It's hard to believe this beautiful treasure is now four years old. But she is. Today is her fourth birthday.
I couldn't be more proud of this tender, snuggly, sassy little lady and I simply adore her.
I honor of her fourth birthday, I thought I would share her birth story with you all. I wrote this about a month after her birth. I took a moment to look through her labor and delivery photos and was moved nearly to tears as the pain on pitocin without drugs was exponentially more horrendous than my natural birth with Noah. It was a humbling and eye opening experience.
First of all, let me reference a scripture that Luci Fowler, my doula/spiritual support through my labor called me with the day after Shiloh was born – I think this just about sums up this birth story:
Proverbs 16:9 – “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”
Back in June the Lord began preparing my heart for “His way” of bringing Shiloh into the world… I had grown very “religious” about the fact that I would have an un-medicated, natural birth, and there was no room for any alternative. The birth of my son nearly eight years ago was filled with so much unnecessary intervention that it left me scarred both literally and figuratively, and very skeptical of the common Western unnecessarily medical approach to childbearing. I was determined to do it the completely opposite way – no drugs, no IVs, no “otomies” of any kind… just plain and simple, to give birth the way my body was designed to give birth, the way “God intended”, as they say… So when I sat and listened to this teaching shared by my friend Mari Helms on God’s Plan for Childbearing, and heard this reality check: in spite of the fact that yes, we need to set aside all unnecessary medical intervention and allow God to bring our babies into the world as designed (meaning vaginally, un-medicated, etc – or at least that was how I interpreted it) and as He intended – the “as He intended” part may not actually be vaginally, un-medicated, etc! The message was simple – that as mothers, we are to lay aside our agendas, be conscious of the way our bodies were designed and allow God to be glorified in that process, but that we are also to be aware that the way our children are born are not about how we want them to be born, but that God is ultimately in control of how HE wants to bring this unique creation into the world. We are to submit our agendas to that reality and trust and rest in the peace that comes from knowing this… that God is Sovereign and has ordained all our days, and the days of our little ones as well.
Well of course I thought “yeah! That sounds great, lay aside my agenda”… but in the back of my mind I thought God had “shown me the way” and through a series of very interesting connections hooked me up with every and any resource I’d need to ensure that “my birth experience” was a natural as possible. I changed from my huge 12 doctor Northside baby factory OB/GYN practice to a small practice where I began receiving prenatal care under one of the most respected midwives in the region. I described my midwife as “the lady whose patients all the labor and delivery nurses know to leave alone because they know their birth plans before they even ask”… meaning, if Kay Johnson is her midwife, don’t offer her drugs. My husband and I took literally 26 hours (13 weeks worth) of Bradley Birth classes to prepare for an un-medicated and intervention free labor and delivery. I watched endless numbers of home births on You Tube and became very passionate about the subject of natural childbirth. I was sure that this was “the way” and I was going to walk in it because I thought God had led me to this. One thing I knew for sure as well was that he had a lesson for me in the process. In my earthly mind I was sure it was to experience closeness to Him in the laboring process – to understand the fringes of sanity in pain and “partake” in the sufferings for the joy set before me…
And so my agenda begins to unravel…
At about 31 weeks our baby girl was found to be in a transverse lie… bubble number one gets burst. The Lord began to deal with me and my agenda at that time because in my mind it would be utterly devastating to have gone through all those childbirth classes and changing from an OB to a midwife, etc only to have a C-Section. We started a prayer chain and in addition to Webster method chiropractic adjustments… and she turned. Hallelujah – I was sure we were good to go now… quick lesson from the Lord and a good hard reality check to remind me I am not in control. Ha – God has a sense of humor – doesn’t He?
Problem is, though I continued to see the chiropractor (Linda Mullin – she’s published on the Webster Method, folks and teaches it at Life University), she continued to fret that I might be her one statistic – the one baby that would not stay vertex (head down), the one baby that would not engage. She could NEVER get my pelvis to adjust like she wanted it and was very concerned all the way up to the 39th week that there might be a problem with the baby descending and engaging appropriately for birth. I just trudged on in faith, ignoring the concerns about my pelvis because I thought they would just correct themselves.
Fast forward to full term (37 weeks plus) – I decide that I am tired of being pregnant and want this baby out! Especially since my midwife had pointed out that she thought she was a “nice size” already and I was welcome to try any home induction I wanted. I tried pushing the envelope with castor oil (not a significant enough amount to induce labor I guess), blue/black cohosh, evening primrose oil, having my membranes stripped twice at 38 and then 39 weeks, etc, etc, etc… NOTHING. I did have a few little contractions with the castor oil but it did not (obviously) produce the desired result! I figured, again, the Lord as a gentle Father reminding me that He had appointed the time for her arrival, and nothing I could do, say, or ingest could influence that until, again, His appointed time. Luci, my sweet spiritual mama and doula (and mother of ten children, all birthed naturally), kept reminding me of that fact. God had appointed a time to bring forth this baby… and she would be brought forth when it is the appointed time – and no sooner!
