Record-Breaking Beautiful {Our Girl’s Arrival}

Nov 26, 2012 | The Parenthood

Perhaps it isn’t coincidence — just a few short hours after I wrote this post about learning to live life just one day at a time, our lives changed completely, in less time than it takes to watch your favourite romantic comedy. It’s a privilege to tell the story and I hope to do it justice (sorry it has taken me so long to tell it)  — it was even more a privilege to get to live the story, and I find myself, once again overwhelmed by God’s unrelenting mercy, favour and blessings. Unmerited favour keeps coming my way — and certain of how undeserving I am, I am thankful for His amazing grace.

Three days after the due date I’d calculated, and perhaps four hours after I’d finally managed to fall asleep, I woke up and everything just felt different, although I’m not sure I can explain exactly how or why. I wasn’t having proper contractions to speak of — I just woke up to go to the bathroom — but my spider senses were tingling: change was imminent.

I did what any normal gal would do at 5 am when she thinks she might be going into labor. I started putting on makeup. This relaxing part of my daily routine kept me from freaking out and waking the Hero Hubs before I knew this wasn’t a false alarm. Quietly standing in front of the mirror, the contractions started coming. Gentle, mild… maybe this could be it but I’m not sure contractions.

I started timing them, they started speeding up, the intensity increased, and I woke the Hubs. Within ten minutes I was certain it was time for him to call my Mom. Because of my previous delivery with the Tank, we knew we were probably going to need to move fast.

I pulled on some clothes (not a little black dress like last time, mind you — I had my senses together a little better this time) and between contractions was grabbing the few last minute things I wanted to throw in the hospital bag.

And, good news, I had my make-up on already.

We both tried to grab a bit of cereal quickly before running out the door. My Mom arrived in no time, I had six mouthfuls, and felt guilty for telling the Hubs I thought we were going to have to leave the cereal and go.

Around 6:25 am we walked through the doors of the hospital (a five minute drive from our house) and headed up to the third floor, the labor and delivery area. I occasionally had to stop and breathe my way through a contraction. As the doors of the elevator opened, two nurses were standing at a computer screen trying to figure something out together. After a brief wait, HH gently interrupted to mention how quickly our last child arrived.

They stopped what they were doing and one of the nurses escorted me to an exam room, suggested I change into a hospital gown and asked for a urine sample. I was able to change clothes but apologized that I could not provide the sample she requested. I got the feeling they didn’t know how serious I was about having a baby, like, right then.

Another nurse came in to examine me, and the Hubs gently suggested that I no longer needed to time my contractions. At this point I’d been timing them for exactly 52 minutes and 10 seconds.He was steady by my side, slowly counting to thirty every time I asked, massaging my hand rough, to distract me from the discomfort. I remember praying, thanking the Lord in the midst of the pain: she was finally on her way.

I didn’t hear the diagnosis immediately after the examination, but a wheelchair arrived very quickly to take me to the delivery room. With some assistance I got off the examination table. I stood still for a moment to remove the hair band from my wrist and pull my hair back. I laugh to remember it now, but at the time, it felt like a scene in an epic film, where a warrior is flexing his bow or drawing his sword: my hair was pulled back, I was ready for battle.

Around a corner, one contraction and thirty seconds of steady counting later, on a new table in the delivery room, I finally heard the diagnosis I’d missed the first time as the doctor walked in: She’s nine centimeters with a bulging bag.

Translation for those who might not be able to interpret this terminology: the body is ready. It’s baby time.

I didn’t want an IV, but at this point, I didn’t care enough to argue. {Call me crazy for not wanting any drugs while giving birth, and complaining about the discomfort of sticking a needle in my hand.} They asked me not to push, even if I felt the urge, while they were putting the IV in. A moment later, the doctor was standing in front of me, and smiling she asked, “Would you like me to break the bag?”

She could see I was uncertain of how to answer.

“If I do, the baby will come.”

A little overwhelmed by it all, I looked to the Hubs for help. “It’s fine, honey. The baby is coming.”

That familiar feeling — like the waters that baptized dear old Mr. Potato Head as he sped us to the hospital 21 months ago — was there, immediately followed by the urge to push.

With the first push — I kid you not, friends, the first push — the head was there, crowning.

The nurses coached me on how to push the second time. Legs here, chin into chest, wait for it. And with this deep, warrior-cry, shout, holler-bellow, which I’ve only used on two previous occasions, both times to deliver a baby, I pushed the longest, hardest, bravest push I could muster, with a half-pause in the middle and a further push until it. was. finished.

And finished, it was, and with that, head, shoulders, knees and toes, there was no longer a baby in my belly — she was out, she was in the world.

I was incredibly relieved by the speed of it all — they laid her on my tummy, a tiny little bum up in the air, facing the other way, I saw her head full of dark brown hair before I ever got to see her face.

With a joyful whisper I touched her for the first time: Arabella. Arabella.

I held her briefly, they cleaned her gently, I nursed her joyfully for the first time. I saw her face when they lay her on the scale, and it was as if the Bear was back, in baby form — she looks just like her older brother when he was a baby, but with lots more hair.

The after-pains were bothersome, the IV was a nuisance, but when I walked from that delivery room, past the nursery where she was getting her first proper bath, the Hero Hubs there with a camera, I was walking on a cloud.

This was the wave I was waiting to catch. This was the story I was holding on to hope for.

