Two Catholic friends expecting babies within weeks of each other share the similarities and differences in their journeys.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Labour and Delivery - Natasha's Experience

I was in an interesting place spiritually when I went into labour with my sixth child. First of all,every time I am pregnant I get more (not less) anxious about the delivery. It's always funny to me, because none of my deliveries has ever been "difficult" as far as deliveries go, they have all been pretty quick with no complications. And yet,as Michelle Duggar (the matriarch of the 19 Kids and Counting family) points out, they don't call it "labour" for nothing - it's difficult, painful work. Necessary, of course. But still scary.

There are of course many benefits of knowing the road that lies before you - namely that you can mentally walk the course ahead of time. I didn't allow myself to go there too much in previous pregnancies because I had convinced myself that it was silly to worry about something I had done so many times before. But during this pregnancy through meetings with our school of community, we began reading some challenging texts about walking through fear and allowing it to make you vulnerable and open to receive Christ's love and consolation. For the first time ever I felt free to say, to myself and others, "Yes, I am afraid of what lies ahead of me." The evening of my labor I posted a message on the group page of our school of ccommunity asking for prayers, letting them know how fearful I was. And as I entered into what, for me, has been the most difficult labor and delivery thus far,I know it was those prayers that held me up, and helped me to embrace Jesus in my hour of need.

To be clear, it still wasn't a nightmare birth by any stretch of the imagination. But it was vastly different than all the others and I realized that, while it brought me great fear, there was still a certain amount of security I had in my past experiences of labor and delivery. I was reminded of the words of a very wise and dear priest from family camp this summer, challenging us to ask ourselves, "in what area of my life do I find the most security, and how can I surrender my will in that area to the Lord?" I continued to drink in the love and support of the world's greatest coaching team, my husband and my mother, as I tried to focus on the great task that lay ahead - birthing this beautiful baby - while at the same time uniting myself with Jesus, garnering all the trust I could muster and stepping onto a new part of this road that I thought I knew so well.

The first difference in this labor was that my contractions, which had been strong and regular when I went into the hospital, completely stopped. I went several hours through the night without a sign of anything, yet at a day past my due date and having had a membrane sweep the day before (which in every other case has brought on labor within 12 hours) I was fairly certain this was the real thing. The waiting brought on fears like, "maybe I won't be able to fully dilate," and "what if I need a C-section?" It did however bring the added security of prolonging my labor into the morning so that my family doctor, who is not on call outside of office hours, could attend the birth.

I was pacing the hall when she arrived,joking that she would be mad if she arrived and heard that I was laying around all night! She gave me a big hug and sent me back to my room, advising that her first order of business would be to break my water and "get things moving". I was so relieved to have my own doctor there! She had the resident attempt to break the water first, and though this was not her first time performing the procedure, she was not able to break the bag of waters. The doctor took over, but even she wasn't able to break my water. I've had this done for four of my five previous babies and it's usually just a simple and painless prick. But this time as it turns out, when I started dilating (I was four centimeters along at that point) a small lip remained along one side, preventing the baby's head from coming down any further and the bag of waters from bulging enough to allow it to be punctured. After two more unsuccessful attempts with waiting time in between, she decided to try and manually push on the part of my cervix that was in the way while I was having a contraction (which is, incidentally, as unpleasant as it sounds!) It did the trick however, and with that out of the way she had a clear shot at the bag of waters, which finally broke as easily as I remembered.

Things started progressing very quickly and within a few minutes I felt the urge to push. The doctor checked me and discovered that the baby was turned the wrong way. She suggested I stand upright to let gravity help the baby turn on her own. I should have known by the way she was instructing Jeff to hold onto me in case I fell over that this was going to be intense. From the moment I got on my feet my contractions were hard and strong, and the urge to push was so overwhelming that it took all of my energy a) not to panic and b) not to let the baby fall out onto the floor! I leaned forward onto the bed, which had been raised to standing height, while Jeff rubbed my back and my mother stood in front of me, holding my hands. And there, surrounded by two of the people I love the most, the only prayer I could muster was, "Jesus! Jesus!" And I knew He was there.



Helping me through the roughest patch
After a few minutes I was able to get back into the bed (no easy feat since my contractions were now one on top of another!) The doctors teased me because they couldn't tell I was having a contraction until they said they wanted to do something (I don't even remember what now) and I asked if they would please wait until it passed. "Well if we could actually tell that you were having a contraction in the first place, we would have waited!" my doctor quipped. I think she was probably trying to make me feel better.

They gave me some pain relief and I was finally able to push. Things were pretty straightforward from there. When the head was delivered I had to ride out a couple of contractions without pushing to allow my body to stretch on its own without tearing (from stretching too fast as the baby comes out). I've had to do that before and while its difficult, it was an incredible test of will, specifically that I can will my body not to do something even if everything inside of me is pushing me to, that my body is not master of me. She was born and placed directly on my chest, and I don't even remember them announcing the gender (which we did not know ahead of time). After all of that hard work I got to look for myself, and finally after 40 long weeks and the most intense labor yet, my baby girl and I finally met.

It was the most beautiful experience I have ever had. I have never felt so completely dependant, so lifted up in prayer, and so tenderly cared for as I did in the ten hours it took to bring my little girl into the world. It was the strongest I have felt the presence of Jesus in my life. I was stripped of everything, even my ability to formulate the words of a prayer in my head, which as it turns out is exactly where I needed to be. Because really, only one word is necessary - Jesus. He is the One who does everything else. He is the one who walks us through the darkest hours of our lives, and stands with us on the other side as we look on our suffering with new and grateful eyes. This is why I can say with confidence, I will follow You, wherever you lead. Because I know I can trust you, and even if the trial is too great for me, I don't have to put faith in myself.



Welcome to the world, little Mary.  We sure do love you!

 
(Read about Kathryn's experience here.)
 

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