It seems it's taken a lot longer this time to get around to writing this. Maybe that's because I have two toddlers now. Maybe it's because I've been too busy letting my sweet little new friend take up all my space. Maybe it's because I hate writing on my phone. Probably all of those, I don't know.
Regardless, little Abraham has been with us this side of the womb for almost three weeks! And what a sweet addition he's made to our precious family.
When I sat down to write his birth story last Tuesday, it marked two weeks since I left my midwife's office for what I hoped would be my last prenatal visit. That Tuesday was filled with mixed feelings--anticipation, anxiety, impatience, and a wish that I could suppress all those feelings and float like a serene blob into the future where Abraham would finally be born.
I'd been pregnant by this point for 40 weeks and two days--the longest I've ever gone. I was tired and sore and facing constant reminders of why being pregnant isn't my favorite thing, regardless of how cool it objectively is. It was that point in pregnancy where giving birth feels both imperative and also like it couldn't possibly ever happen.
That being said, my third pregnancy was far less fraught with anxiety, overall, than either of my first two. While pregnant with both my first son and daughter, I spent the last two weeks of each pregnancy fretting and stressing and pacing like a madwoman. Yet here I was, two days overdue, and only on the baby's due date had I started trying to induce labor. If you know me at all you'll be impressed by my forbearance, which, I think, can only be attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit, and the fact that I had started seeing a midwife OBGYN in preparation for a natural childbirth.
My first two children's birth stories are beautiful and I wouldn't change them. But experience has shown me that the more I try to control something (especially something as momentous as the birth of a baby), the harder it is to trust God with it.
That may seem "duh" to you, but as a lifelong control freak with a particularly thick skull, it's taken a lot of lessons over the years for me to start acknowledging this. I set out to try natural birth this time because I wanted to give myself fewer illusions of control. Taking all the optional interventions off the table for myself meant fewer choices to be made, and fewer opportunities for me to try to do a job that wasn't really mine. And so, for the first time, I was able to spend (most of) my energy in the last few weeks happily anticipating the baby's arrival and appreciating any extra time we had to prepare.
Going over 40 weeks had never appealed to me, as I'm a fan of deadlines. But working with a midwife gave me a lot more confidence in the process, and I trust Jenda's judgement enough to suspend my own anxiety and listen to her advice. So, at my 40 week appointment on the 12th of September, we decided together to induce no more than a week later if Abe decided to procrastinate further. I frankly dreaded the potential prospect of another week being the shape and size of a small planet, but Jenda reassured me that everything would be fine and that it wasn't likely to be much longer. To help me along, we decided to try a membrane sweep. She told me that many women go into labor the same night they have this done.
I left the clinic that afternoon feeling slightly more at peace, and trying not to get my hopes up. The rest of the day I kept an eye on my contractions, which were coming more regularly, but not closely enough together to justify us making for the hospital. My husband and I took the kids on a two-mile walk around the neighborhood, admiring the just-changing leaves and feeling blessed that it was cooler than 80 degrees out. That night I went to bed more relaxed than I had in a few weeks. I prayed that little Abe would come soon, safe and healthy, that delivery would go quickly, preferably during the day, and that God would help me to accomplish it.
5:30 am rolled around and I woke up very uncomfortable, with contractions coming every several minutes. Was it time? Not wanting to rush anything, I woke up Zac and told him we might need to prepare to leave in a little while. I wanted to stay at home for as long as possible, to let the toddlers sleep and to minimize the time I'd have to spend wearing one of those horribly unfashionable hospital gowns. By 6:30 the contractions were coming regularly and painfully enough that I knew we needed to get ready. I called the clinic as we were about to leave, about an hour later. The nurse, possibly concerned that I was heading for the hospital prematurely, told me to come to the clinic first for a cervical exam.
I'd like to say that I handled this suggestion with all graciousness, but it ticked me off. I remembered my mother telling me that when she was in labor with my older sister, her doctor had told her to wait at home because she "didn't sound like she was in enough pain." Was a similar thing going to happen to me? Had I not moaned in agony enough during my interaction with the nurse? And anyway, who was this person to tell me over the phone that I couldn't be trusted to time my own contractions and know my own body? I knew it was time! I had waited for two hours to be sure I wasn't imagining things!
Thankfully I was able to keep my annoyance to a minimum on the phone, but as soon as I hung up, I called my sister Julia to let her know we'd be dropping the kids off with her and to vent my frustration about being sent to the clinic rather than the hospital.
