Birth Stories, part 5

The Amazing Supermom Rides again, sort of

17 months and 2 weeks later . . .
The Show
Summer 2007

1, bad, 2, 3, 4, good, 5 horrible, 6, 7 great, 8 not great. I talked to a midwife and researched the internet - what can be done about high blood pressure. I was put on a very strict diet, lean meats (not processed - basically didn't do pork), vegetables, 30-50 grams carbohydrates per day (I did have whole wheat pancakes at least once a week, with blueberries and almonds, butter, no syrup), 120 oz water a day and a boatload of vitamins (C, juice plus, garlic, and I honestly don't remember what else).

Probably the main thing that was different is that I gained no weight. Actually I lost a bunch and gradually worked my way back up until, on the day he was born, I weighed the same as the day I found out I was pregnant.

My blood pressure was borderline near the end, but I didn't have to be induced and went into labor on my own, a few days BEFORE my due date. And I was bleeding. That day was my most typical labor, starting very gradually, writing the contractions down with times and seeing them get closer together all day long.

My husband was working, finishing our retaining wall, and I had the pleasure of telling him to hurry up because it was almost time to go the hospital. My doctor was not on call, and I had no relationship with the guy covering for him.

So I went in with contractions around 5 minutes apart, still feeling okay, but with bright red blood. I was afraid, and prayed, and gave the baby to God, again. The middle name we had for a boy meant "he belongs to God" and I just kept telling Him that, over and over, praying for the next kick. But he seemed to be okay.

When I got to the hospital I was 7 or 8 centimeters, still in a good mood, doing well. My bp was probably a little high, and I got in bed, thinking we were almost there. Then began the worst hour and a half (or 10 minutes or 6 days - I have no idea how long it was) of labor in my life. It was horrible and nothing I did helped. And this doc didn't know what to do with me. Here I was at 8 centimeters, not progressing, writhing, changing positions, wanting to die, bleeding, and all the while the baby's heart tones are slowing and slowing and slowing.

Finally, the doc says, I need you to try to push. And I did, and I did push that baby out, knowing we were very near a C-section.

He was fabulous. 8 lb 4 oz maybe - I am not sure. It was supposed to be triumphant, but didn't feel triumphant. It felt like a failure because I couldn't handle the pain, because my placenta was abrupting, because even without pitocin or an induction, even going completely natural, it hurt like, well, worse than anything I'd experienced.

Maybe having had the epidural with the last baby, I had forgotten? Maybe I'm getting old? It was unnerving. I lost my nerve. I lost my confidence, my pluck. And for the first time, I was afraid.


Too good to be true
Almost 2 years later
Spring, 2009

There were an additional 5 months between 9 and 10, as compared to the other children's spacing. And each month I would relinquish to God my right to have any more children. If 9 was it, that was fine. If there were more, that would also be wonderful. I was grateful for the set we had and was okay either way, to add more or be done.

So when I found out I was pregnant, I was ecstatic - this baby was not a foregone conclusion, not an assumption. I knew God didn't have to give me any more children - and I was grateful that somehow He had chosen to bless me again.

I think because, even though my ob considered the last baby to be a success for me, I felt like a failure somehow - I didn't try to eat as well during my next pregnancy. I just gave up. My placenta had started to detach, a symptom of high blood pressure, and my blood pressure had been high, not enough to induce, but high nonetheless. For all my sacrificing, I had avoided an early induction, but I had not had a "good labor" like I'd had with 6 & 7.

So I crapped out. I did walk on the treadmill for a while, and kept it under control (maybe), but then I got sick and stopped that too. And when my bp was high at 37 wks, I said, I don't want to risk waiting and having my placenta detach again, let's go for it. The previous labor was scary, why wait.

At 37 weeks and 1 day I went to my check up, my pressure was high, I went to the WEU, it didn't come down, and they sent me upstairs. My stomach was empty, it was mid morning, and that was not in my favor. I had another long haul ahead of me, and my body wasn't ready.

So, just like with Bibith, I had a super long slow tedious unproductive induction, and gave in to an epidural more from exhaustion and hunger than actual pain. I just didn't think I could do it.

Another all day of imaginary labor (that's how it feels), with a little jello maybe, and at some point started to bleed. WHAT? Another abruption? Not good. Not good at all.

The baby did fine, heart tones good, no distress, but not coming down. Finally, a nurse suggested a position change that seemed to help and our baby girl was born, 7 lb 2 oz, after 17 hours of seeming futility. She didn't nurse well, had a bruise covering the top of her head (poor presentation) and became quite jaundiced.

So even though I have these 10 amazing children, all healthy and strong, all of whom who went home from the hospital on time and nursed for at the least 4 months, even though all that, I look back on my last 3 deliveries as relative failures. I probably shouldn't, but compared to how great and confident I felt after the earlier ones, I do.