…The first sign of which presented itself on Tuesday, August 12th at 2:45 PM when my water broke as I was perusing bolts of fabric at Joann’s. I had decided I was going to stop worrying about when the baby was coming because I knew that she was coming eventually (she was due on the 11th) and resigned myself to finally teaching myself to sew until that occurred. Well that didn’t take long. I threw my basket on the cutting counter and ran to the bathroom, and sure enough, it was my water. I called my husband and called my midwife from the stall, and quickly made it to the front of the store to cut in line and pay for my needles and thread and other notions and get to the car headed home.
I think I blew up about ten peoples’ phones on the way home so before I knew it my phone was being blown up in return. Everyone, of course, was so excited as we thought for sure that labor was to begin at any moment. I began paying extra attention to every twinge I felt in my body, hoping to feel the beginnings of labor. I spoke with my midwife (Kay) on the way home. She began to explain to me that we were pretty much now on a ticking clock to have the baby within the next 24 hours. Because I was delivering the baby at a hospital, a great deal of attention was to be paid to how long the baby was in the womb after my membranes had ruptured because the longer it went from rupture to delivery, the greater the risk of infection to the baby and to me as well. To be on the safe side, Kay wanted me to be in active labor before the 24 hour mark to prevent the baby from having to undergo too many tests, nursery stays, etc after her birth. I was Group B Strep negative so the concern about infection was not too high, although the doctors are generally conservative when it comes to infection when premature rupture of membranes has occurred. Anyway, she began to explain to me that if I did not go into labor on my own before the morning, she wanted me to come in to the hospital and have “a little bit of pitocin” to get labor going, after which the pit could be turned off and the IV removed and I could proceed with my birth plan which was supposed to result ultimately in an un-medicated, vaginal water birth.
Bubble burst number two… Jason and I are lying in bed at about 12:00 AM on August 13th, realizing that my body is not going into labor on its own. We begin to understand that a pitocin induction is eminent. My cousin Laura had arrived from Asheville to be present at the labor and delivery to take photographs, bags were packed, everything was in order. Except my body. We laid in bed and cried, submitting our will to the Lord in prayer. We expressed to Him our desires to have a natural birth, but we laid down our control in the situation and asked Him for grace to endure the road ahead that would result ultimately in the birth of our baby girl. We declared our trust in His perfect will, and knew that we were in it which gave us tremendous peace. After laying down for a few hours sleep, we woke at about 4:30 AM to pack our things and head to the hospital. I had so much peace that morning. I knew, again, we had shared our desires with the Lord, and we knew he heard us, and yet this was the path that we were to walk. And we were okay with it.
We set off for dropping Dakota off at my Mom’s and arrived at the hospital close to 6:30 or so. It may have been later (times start to blur at this point). We called Kay and Luci to let them know we were on our way.
By 7:45AM, the pitocin drip had been started. About every 15 minutes the L&D nurse came in and increased the number of milliliters per hour by two, sometimes doubling. I was pretty much confined to the hospital bed because of the IV and all the electronic fetal monitoring for the beginning of my labor. Unbeknownst to me there was some space around the bed that I could move around in but it was surely limited. This was not part of my plan! I’d planned to be free to roam the room (and be in the tub or the shower) and manage the labor pain … but this was not how we began and certainly not how we ended. By the time I started having some contractions, Luci had arrived. We talked about all kinds of things and she just kept the scripture flowing, which helped me stay focused. I sat up in Indian style with two tennis balls in my lower back to take care of the discomfort there as the contractions began to increase in intensity. The contractions increased to an uncomfortable intensity, to about 5 minutes apart by around 10:00 or 10:30 AM. Luci then had to leave to go to an appointment so it was just Jason and me in the room (and Laura of course). A little later, Kay and another midwife, Margaret Strickhouser, came into the room and helped me off the bed onto the ball, where I sat for the next good little while. I believe Kay increased the pitocin at that point… and the contractions began to get really intense. I think I dealt with that level of pit for about an hour on the ball, when Kay came in and cranked me up to 16 ml per hour and told Jason that she wanted me to do those contractions for an hour, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, for him to call her and then she would let him turn the drip off.
At that point, she wanted me totally cranked on the pit, so that when she turned it off my body would keep the labor going at that intensity. Or at least, that was what we expected to happen. I mean, that’s a lot of pitocin… All I wanted at that point was to get off the dang IV so I could walk around and get in the tub. But then, labor begins to kick my butt. I think I was contracting about two minutes apart with the most mind-blowing pain I have ever experienced – trying not to look at the clock to see when that hour would be over. Jason let me stand up and hang on him as I tried and tried to relax through the unrelenting pain begging him to turn the machine off! I think by the time I was going through this it was around 1:00 in the afternoon. At some point during this time my sister arrived thinking she could come in and see me, but I think she left traumatized!
