"My Father's Joy" (the birth story of Avigail Joi Rader)

Finally! The moment you've all been waiting for...the birth story! Thanks be to God that I'm finally starting to feel like my "normal" self and am able to get back into the swing of things and if I could I would proclaim from the roof tops of the Lord's miraculous role in this story, as well as my recovery. So let's get to it, shall we?? One of my midwives (Tanya) came over Sunday night, February 15th to strip my membranes at 42 weeks. I had decided that I did not want to go much longer, not only for my safety, but also for Avigail's safety. So, with a little Evening Primrose Oil and a half an hour, we were done. I took a walk and tried to stimulate some contractions, but nothing happened. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed as I'd hope that at that stage in the game something would have worked. So Tanya left a couple hours later with the promise that I call her should anything change as both midwives had approximately an hour drive back to the house. Well, I spent the rest of the night with my mom, sis, and Justin. We watched a funny DVD (to keep my mind off the fact that I was a bit disappointed that I'd had no action). Just a little info here about membrane stripping. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it works right away and sometimes it takes a day or two to kick in. I went into the process knowing that but for some reason I suppose I had my hopes up that I would be one of those women that went immediately into labor. So, off to bed we went that night. I slept remarkably well and awoke in the morning while Justin was getting ready for work, a bit before 8 am. I rolled over to say good bye and had a really intense, weird pain in my stomach. I didn't think too much about it except to jokingly tell him that I'd call him if I thought I was going to have a baby that day, though I didn't think that's what it was at all. Once I got up and began moving around I noticed a bloody show and had cramping almost immediately to the point where I was uncomfortable right off the bat. I trucked downstairs to tell my mom that I thought I was in labor and trucked right back up to call my midwife and Justin and have them be on stand bye. Justin said he would be able to be home within the hour and Tanya said she was going take a shower and that I should call her as things progressed or whenever I felt that I wanted her there. So I took a shower too...had to look good for all those post birth pics after all =) The pain intensified in the shower and I was having to really pause as the contractions were coming, which was about every 2-3 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds or so. They began like this and stayed like this. About 8:30 or so the pain was so bad that I was moaning through contractions and the rectal pressure so intense that all I could do was stay on my hands and knees through most of the ordeal. I felt I was coping well and was surprised at the intensity I was feeling even though the contractions themselves were never longer than 30-45 seconds but always 2 minutes apart. Justin made it home about 9 and when he saw the state I was in (I was extremely focused at this point so I had no idea how far I'd progressed) he immediately called the midwives and that was an act of God Himself at that point. If he had not had called when he did, we would have had the baby all by ourselves. So Justin stayed with me as I continued to labor upstairs in our bedroom off the side of our bed, all the while not realizing how close to having this baby I was. I continued to be on my hands and knees mostly, and did a little laying down on my side, but it quickly became apparent that hands and knees was how I was going to stay! Sometime around 10:30 I'm guessing (I really didn't watch the clock much due to the intensity of the contractions, which again were quite manageable but painful and thankfully not lasting long but definitely coming close together...about every minute at this point) I started to feel the urge to push! This scared me very much because during Elijah's birth I had the intense urge to push and I was only 8 cm. I figured the same thing was going on since it just seemed too early to be pushing and I told Justin this. He just encouraged me to blow through the contractions just in case and at this point I was standing up leaning against my dresser eating ice and rocking back and forth in between contractions. A few more contractions and it was apparent that there was no holding back this pushing urge and I began to squat through them rather than stand through them and try as I may, I could not NOT push. This scared me quite a bit because I began to realize that this baby was coming whether we liked it or not and my midwife was no where to be found! Justin called her and she said she was about 10 minutes away, which turned into about 15 minutes by the time she got there. Well, this is where things got pretty intense. I continued to try to breath through the pushing urges and began to feel her passing through the pelvis and beginning her journey through the birth canal. I'm still kneeling on the floor at this point fully clothed because again previous to this I had no idea how close I was to pushing this baby