The next birth story is not mine, and has had some attention already, and really deserves it's own post.

But, heading into the next delivery, having gained 40 or more lbs, with swollen ankles and feet and calves, knowing my blood pressure will most likely be high, knowing our little person may have challenges of his or her own, I don't know even what to hope for.

I think I'll be induced. Either my bp will be high, or the baby's growth will necessitate a delivery. I do not want to have an epidural. I think my labors with epidurals and especially stuck in bed do not progress, baby gets stuck, labor is long and often hard on baby, and potentially affects the health of the baby after, including blood sugar and jaundice.

My plan is to go to every ob appointment with a very full stomach and schedule all my appointments early in the morning. If I get sent to the WEU I'll have a snack on the way. I have a friend who is going to help me get through the hard parts, only allowing me to have an epidural if I say the secret password. I have to lay down if I can to conserve my strength, use heat, massage, anything available to get through the parts that I can stand to be in bed, so that I have strength to be up when it gets hard.

And I need to find that secret place again, that place where I find the Lord, praying and seeking His face and basking in His presence during my most sacred moments. In my weakness, He shows Himself most strong - hasn't that been the theme of this season.

I have to give my best labor this time. More than ever, my baby might need it. And I need it. I need to not feel like a failure again. I need one more good story. I need to find that place of communion with the Creator, Womb-Wonder-Worker, the Knitter in the secret place. I need to link arms with Him again, as together we bring another life into His world for His glory.

So help me God.

It's not that I'm not writing . . .

I'm just not publishing anything. Partly because I am not certain enough of my decision-making skills to know if anything I'm writing would make sense to anyone living outside my brain ('cause, you know it doesn't always, right?) and partly because some things on the heart need to simmer before being laid out there for the world.

But there are other things to think about, write about, so I will write.

Did you ever have someone, maybe you knew them up close, maybe from a distance, that was the embodiment of faith or whatever, and later they fell long and hard, and you couldn't believe that they could really go from A to B? Like that day that started off at 70 degrees and somehow wound up in the 30's. It is hard to remember when it is warm what cold feels like, and vice versa. It is hard when it is cold out to pack for a warm destination.

It was hard, when I was eating healthy, living healthy, exercising, and maintaining healthy habits, to imagine ever being and living in such a fat, unhealthy way as I have done in the past and am doing again now. And today, it is a stretch to remember that I have been a healthier person.

I suppose I am a woman of extremes. The idea that I could get up tomorrow and adjust one thing and be a somewhat healthier me is just that, an idea. It never makes it more than half way down stairs. But to change completely would require considerably more resolve than I can muster at the best hour of my best day.

I started going down hill when trying to nurse pregnant, having read that I needed a large number of calories. I think it was mostly an excuse. And then going to Ronald McDonald nicu sleep deprivation land was even more of an excuse. Heck, I even allowed myself to eat more fried chicken because I am now the mother of a black child, and her birth family said it was important to make sure she got plenty of good fried chicken. (I do not mention that to say that all black people like fried chicken, just that I used a conversation I had with birthmom's friend as an excuse to further kill myself).

Now I've sunk horribly low, I hate to say, adding butter to my pbj's, just really self destructive.

I had one day, not long ago, when I felt the Lord saying, "Are you ready to admit that you can't do this without Me?" And my thought was yes, and my acknowledged dependence and renewed connection lasted a day and a half.

I had an idea for a song recently. I haven't written it yet, but the gist of it has to do with Lembas bread, from the Lord of the Rings, the waybread of the elves that Frodo and Sam eat on their journey. It had the strange effect, when eaten exclusively, to increase in it's ability to nourish and sustain, so that the longer you had eaten only Lembas, the more content and satisfied and strengthened you where when you ate it.

The whole thing in the book of Hosea where it talks about taking the reckless destructive wayward wife out into the wilderness and stripping her, not of her dignity (she already did that) but of her creature comforts and her other gods, and teaching her, reminding her of the love of her husband ties in to the image in the Song of Solomon of the bride coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved, like an army with banners, victorious but weary, weak, limping, and utterly dependent (and thoroughly convinced of her dependence) on her majestic, heroic, steady, faithful and true, Bridegroom-Redeemer.

I am in a distant place from that dependence, that place of leaning, of taking in what sustains my body and drinking my fill of what sustains my soul.

I know that He gently leads the nursing ewes. I know He is still especially fond of me and not angry with me. I know that He is for me and not against me.

But I have ADD of the spirit right now, my courage, my stamina, my pluck, all pretty well shot.

Probably would have been better if I hadn't written, eh?