Zane's Birth Story
Needless to say, after waiting more than 7 years to get pregnant, the birth of our most precious baby was HUGE to us and we wanted to make sure we prepared as much as possible. Therefore, we spent months preparing for the birth of our boy. We took 3 months of Bradley method classes with the goal of having an all natural, no intervention labor and birth.
About a month before Zane was born, I heard the Lord say to me, "I will make up
where you lack. I will be the strength in your weakness. And only you perceive your weaknesses as weakness. I do not." When I heard Him say this I knew He was talking about Zane's birth. I'm so thankful for that word. As you read on, you will begin to understand why.
On 6/22 I came home from a coffee date with our doula. I had been telling her how I was ready for him to come if he was ready. I was so swollen, hot, and exhausted all the time, as most women during the end of their pregnancy are. He wasn’t due for another 3.5 weeks but I figured if he was ready then let’s do this!! So, on my way home from the coffee shop, I told Zane that he could come anytime. I arrived back at the house and used the restroom for the 50th time that day and there was blood. I called my doctor and she told me to come in to the office to check my cervix and see if I was dilated. Rob and I got to the doctors office & my cervix was just 1 cm dilated but they were pretty sure my water had broke. TMI... I thought I had lost some bladder control but it turns out my water had been slowly leaking. I was wearing adult diapers at this point. lol! They checked my blood pressure, which had been slowly climbing and, at this point, was dangerously high. Since it was so high they told me I needed to head to labor and delivery right away to get monitored.
If you know anything about the Bradley method, you learn all about how one intervention at the hospital leads to another. My anxiety began to build as I sensed this wasn’t going to be my dream, if not, somewhat ideal, labor & birth experience. We arrived at the hospital and they immediately told me I need to be put on an IV with fluids and medication to lower my blood pressure as it was at the level for great risk of seizure or stroke.
As the hours passed, the talk of a C-section began circulating as my blood pressure wasn't getting that much better on the medication. A C-section was the last thing I planned for. I'd learned all about the negative effects it had on a baby and mother. I worried about all the potential risks I'd be taking with my babys' life and mine. This only increased my anxiety and at this point I was in a full blown panic attack. I kept trying to come to terms with the idea that this wasn't going to be my perfect birth and that everything I'd worked for and planned wasn't going to happen. I'd already started to believe the lie that I was failing my baby. How could I let this happen? Why can't my body do what it was supposed to do?
At this point, even though I learned about all the negative effects of pitocin, my body wasn't going into labor on it's own and I desperately wanted to birth my baby vaginally. So, that afternoon, they started me on pitocin and for 24 hours they slowly continued to increase it as my body wouldn't go into labor. By the afternoon of the next day my body would not labor, my blood pressure would not go down and baby boy was not responding well to everything happening to him. After talking through it with Robert and our doula, we made the decision to have a C-section.
As much as I wanted to avoid that, in that moment, there was a peace that came from that decision. I'd done all I possibly could at that point and I accepted that this was the way our boy was going to come into this world.
Once we made the decision, we told the doctors. They then told us that since he was 3.5 weeks early, once he was born, he may need to be in the nicu which meant we would need to move to a hospital with a nicu. Just when peace washed over me with the decision to have a c-section, fear came rushing back in. I didn't want to be separated from my baby to travel to the nicu. They left the room saying they would call the other hospital to find out if that was necessary. We prayed. We prayed that we wouldn't have to switch hospitals but we also wanted to do what was best for our baby. They came back in the room, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, and said that because I'd received a steroid shot earlier in the day for Zane's lungs (since he was going to be premature), that we didn't have to move to another hospital. We took this as a victory and were thankful that we made the decision to have the steroid shot in the first place.
So, at around 11am they prepped me for a C-section. Honestly, I was so scared but continued to focus on God and the fact that he had orchestrated everything about Zane's life. He provided the funds for us to do IVF and He sustained the life of our sweet boy after the 8 other embryos didn't survive. He was not going to fail us now. Rob watched as they cut me open and pulled back my skin and uterus (yikes) and at 12:16pm our sweet boy came into the world screaming. We were overcome with emotion at that point. We were so completely overwhelmed by a love we'd never known before.
After a couple weeks of processing I was able to accept that just because my boy wasn't born like I wanted him to, it didn't mean he had less or that I had less in some way. God was, and has been, faithful to make up every area of seeming lack. Regardless of how his birth went, he and I were totally healthy and though it was challenging, we had everything we needed in that situation. God continues to teach us to let go of control, especially, of how we expect things to go. For us, in the end, we had our beautiful miracle boy. He was healthy and beautiful and that is, truly, all that mattered.
Trust me, I processed a bit of feeling like a failure for the couple weeks after he was born but I had to let that go too and trust that this was how he was meant to come into the world and that God had and has a plan in all of it.
So..thanks for reading! I hope Zane's birth story encourages you to let go of your idea of how situations in your life should go and that it would encourage you to put your expectation in the beautiful and loving nature of God regardless of what the situation looks like. He will not fail you and He always makes up where you feel like you lack.