out. And this is where the birth story takes a graphic turn and I just want to warn you if you're not comfortable reading stuff like this. So, after another push (or at some point...things are a little fuzzy during this entire time to me) I grunted out through and intense contraction/push "the baby is coming!" as I could feel her head descending with my hand. I stood up, ripped my pants off, jumped on our bed on hands and knees (still the only position I could handle) and shoved a chuck underneath me. Justin immediately called Tanya to see where she was and she said she wasn't sure if she'd make it in time based on the sounds she was hearing me make through the phone. She asked Justin if he wanted her to stay on the line and I said NO and just told her to hurry. I needed his complete attention and support and I knew he would not be able to get through delivering this baby all by himself so I needed him to help me breath through the pushing urges if I could. I panted through a few more all the while feeling the head descend. My water broke soon after that and it was stained with meconium and there wasn't much fluid to be honest. It is my guess with her being 42 weeks gestation and being so big that my amniotic fluid was on the lower side. Soon after my water broke, I began to feel the head descending coupled with a burning sensation and then, out of nowhere, a break! I don't know how long it lasted...I want to say 2 minutes but that might be way longer than it was. But I was able to lean on Justin for a few and pray that Tanya would get here before this baby was born. I did NOT want to have her all by myself, nor did I want Justin to have the responsibility of delivering his daughter without knowing how. He just kept telling me to blow (and I'm telling you there was no way I was able to blow with those pushing contractions...at least the last few). After my short break another pushing contraction came. I could feel burning. And then I heard one of the most amazing sounds to me at the moment...the sound of Tanya running full speed ahead up our stairs. She threw her equipment down on the floor, hopped on the bed behind me and I'm assuming watched as the head was crowning and coming out in one easy push (I really couldn't help it!!). Should she have been just 1 minute later Avi's head would have been out and I would have had to do the job of getting her LARGER THAN HEAD shoulders out! That's why I said earlier that Justin calling the midwife when he did at 9am and telling her to get here was an act of God! I had no sense to do it. It took me a couple of pushes to get her shoulders out and her face was quite purple, swollen, and bruised from her quick descent and pause before being fully delivered. Tanya passed her to me between my legs and while it's disputed, we all three finally decided on a birth time of 10:55. Everything happened so quickly as you can imagine and not having the second midwife there complicated a few things such as birth time. That, and I had no idea what was going on behind me funny enough. I didn't even know the head was out! I had to ask and then when she said it was, I pushed with all my might all the while thinking to myself...I'm almost done. I did it. And that's all I said after she was born. I'm done. I did it. Probably about 100 times! When she passed her through my legs and I picked her up I remember thinking how huge she looked and heavy she was. And she came out pooping like crazy! We both had poop all over us. I'll never forget the amount of poop this girl passed. She was more covered in that than vernix or anything else! But I didn't care. I asked Tanya if she was a girl and she said she didn't know so I peeked and sure enough...she is!! We immediately called my mom up to see her granddaughter (my mom was getting ready to take the boys to Walmart...she had no idea I'd had the baby!) and then waited for the placenta to come. But...it never did. So I had to leave my baby girl with Nina (the other midwife who didn't make it in time for the birth but was there right after) to be evaluated and scored and all that good stuff and rush to the hospital to have the placenta removed somehow. Blood loss at this point was about 2 cups (not a lot even though it sounds like it) and total blood loss after the ordeal was about 4.5 cups. I arrived at the hospital a bloody, poopy mess and they wheeled me into OB and I got to put a nice little backless gown on, get in bed, get hooked up to IV's, and wait for the on-call doc to get there to see what it was he wanted to do. Interestingly enough, this on-call doc was the same doc I saw with Elijah who refused to see me further after he found out I had a home birth with Elijah. I was slightly nervous about his reaction to say the least. And I was terribly frightened with the entire ordeal so all I could really do was pray. At one point I was just too terrified, tired, weak and a little in shock to do much more than stare at the ceiling and wonder what in the world was going to happen to me. I missed my baby and was worried for my health, even though things were still ok. It was the Lord that gave me His peace and got me through. Finally the doc arrived and started yanking away while I pushed. That part was very painful. I was pushing all over again