A Birth Story

Monday evening, January 24th,

while watching the best all time

TV show, The Cosby Show, with the family

I had my first contraction of the evening.  

By 9pm I knew I would be having a baby in the next

24 hours.  So I went to sleep and slept for

half an hour (a coughing Caleb woke me up).

I went downstairs and watched a few documentaries

as the contractions came more persistently.The

midwife was called to alert her of my labor and we

decided that when the contractions lasted longer

(like a minute) I would call her back.

One thing I was wanting and praying for was a one night

stay at the hospital.  Mostly this is because it's so expensive and my recovery is rather quick.  But I didn't want to use up my one night stay as soon as I was admitted, meaning if I checked in prior to midnight that would be my one night.

So around 1 am I called Catherine, the midwife, again

and decided it was GO time.  We arrived at the hospital

around 1:30am and I met my labor and delivery nurse, Maureen.  I was 7 cm dilated and they broke my water around 1:45 am to speed things up.  In retrospect I'm so glad this was done being that I was up all night already.

Allie arrived before 2am and sat quietly in the rocker observing all that was happening.  As I chatted with Catherine and Maureen I had everyone guess the weight of the baby and they wrote their guesses on the whiteboard. 

After going to the bathroom and adjusting my position, contractions intensified greatly.  Shortly thereafter I asked Catherine to check me again to see if it was time to push 

because I felt the baby's head moving down and more pressure.

At 3:19 am I did not want to or feel like pushing and the midwife was encouraging me to do it differently than I had done with the other 4 labors.  Because I was unfamiliar with

this different position to push, I was having trouble remembering all I needed to do at the same time, and therefore felt I was not doing it well.

Come 3:35 am, once I heard the baby had hair, it gave

me a bit more incentive to push.  I went for it and the head was delivered as well as a large gush.  There was more pushing to be done to deliver the shoulders, and even more pushing

for the legs.  Pushing out a baby is hard work, but it seemed

even more overwhelming to push when not in the midst of a contraction.

The baby was delivered, cord unwound from the neck, and the new life was placed on my chest.  Nobody had said if the baby was a boy or a girl so I picked up the little life to check for myself and saw that I was given the gift of a beautiful baby girl.

Daisy Louise Dawson was here.

She quickly found her fingers to suck on.

Catherine won the weight guessing contest, she was

closest to Daisy's birth weight of 8 pounds 4 ounces.

She won a jar of my peaches.

I spent the next 24 hours in the hospital ordering

meals from my bed and remembering God's great work

through me again with a new life.

During the pushing I was singing in my head, "Strength

will rise when I wait upon the Lord, I will wait upon the Lord."

My big takeaway from this birth was that I am capable 

of so much more than I think I can do when I rely 

on the Lord.

Favorite thing

Maureen, my delivery nurse.

All my labor and delivery nurses have very special

places in my heart