Every Day with Eli: Lily's Birth Day

Lily Clare was born at home, in the water, at 6:10 am on Friday, July 19, 2013.

But it took us quite a bit to get to that point.

I was pregnant with Lily for 41 weeks, 4 days. Because Caleb and Daisy had both been roughly 41-week babies (40w 6d for Caleb, 41w 2d for Daisy), I was expecting Baby Rainbow to stick around for 41 weeks, too. It wasn't until those last four days that I started to get discouraged.

As I neared my due date and prayed about Baby's delivery, I felt like God was reminding me to wait on His perfect timing. At the same time, once I hit my "due date" of July 8, I also felt like a giant clock had started ticking. Would baby come today? How about today? Now? Now? As each day passed, I heard the siren song of induction in the back of my head. It grew even stronger after the 41-week mark. I didn't have to wait; I knew exactly how to make Baby Rainbow come whenever I wanted. But still, I felt the need to wait for labor to begin spontaneously, instead of inducing it with a breast pump and castor oil like we did with Daisy. As we inched closer and closer to the 42-week mark, though, Chris and I decided that we would wait until Friday night. If the baby hadn't come by then, we would make it happen.

All along, our plan had been for Sara, my dear friend, to photograph this baby's birth. She was there for Daisy's birth, and I didn't want to do this without her. Also, after having such beautiful pictures of Daisy's birth, I wanted the same this time around. But when I told Sara of our "wait until Friday" plan, she responded, "Well, I hope the baby comes before then, because by Friday night I'll be halfway through Kansas."

What?

Yep. Sara had a family vacation planned, and they were leaving at 3:00 Friday afternoon. She never thought it would be a conflict, and by the time she realized it might be, she didn't want to tell me.

Now Chris and I had a decision to make. Did we want to induce Thursday night, and be certain Sara would be there to photograph our birth, or did we want to wait for labor to begin on its own?

We talked about it.
We prayed about it.
We argued about it.

I just didn't feel settled. More than anything, I felt that God wanted me to trust Him, and wait for His perfect timing. So Chris and I decided to do nothing, and went to bed at 9:00 Thursday night.

At 9:45, I woke up with a contraction.
Ten minutes later, another.
Eight minutes later, another.

By 10:20, I was out of bed, convinced that this could be something real. Knowing that my midwife lived 45 minutes away, I called just to give her a heads-up. She asked me to call back in an hour.

At 11:25, I called back, convinced that this was the real thing.
By midnight, my team had arrived: Sara was there to photograph, my mom and later my sister, Jenny, were there for childcare, should Caleb or Daisy wake up, and my midwife, Jessica, and her nurse, Natalie, were there to watch over the whole process.

Just two days before, Jessica had checked my cervix to find that I was zero centimeters dilated. That's right; at 41 weeks, 1 day, my body had done nothing to begin the labor process. I had no contractions at all until the day before, and even those were minor. Even that day, the contractions I'd had were minor and insignificant. But when I woke up to contractions that I knew were significant, I was prepared for things to move quickly. After all, Daisy's labor had been six hours, from castor oil to "It's a girl!" I knew that successive labors are usually shorter, and all along I'd been praying for a quick, easy, complication-free delivery. Despite the fact that my body had a long way to go, I was expecting this thing to take four or five hours, tops.

At first, things were easy.

I labored comfortably in the pool, and between contractions we laughed, joked, talked about major news events...

When a contraction came, I was able to work through it pretty easily. The contractions were intense, but not overwhelming. I felt most at ease on my knees, legs spread wide. As things progressed, I would rest on the edge of the birth pool while I worked through a contraction.

This is pretty much what it looked like:

Jessica waited patiently and offered support, while Natalie checked me and the baby and charted things like heart tones and blood pressure.

By 2:30, things were more intense. I thought my water had broken, and the contractions were close, significant, and productive. Jessica had her baby-delivering gloves on, and we all really thought that this child would be here by 3 am.

Chris was my support through the whole thing. He didn't have to say anything; he just did what I needed him to do.

He's a good husband.

As things grew more intense, he reminded me of Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." It was just the mantra I needed to keep me going, and I repeated it to myself over and over.

But 3:00 came and went, and my labor kind of stalled. It didn't stop, but it didn't get more intense, and the baby definitely didn't come. I remember telling Jessica between contractions, "I'm bored. What can we do to move this thing along? I'm ready to be in that bed, nursing my baby!"

Jessica was sympathetic, but knew that we needed to just let things progress.

3:19. Still nothing. Jessica even took off her baby-delivering gloves, and I knew this baby wasn't coming soon.

The only progress in my labor was that the contractions became more painful. Not more intense, just more painful. I felt lots of pain in my hips and back, and spreading down my thigh bones. Throughout my pregnancy, Baby had been hanging out on my right side, in just the right position to be born posterior. I'm pretty sure that at this point, Baby had rotated into the posterior position, which would explain the agonizing back labor. To get Baby in the right position (and hopefully relieve some of my discomfort!), Jessica had me get out of the water and crawl around on my bed.

