The long-winded details....
I've known most of my life that I would need to have a natural birth with no medication. I had my first surgery when I was 6 and ended up back in the hospital after 4 days of not being able to eat or drink and not being able to be woken by my parents. I remember the drive to the hospital, laying in the front seat of our van, my parents dropping my siblings off at Granny and Grandpa's house, not being able to open my eyes or respond to anyone in anyway thinking I was going to die. It was discovered that I have a high sensitivity to anesthesia. Even now, just going to the dentist and getting a local anesthetic shot I end up on the couch with the shakes the rest of the day.
So when Michael and I found out that we were pregnant, we signed up for Bradley Birthing classes and spent 12 weeks learning how to relax and breath and work through labor in a natural, unmedicated way. We were so ready for this birth! and when we starting having contractions at 37 weeks, we were pumped! Then the labor stopped.
3 days later, more contractions... here we go! Then the labor stopped.
3 days more, 3 days more, 3 days more.
September 30, our original due date hits, 40 weeks! We had 5 hours of 90 second contractions, 2-3 minutes apart. Here we go! It's real this time!! We called the doctor and she was also excited, having lived through a few of these episodes with us already. She told us she'd meet us at the hospital and we loaded up the car, called my mom and made the drive. We got to the hospital... and the labor stopped.
3 more days, more contractions, no more baby.
A week goes by, 41 weeks. We talk the doctor into letting us wait another week to give the baby and my body as much time as possible to go naturally. More contractions, more labor, no more baby. We start praying... we tell friends and family to start praying... we ask the ether of Facebook to start praying. The doctor schedules the induction which we don't want. We still feel like a natural labor would be the safest for our family. We beg, we plead, we pray.
and God says no.
Monday, Oct. 14... 42 weeks... the day we are going to be induced... Michael and I are trying to process the fact that our extra time has come and gone and we are out of options. The induction is going to happen. God has answered no and we aren't going to have the birth story we hoped and prayed for.
Birth-story details...
The day of the induction, my water actually breaks but the doctor (and the rest of the hospital staff) are very nervous about the fact that I am 2 weeks overdue, my water has broken and I'm only 2 cm dilated. So they decide to start pitocin anyway.
We are still feeling really good, pumped for this labor... Team Schlatt here we go! We thought that since I had already been through a month of contractions that my body would respond quickly and this would be a fast labor. And my body does respond quickly... with 90 second contractions, 3-4 minutes apart. But nothing else happens. One hour goes by, two hours, three hours... by this time, the contractions are still 90 seconds long, but only 2 minutes apart... and literally peaking off the scale. 8 hours later, my body starts losing control... a contraction hits, and I relax to breath through it. But then some part of my body spasms and I'm unable to control the pain or the contraction. My mom notices some slowing in the baby's heart rate. We know it will be a risk to try an epidural... would it make me sick? if so, what would it do to my body? what would it do to the baby? But we are seemingly out of options... I have lost control, the baby is starting to stress and we are still only 4 cm dilated. If we had been in natural labor, we could have gauged how far from pushing we were... but we didn't know; and we had been in labor for 11 hours. Michael and I decide an epidural is our best option... well, Michael makes the calm, rational decision... I'm in tears, frightened, out of control, and trying to leave the labor room. (I told everybody I was going home and getting into my own bed and that someone else would have to have this baby. :)
When the epidural hits my system, my blood pressure drops and the baby's heart rate tanks. The swat team of nurses, residents and pediatricians descends. We both recover... enough for now. For the next hour, Michael holds my hand and reads Bible verses from notecards. I ask him to repeat Prov. 3:5-6... Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. I ask him to repeat it again. Then I cry, "Michael, I don't understand why God said no!" and he responds, "But we can still trust him, even when we don't understand."
At that moment, one of the doctors leans around Michael and informs us that the Baby's heartbeat is still slowing with every contraction and that the time has come to get us to an OR. It was perfect timing... with God letting us know He is still in charge.
In surgery, Michael is sitting by my head, holding my hand. We are singing to keep ourselves calm... Chris Tomlin's song I Will Rise and Matt Redman's 10,000 Reasons, even though we can only remember the first verse (whatever may pass or whatever lies before me / let me be singing when the evening comes). About halfway through, my body starts reacting to the epidural and the pressure is more than I can handle. The anesthesiologist tries to gas me to help with the pain... and my body starts freaking out. I start thinking to myself, "Oh no, I'm dying. What's Michael going to do?" So I Twist my head from side to side, "Move the mask! Move the mask!" At this point, Michael tells me the anesthesiologist starts looking very worried and that I start saying the word "Jesus" over and over again. A few more worried/strange glances from the other doctors and nurses in the room, a lot more pressure and he is out. (Michael''s perspective: Yeah, you were so out of it, it seemed only a few more minutes. It wasn't. I thought they would never get him out!) The doctor lets Michael announce that it's a boy! and we both cry and marvel at this new little blessing and God's provision: If Michael had not decided on the epidural when he did, I probably would have had to be put under for the surgery. If we had not taken the Bradley classes, we would not have had the background knowledge that we needed to understand what the doctors and nurses were talking about (see Complications and Variations section of the workbook. :) and If God had not been fighting for us, the surgery itself could have taken a turn for the worst when my body started freaking out.
We did everything we could to avoid going through everything we went through. Michael and I knew an epidural and a c-section could be very bad for both me and David. We made all the plans we could to bypass medication, surgery and my body having to go through everything it did and is now going through. But God was and is still in charge. He answered "no" to our prayers and led us down a different path.
We don't understand why.
We don't have any answers to the questions,
"What if we had waited longer?
What if we hadn't gotten the epidural?
What if we hadn't been induced?"
and we are still processing this.
But we can still trust God because He is good.
and we still have a beautiful baby boy, David John, born October 15, 2013 at 5:12 am.