Ara, from the latin, means altar. Bella, is of course related to the latin and Italian words meaning beautiful. Literally meaning beautiful altar, sometimes prayerful, we pray her life, like her name, will be a place where heaven touches earth, and vice versa.

{Her name was first used in Scotland in the Middle Ages. Extra special.}

Although we had a little extra time at the hospital this time around, she still beat her brother’s record. All 8 pounds and 7 ounces of her, arriving at 6:56 am — she edged him out by perhaps fifteen minutes or so.

We joyfully welcome Arabella to our family.

Record-breaking, beautiful.

xCC

Everything But the Girl

Nov 9, 2012 | The Parenthood

I woke up full of story this morning. Just ten minutes ago, my finger was ready and waiting to slide across the screen of my phone and turn off the alarm before it made more than a peep of its usual wake-up call. Who knows how or why the fickle Muse most writers talk about was waiting by my bed this morning just for me, whispering before I’d even opened my eyes with thoughts full of imagery and metaphor. Sometimes it feels like a wave you’ve been waiting for out in the ocean: time the catch right and it could take you all the way into shore.

I tiptoe out of our bedroom, and pass the guest-room-turned-nursery that’s waiting for a little bundle of joy to grace it. Two thoughtfully packed bags sit side-by-side on a clean-sheeted bed. The bags ready for the hospital, the bed ready for my Mom. Packing a bag for someone who isn’t around yet — that’s an oddly satisfying experience in hopefulness. The crafty pictures I put together with the silhouettes of birds in bold and colorful patterns watch from the walls and I keep sneaking by.

Behind the next door, a man-child and a toddler are still fast asleep. The older one is reading and coloring and impressing us with his skills nearly every day. Doing something to intentionally hurt his little brother almost every day. The little brother is at an infectious age where I almost always find it nearly impossible not to smile at everything he does. The way he tilts his head or closes his eyes when he has just taken a bite of food that he’s really enjoying. That sweet transitional baby-talk that announces his arrival in the world of communication: He points one out in a book, “Heli-COT-ter!” and I marvel that he didn’t just say “airpwane.”

We feel blessed and we praise them both, steady and often. What a gift, these two boys of ours.

I notice the smell as I make my way to the kitchen: a week of not really having a plan for dinner has resulted in an interesting menu. Last night, chocolate chip pancakes and bacon graced our plates, and then I let the boys stay up an hour past their bedtime because of the sugar rush. The Bear was incredibly excited when he realized those were chocolate chips and not blueberries. We savored them together, the way I’ve been savoring these last days as a family of four, and wondering each night when we put the boys to bed: is this the last time it’ll be just like this?

In the kitchen I slice strawberries over a bowl of cereal and quietly realize we’ll have to get milk or have a plan B before the boys get up. And I sit down and my fingers start moving, because there is this thing I’m just certain I want to say today, although I’m just trusting the Muse to stick around long enough to help me say it.

Today I’ll go to the doctor’s office, and we’ll finally have to discuss the thing I’ve been thinking since my first visit twenty-something weeks ago: the due date discrepancy. By my calculations from records I’m confident in the accuracy of, November 12th was the mark on the calendar I was expecting to circle twice and look toward. After the ultrasound, the doctors said November 4th, and when I questioned it they answered me with confidence in their date, and no room for discussion. So here it is, November 9th — me still waiting, and preparing to go in and argue about whether or not I’ll have to be induced if this goes much longer.

There’s this thing about giving birth I’ve had the privilege of experiencing twice now. Although it took nearly twenty-four hours to get to with the Bear, and less than two with Tiger Tank, each time there was this moment. In the midst of the chaos of enduring hours of pain, or mere minutes of hectic, I remember the last push. Somebody usually calls it, and even if they’ve said it six times before, they’re finally right: “Just one more good push.” It took twenty-six minutes to get to that point with our first boy, it took three pushes to get there with the second.

And you find this strength, although you know not where it comes from. It reminds me of the first time I caught a wave, having traded an ill-suited short board for my friend’s long board for a few minutes one sunny afternoon at the beach. That wave came up, and in perfect timing, my arms and legs pulled and scrambled to get me aboard. Suddenly, I felt that gentle rush, knowing the wave had taken control. My hands instinctively went out in front of me, and with one well-balanced movement, I pushed myself up to my feet. From effort to elation in a single moment — this was the first time I’d really gotten it right, I was up and this wave was taking me in to shore.

That last push brings that same rush, but it’s that rush on steroids. You don’t feel completely in control, but you somehow know that you’re participating in something that is absolutely incredible, amazing, and unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. It is awesome in the truest sense — there is such a sense of awe in the holy moment, where that timing, that gush of water, and your efforts are fully synchronized to bring that baby in to shore.

It has been a privilege, and I’ve sensed that I was partnering with God then, just as I’ve had the privilege of helping to birth spiritual things, so here is this privilege, the natural birth process.

I cling joyfully to the belief that God wrote each of those stories.

So it’s a funny thing for a pregnant lady past her due date to have the attitude I do — but my attitude is to fight for that story. Not the story I might choose based on discomfort or convenience, but the story that I sense to be written by the hand of God. I don’t intend to pass judgement on anyone who has a different kind of story. The Lord knows I love all kinds of stories — I just feel privileged to have the stories He’s written me into. And I want to let Him do the writing.

For love and romance, for a book or a blog post, I’m sure of this: a good story is worth waiting for.

xCC