Eventually I crashed onto my pillows, and Jessica applied counter pressure to help with the back pain.

And that's when I began to get really discouraged.

Periodically, Jessica and Natalie checked Baby's heart tones with the Doppler. (The thing can even go underwater!) Baby's heart rate remained strong and steady, so it was clear that though I was distressed and discouraged, Baby was in great shape.

4:10. Still no baby.

Finally, Jessica made a decree: Chris and I needed to take a rest and pray, surrendering the whole thing to God. It was pretty clear that I was trying way too hard to control this birth, and Jessica had the wisdom to see that there was nothing she could do.

So around 4:25, everyone left the room. Chris and I took some time to pray, and we waited.

We had thought it would be a ten or fifteen minute break, but it was more like an hour or an hour and a half. During that time, I had a few contractions, but really my labor had petered out. Nothing was happening. I'm pretty sure I slept for a while in the pool.

At 5:50, Natalie came back in. A few minutes later, my water really broke (apparently when I thought it had broken the first time, I was wrong?). The contractions started picking up in both frequency and intensity, but still, I was certain that the baby was not coming soon.

At 6:00, Jessica came in. She knelt down next to the birth pool and told me I had two options.

Option One: I could walk up and down our basement stairs to help get Baby into position.

I swiftly muttered a "Hell, no!" and Jessica moved on to

Option Two: I could go back to crawling around on my bed.

Even I realized that was a good idea, so I stood up and began to dry off.

Part of my hesitancy about Option One was related to the fact that I knew Caleb would be up soon. He wakes up at 6 am every day; he never, ever sleeps in. I didn't want him to see his droopy, drippy, discouraged mama walking stairs, hoping to help her baby come out. I knew that if I stayed in my room, Grandma and my sister Jenny would take care of him as soon as he woke up, and he would never see me in my sorry state.

But as soon as I stood to climb onto the bed, I was rocked by a big contraction. I immediately knelt back down in the water.

After another big contraction, it was clear that Baby was coming.

And then I began pushing.

I'm not going to lie; it was really intense. I think it only took one or two contractions to get Baby out, but those were some pretty terrifying contractions. The pain hit me in waves, and it felt like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get on top of them. I was being sucked under.

But Natalie was right at my head, murmuring encouragement to me. She reminded me that I needed to surrender and let it happen, that I didn't need to be afraid, that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Even though it only took one or two contractions, it took a whole lot of pushing to get that baby out. With each push, I thought for sure Baby's head was out, but it wasn't. Man, it was hard work! Though I had managed most of my labor really well, I totally lost my cool at this point. I screamed in ways that I knew weren't productive; I screamed in sheer panic. I was briefly aware that poor Caleb was probably awake, and since his bedroom is right next to mine, he could probably hear my screams, but there was nothing I could do about it.

(My mom later informed me that - miracle of miracles - Caleb somehow slept until 6:30 that morning. He slept right through my shouting! Daisy, meanwhile, woke up right at 6:00, and they were walking down the hallway together while I was in the throes of pushing. Hearing my screams, she looked up at Grandma and asked, "Why my Mommy so upset?"

Mom responded, "Mommy's not upset, sweetie, she's just working really hard to help Baby come out!"

After that, Daisy wasn't bothered by the noise at all.)

And just like that, it was over.

We had done it.

I had done it.

God had given me the strength to do it.

I was so glad it was over.

(our clock was actually a minute fast.)

And then I looked down and saw that...

It was a girl!

I was delighted because I knew Caleb and Daisy would be so pleased. All along, they had insisted that our baby was a girl, and her name was Rainbow. I did not want to be the bearer of the news that their "baby sister" was actually a brother, and luckily I didn't have to!

Umm... why does her head look like that?

Apparently she'd been hanging out in the birth canal for a while. It must have taken that hour and a half lull in my labor for her to rotate into the right position to be born.

Chris declared that our girl was Lily Clare.

We chose Lily because of Jesus' words in Matthew 6:28-29:

"And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are."

We loved this reminder of God's generous provision of all our needs.

We chose Clare because it's the name of the small town in northern Iowa where my mom was born and raised; both of her parents grew up on farms outside of Clare.

Lily and I moved to the bed, and Chris watched over us. Can you see how in love he is? We're blessed to have such a doting Daddy and husband.

While I rested, Natalie listened to Lily's lungs.

Oh, boy, were we glad that ordeal was over!

And can we talk about my sweet midwife?

Actually, I can't find the words to adequately express how thankful I am to have found Jessica. We are so blessed that we were able to have her deliver both Daisy and Lily.

When Daisy was born, I felt empowered and strong. I was thankful to have Jessica there as a shepherd, to guide me through it.

When Lily was born, I felt vulnerable and discouraged. I had tried my best to take charge of my labor, and make things happen according to my time frame. I was thankful to have a midwife like Jessica who not only monitored my physical progress, but also saw my emotional progress. I had tried to charge ahead with my labor and force our baby into coming, then grew discouraged with trying. Jessica saw that what I really needed to do was surrender my baby and her birth to God and wait on His timing, and she gently but firmly told me just that.

She's pretty fantastic.