Moments following the birth of Isabella I was absolutely elated. The high from giving birth has yet to wear off. Miraculous, amazing, fulfilling, exciting. Yes it was all that and more.
But the week leading up to the birth was filled with anxiety and fear. Previously I wrote about visualizing labor as a marathon, as a way to dispell any fear that I might come across. Sure that was a great way to think about the process and to see an end in sight, but after a foreboding ultrasound, I was anything but calm and meditative.
Four days past the due date, and ironically my birthday, I was strapped to a fetal heartrate monitor, and contraction monitor. Moments before I had seen the beautiful sonagram images of my baby girl. Healthy, and fully developed, our baby girl was measuring 9 lbs and 11 oz. The Dr. was alarmed and concerned that the baby would be too large to deliver. After some negotiating, and good results from the monitors, I set a date to be induced. The Dr. was giving me 4 additional days to go into labor on my own.
Those 4 days were excrutiating. I could only envision the worst case scenario. I would arrive to be induced, they would give me the horrible pitocin, I would labor for days, and after hours of painful contractions, I would end up with a c-section. Sadly I could not find the silver lining in any of it.
Fortunately I am married to a wonderful, calm and patient man. He talked me down from my crying hysterics. He walked with me to encourage labor. He took me for cold stone ice cream just to cheer me up. When the big day came, he held my hand and walked me into the hospital.
Once at the hospital two very important people visited me and gave me two wonderful gifts. Liz, a nurse at the hospital who was also our childbirth educator, came in and told me that it was time to surrender to the situation and accept what was going to happen. David, my pastor, came and prayed with me. His gift gave me reassurance that everything would be alright, and God was with us.
I am happy to go into detail about every moment of labor and delivery, but I will save it for another post. What I will say is that after 27 hours I was holding my daughter in my arms. She was 8 lbs 6 oz. (No where near 9 lbs 11 oz) and not a C-section. I wouldn't change a thing. It's such an amazing experience that I'm looking forward to having more children. I'm so blessed to have as many wonderful people in my life who really supported me throughout the pregnancy, labor and delivery, especially my husband, who is already an amazing daddy.