Thank God for sisters. Not only are they willing to accept the delivery of two breakfast-minded ruffians into their home on short notice, they also tell you what you need to hear. Which, in my case, amounted to her saying that I should trust my instincts, call the clinic back and tell them I was heading straight to the hospital. When we got to her house, I said goodbye to my first two babies as their little heads bobbed away into the living room, looking for their cousin. As I made to walk out the door, a contraction came on and I squatted through it, focusing on my breathing. I felt like I had prepared as much as I could--I felt ready. Julia gave me a hug and told me she was so excited for me.
I got back in the car and called the clinic to tell them we had decided to skip a step. I don't think the nurse was all that enthused about my decision, but she assured me they would send Jenda to the hospital to meet us.
On the way to the hospital, my contractions stalled. Wouldn't that just be perfect, I thought. I call the nurse back to tell them I'm sure about going to the hospital, and by the time I get there I won't be in labor anymore. My theory now is that I felt so tense after the irritating phone calls that my body went into energy-conservation mode and took a pause from labor.
So it was that we arrived at the maternity ward and I was hardly in any pain at all. When the receptionist asked me how far apart my contractions were, I didn't know how to answer. I could've cried in frustration. I told her how far apart they had been an hour ago and didn't mention the fact that they had stalled. We waited for fifteen minutes for a nurse to take us into an exam room--where, thankfully, Jenda arrived shortly after to check my progress.
It turned out I was already 7cm dilated, which is pretty far along. Julia commented later on that she couldn't believe I was dilated so far and yet hardly seemed fazed by the contraction I had squatted through at her house. As far dilated as I was though, the baby was sitting pretty high up in my uterus--higher than he had been the previous day, Jenda informed me. She seemed baffled by this. "What is he doing in there?" she said.
So now the assignment became getting the baby to move downward and restart the contractions. Jenda marched me through the hospital hallways at almost too quick a pace for my pregnant self.
After this I was required to sit on a birthing ball to encourage the contractions. Jenda was a very no-nonsense coach, giving me plain instructions and easy-to-grasp explanations of what was going on. Most of the time I'm not a big fan of being told what to do, but in labor I was grateful to have straightforward assignments. My main concern was to focus on breathing through each contraction calmly; something that helped with this was exhaling with what they call "horse lips" in the natural labor world, but which we called lip trills during my years in University Choir. It would seem my training as a singer in college helped prepare me in some way for this. How cool is it that those seemingly unrelated parts of our lives sometimes just come together like that?
During this stage of labor, my husband was doing a lot of waiting. I laughed at him for looking at memes on his phone during the parts where I needed him less. But it was funny, afterward, to see the notifications from instagram reels he'd sent me just before our baby was born. They were like souvenirs.
Soon I was having more contractions; they got more painful. Zac sat behind me, ready to apply counter-pressure to my hips whenever I needed it. But for a little while it almost seemed like nothing was happening. The contractions weren't getting much closer together. The baby was stubborn about moving downward. I had hoped that, since I was doing labor naturally, we would be able to forgo monitoring the baby's heartbeat constantly to allow me a little more freedom to move around, but he was such a little stinker that the monitors had to stay on. There would be no shower or tub for me.
Jenda decided to try breaking my water, but it didn't work! Again I saw the bafflement on her face as she exclaimed that she had no idea why there was no amniotic fluid rushing out of me. And so I just continued moving, bouncing on the ball, and later on, squatting through the contractions as Zac supported me until my water broke on its own. It was painful and intense and strange, but having him there to lean on through it was a huge comfort to me.
Abe was head-down and making progress, but he was also lying face up in my uterus, which is not optimal for childbirth. I'm not sure, but I wonder if that was hindering his progress a little bit. Jenda tried several times to manually turn him around in there, which to me was the worst part of the whole process, psychologically.
Breathing through a contraction while your midwife tries to turn your baby around... it just doesn't feel good at all, to put it lightly. It feels like the opposite of natural. While recovering later on, the word "horrific" kept popping into my mind whenever I recalled this particular detail.
So far, nothing about this experience was living up to my expectations--but then, I had prepared for that as well. I had written up a birth plan but ultimately decided against bringing it to the hospital. I was sure that everything would happen as it should, without me controlling it--and I wanted to retain that confidence once it was happening. This was no easy task, one I couldn't have accomplished without the reassurance of the Holy Spirit. There were moments during labor where it definitely did not feel like things were going to be okay, but because of His presence with me, I never believed that I wouldn't make it.