like I was having a baby! And praying my brains out that this would be successful because the other option was surgery-a D&C to remove everything and that I did not want. His method was a bit more risky than the surgery but praise be to God the placenta finally came out! What happened was that it had freakishly adhered to some scar tissue left over from when I had my IUD surgically removed back in '05 (some of you might remember my rather graphic blog story on that...). So once again I didn't know that was out and when I discovered it was out relief doesn't even describe how I felt. The doc went up and made sure everything was out though he assured me there was no way of knowing "if" everything would be out which could pose potential problems, but again, God has been so good and my body seems to be healing nicely and for that I am more than thankful! So basically, I didn't tear giving birth to my whopper of a baby (her stats will come in just a bit) but I suffered second degree tears from a doctors hand, fist and elbow passing up my canal. Still, that seems to be all I walked away with which leaves me giving thanks and really not caring too much about that at all. Relief was my biggest thing after the entire ordeal. After I was stitched up from the tear I was able to rest and eat while they administered antibiotics via IV to ward off potential infection. Then my midwife called to tell me Avigail checked out a-ok with an apgar score of 9 and 10 so...good girl! I was also informed that she was 10 lbs exactly! None of us had any idea she would be so stinkin' huge =) I was thankful to be taken care of so nicely at the hospital. All of the nurses were so kind and understanding and the doctor was very professional and did a wonderful job, but I was really missing my baby girl. I'd only seen her for a half hour or so before I had to leave her and most of that was trying to push out a placenta and struggling not to scream while the midwives reached up to try to pull it out-that was more painful than the birth itself believe it or not. So I called my mom to see if she could bring in baby and she did soon after. It was so nice finally being able to see her and really see her, you know? And smell her! She smelled soooo good. That's when Justin and I took the pic with her that you see below. But not long after that the hospital informed me that Avi couldn't stay with me anymore...liability reasons. So she had to leave me AGAIN and they wanted me to stay until 8am the next morning (by this time it was about 4pm-ish and I'd had her a little before 11 so I was really having a hard time being away from her and to not be able to nurse her, see her, or touch her until 8 am the next morning seemed the the worst thing in the world to me. They said someone could bring her back to nurse but she'd still have to leave when she was done and I didn't want to have to put transporting her back and forth while taking care of the boys on my mom. That and she'd have to do it all through the night which seemed ridiculous to me. So after my second dose of antibiotics we decided to discharge ourselves and we were home by 9 pm with our little princess (she stayed from about 4-6 and then came back to the hospital from 7:30ish-9pm when we left). And then we were able to get a little sleep with her between us. She slept so peacefully that first night but I couldn't sleep. I just stared at her mostly. She is so perfect. And then the hard part...recovery!! I am finally starting to feel like myself, thanks be to God! I was really anxious about a lot of things during the first 2 weeks but God has been so faithful and shown me so much about Himself throughout this entire ordeal. Baby Avi is none other than a direct answer to many prayers and a dream and I still can't believe she's here sometimes. I do know, however that this is it for us! Justin is definitely taking care of that...if you know what I mean. We are officially done and officially a complete, happy family. Justin and I have grown so much closer together through her birth experience and my difficult emotional recovery (which God is still working me through) and again, He needs to be praised for all of it. Avigail's birth story, ironically enough, now has a part in my personal testimony of growth and faith in Jesus Christ. I never thought that would be the case! And as for her personal stats, Avigail Joi Rader a.k.a "Baby Avi" in this house (a standard set by Gabe to which we strictly adhere to or else) was born on February 16th (42 weeks), weighing 10lbs exactly and was 20.5" long. Her head measured 36 cm and her chest 37.5 cm (see!?!?! told you her chest was HUGE!). Total birth time (not counting the 2 hrs it took to get the placenta out) was just under 3 hours. She is currently just under 3 weeks old and now weighs 10 lbs 4 oz as of Tuesday, March 3rd and is perfect in every way. Oh and her name ironically means "My Father's Joy". I didn't realize how the meaning of her name would touch my heart so but it's so obvious the hand He had in blessing me with her surprise pregnancy and subsequent birth. I know it is long, but thank you for sharing in my birth story by reading! God is good and just as I began my birth story thanking Him, I must end my birth story thanking Him! He is so good.