans alright… They would start off low and end with me absolutely screaming! Poor Cassie. The woman had to drive, try to keep me calm, and talk me through my contractions all at the same time. All the while, I’m still thinking that I’m probably 2 or maybe 3 centimeters. My legs were up on the dashboard which I guess is a sign to a doula that they baby is coming but I didn’t think anything about it. I was just trying to get comfortable in the most uncomfortable vehicle. Jordan called a couple more times but I think Cassie may have ignored his calls, I don’t even remember. So Jordan knows that I’m obviously in labor but has NO CLUE how intense this has gotten. I remember the car being still for an eternity of time so I assumed we were at a stop light. I seriously was contemplating opening my passenger door and just flinging my body onto the road. I thought that would somehow give me relief from this agony I was in. Then I mumbled something to Cassie about getting me an ambulance. This was the longest 45-minute ride of my life. She starts praying scripture over me and it helped so much. She probably couldn’t tell amidst my shrieks but it really was calming for me.
7:32 p.m. Finally, we arrive at the hospital. Jordan comes over to help me out of the car and hears me mumble about drugs and mildly rolls his eyes because he knew my goal was not to have them. I had such relief to stand up that he still didn’t realize how close we were to having a baby–nor did I. So Cassie and I walk into the hospital atrium… Let me describe this hospital… The lobby area is one where they do registration and it is also the cafeteria seating area, so you can guess it… Yep, LOADS OF PEOPLE in there! I slump myself over their registration counter and I’m screaming like I’ve never screamed before. I mean, screeching at the top of my lungs. I think I sounded drunk when I was asking the poor registration ladies if the drugs were ready. Jordan said that the lobby suddenly was completely silent outside of my shrieking. I guess you could have heard a pin drop. Nice. They sent me on back and I bypassed triage registration. They rushed me into a tiny room and checked me. Everyone seemed frantic but I was so out of it, I thought that maybe I was now 4 cm. They wheeled the triage bed onto the elevator and it was a total blur to me as to what was going on. We get into the delivery room and the obstetrician looks under my sheet again and yells that this baby is BREECH! He hollered for a c-section and then the room filled up with even more medical folks. Jordan said that there was the OB at the foot of my bed with another doctor behind him, one nurse unsuccessfully trying to put in an IV in my left arm, another nurse holding my right hand in which we literally made a line for my signature, someone was shouting the risks of c-section, and the anesthesiologist was having me open my mouth to check my teeth (which I actually remember that) before intubating me. It was total chaos!
7:39 p.m. Meanwhile, the doc orders me not to push. Oh right. Obviously I didn’t want to but this wave… (It is the only way I can describe it.) This total wave came over me and and I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I had delivered my whole insides and that I had ripped from head to toe.
Jordan said that this baby came flying out hunched over like a laptop computer. They unfolded him and we didn’t hear any sound immediately. I had no idea what was going on but Jordan was worried at first if the little man was ok. The nurses did their thing and then he came over to me a couple of minutes later and said, “He’s okay and you’re okay.” I turned to my doula and said, “So was that without drugs?” She laughed and said, “Yes!”
I have had the amazing blessing of attending 3 births (2 of them natural) and I knew this was out of the ordinary. I later saw a diagram of how a baby is supposed to come out versus how mine did. Ahhh, so that explained that horrific car ride!! We ended up becoming famous at Winnie Palmer that weekend as we later learned that breech babies usually do not survive childbirth unless there is a c-section (at least in this country). I clung to my newest little love in awe, thankful for the wonderful outcome of our first adventure together.
As I process through the details of a difficult pregnancy and delivery, I see how God showed himself to me in such amazing and personal ways! He gave me my heart’s desire in an even greater way than I could have ever imagined and let me see a glimpse of inner strength that I didn’t know I even had. Even though He wrote the story much differently than I would have, His details were perfect and undeniably from Him. Thank you Jesus for the gift of life! We give you all the glory for our little Asher!