2 Timothy 3:14 contains a charge to the letter’s recipient to continue in what he’s learned of God and the Gospel, remembering the heritage of faith given to him through his family and experiences. After giving birth to Abe, I have a sharper perspective on this verse—it’s about the germ, the mustard seed of truth planted in easy times that, tiny as it is, brings forth a harvest of perseverance when you truly need it the most.
All the affirmations that God had poured into me during my pregnancy--affirmations of His help and His strength becoming mine--came back to me in the most difficult moments of labor, and sustained me. I learned what it meant to have a mustard seed of faith. It was barely faith at all, almost nothing more than a memory of it. But because God was in it, it was enough.
That was how I endured lying on my side for the last 45 minutes of labor in an attempt to get the baby to turn around, while the contractions intensified and all I wanted to do was run and leave my body behind.
I never thought I’d have to cope with the last stage of labor with my movement restricted so much, but thankfully I remembered some advice I’d read in a book my sister gave me, about how women in other cultures often have their midwives and partners shake them during their contractions. I’d never discussed this with Jenda or Zac before this point, and by now it was too hard to talk, so I did it myself. I lay on the bed, resting and breathing and praying between each contraction. Every time I felt the pain returning I signaled to Zac to dig his fingernails into my palms, and then I started shaking myself, imagining my muscles relaxing. Trying to become jello. Jenda laughed and said, “I don’t think I could do that even if I wasn’t contracting.” Hearing her and the nurse chuckle at my crazy coping method helped ground me somewhat. If they were so calm and happy, then I must be okay. I couldn’t give up. I said I would do this, I wanted to do it, and anyway, it was too late now to change my mind.
It seemed like it would go on forever this way, but thank God, babies are meant to come out. At 12:43 I found myself being coaxed onto my hands and knees, apparently the best birthing position when your baby is face-up, and I felt nothing now except the pain-ridden animal desire to get Abe out at any cost. I could barely think, barely hear as Jenda coached me to take it slowly, that Abe was almost here. I was mindless. I was afraid. I screamed and groaned and yelled “NOO” like a dying woman. But I felt a sense of determination I’d never felt before, and at 12:49–a shockingly quick six minutes later—my second son was born.
In the end, he never turned around. He came out face to face with the world, screaming almost immediately. The nurse told me “He’s out! You did it!” All I could say was, “No way.” No way had I done something so unimaginably hard. But it must be over, because I felt the fear dissipate.
I climbed up onto the bed and they handed me my baby. He had tufty black hair and a squishy little face and was completely perfect in every way. Without an epidural, I felt all the residual pain of pushing a baby out of me. It was surprising at the time how much it still hurt—I hadn’t known what to expect. But it was so much less now, and I was holding Abe, finally, and I could almost ignore it. (Almost. I practically inhaled the ibuprofen they brought me about an hour later.)
I was sure that I had sustained serious damage. Hadn't my body been ripping itself apart five minutes ago? But Jenda assured me that there was no tearing. I was probably in better shape, actually, than I had been after either of my first two deliveries. I praised God for so many prayers answered.
As I lay there, trying to relax my adrenaline-charged limbs, snuggling the sweetest of babies in my arms, I remarked to the nurse that the post-birth experience was very different than I'd expected, as I'd had epidurals with my first two babies. She looked at me in surprise.
"I'm shocked!" she said. "I would have thought you'd done this all three times. You were so controlled!"
I didn't know what to say. I hadn't felt in control at all. I felt like I had just almost died. But it was nice to hear anyway.
I had a lot of feelings about the experience over the next few days, which I'm sure I will write about in another post, but I think at this point I can say that this pregnancy and birth experience was the best one I've had so far, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.
We named our boy Abraham Ezekiel. A strong name, I like to say. Readers of this blog (or anyone who’s known me for any length of time) will know I deeply admire Abraham Lincoln. The name Abraham itself means “father of multitudes.” Ezekiel was a fearless Old Testament prophet, and his name means “God strengthens.”All of our children’s names are prayers. This one is a prayer for a strong foundation, for wise leadership, and for unshakable trust in God’s sovereignty.
As I prepared to give birth naturally, I considered the middle name a prayer for me as well, a reminder of where true strength comes from. I never wanted to forget who my help would be--and now I pray I never forget how giving birth to Abraham illustrated this reality in such a visceral way.
Psalm 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