Bubble burst number three. Kay comes in to check me after the hour or so is up… Jason had already turned the machine off… and I am at a mere 3 – 4 cm. To top it off, my labor began to slow – it was not picking up on its own off the pitocin. I was devastated. My fear was that the rest of my labor was going to be that intense and it felt like a blow to the gut to know I was only 3 or 4 cm! Kay put me back on the pitocin and I readjusted my position to be able to continue laboring with these contractions anywhere from 90 seconds to 3 minutes apart for the next several hours. Every single time Kay came in to adjust the pitocin levels down, my labor would slow. It became increasingly apparent as the hours went by that I would not be able to come off the pitocin if I was going to have this baby. We got me to 5 cm, and it seemed like I stayed there for hours. I labored really hard on higher levels of pit to try to move me further along. I found that standing and swaying was the only comfortable position I could find, even though I was tired and wanted to rest or sit down, every time I did it was so uncomfortable. Kay checked me at least once after I went through a really hard period on the higher pitocin and found I had not progressed at all beyond the 5cm at which point I just fell apart. I remember crying really hard, knowing that I was going to have to get cranked again but knowing that this was what I had to do to make any progress. My body simply would not keep labor going at an acceptable pace whenever the pitocin was dropped. I gathered myself whatever I could and held on to the squat bar (from the end of the bed) for dear life as Kay put me on another high level of pitocin to try to move me along. I’d also started to have back labor, which meant the baby was turning around, but had ended up sunny side up (occiput posterior). It also meant that my already unbelievable levels of pain were now radiating through my back as well, making this an altogether insanely challenging labor.
At this point, I had resigned myself to what I knew I had to do in order to make it through this labor and get this baby born… Luci continued to encourage me with the Word as I struggled to keep my head together and not want to give up, but by this point, I was so discouraged by the progress of events that I felt like giving up. I didn’t think of drugs much, except that I wished I could take the edge off the pain a little. I knew at the end of the day I trusted my midwife and knew that she was looking out for me and the baby and would walk me through this to get the baby here as safely as possible. Kay had me doing figure eights, and all kinds of things, including having me lay down on my side, to try to get the baby to turn around. Again we tried to drop the pitocin… labor slowed, so I was back on the rollercoaster with the contractions again. All this time I’m noticing Kay coming in frequently to check on me…she never had a reassuring look on her face at any time, which concerned me, but I was too zoned out to notice why.
After a couple of hours of this – sometime around dinnertime, she checked me to find that I had progressed to 8 cm! Upon hearing that news, everyone was elated. Luci encouraged me that we were almost there. Kay even had the water birth tub filled and was sure that we just needed to get the baby to get in the right position and she would be born quickly. Still, my cervix was not thinning. I was dilating but not thinning at all. Kay explained also that the baby’s head was not putting enough pressure on my cervix to thin it out because of the position she was in. So, she had me labor on my side again, and then hanging over the back of the bed. We tried all kinds of positions for what seemed like a few hours or more with the pitocin gradually increasing. I was completely shot emotionally and physically at this point, literally just “present” for the contractions to do their work, as I tried to work with them to get the baby to move! I think it must have been around 10PM when Kay came in to check me – and I was STILL at 8 cm, with the cervix having not thinned at all. To top that off, I started running a fever, which indicated there were some signs that an infection could be developing somewhere.
Imagine – I was completely devastated. I think I just buried my head in the pillow and cried. What we thought was “almost there” wasn’t…
Then Kay expressed her concern over the state of things… the baby was in the absolute worst position and not descending through my pelvis the way she needed to, and was not turning. She then tells me that she’s going to have to crank the pitocin again to 12 ml per hour (doubling what it was at, at least) for at least an hour and that I’m going to have to do some really hard contractions for at least that amount of time if we wanted to get the baby to move. At that point I lost it. I knew I couldn’t do it. 12 ml was almost what I was at earlier in the day and it was indescribable pain with no rests between contractions. Not to mention I had been in labor now for 12 hours with contractions at least 3 minutes apart if not closer. I just couldn’t do it. I knew it. I was in utter despair. Then she said something that had been like a curse word to me before… she gave me the option of getting an epidural so that my body would relax while they really cranked the pitocin high. She’d have me lying on my side which would help the baby turn and get in a good position, and that we had a better chance of success with an epidural than not. Of course, I asked about my options. But I knew if my midwife was making this recommendation, she knew it was the best and most appropriate use of the epidural. I chose Kay because I knew she’d do everything she could do to preserve my birth plan and that she was a proponent of natural, un-medicated birth. But when she said she had done everything she knew how to do to get the baby to move, and that my labor was just weird and she couldn’t figure out what else to do… and that with the rising fever, my chances of having a water birth were now limited… I grew more and more comfortable with the idea. I remember Luci saying that only I knew what was the right thing to do in this situation.
Jason on the other hand was not comfortable with it. He and Kay stepped outside in the hall. Kay then explained to him that if I were to be put on the pitocin at that level again, she was afraid that I would not be able to relax enough to let the contractions do the work they needed to do in the amount of time they needed to do them in. She explained that I had a better chance, in her opinion, of avoiding a c-section by getting the epidural than if I did not.
Jason came back in the room and I proceeded to beg him not to “make me” do the hour on pit. This was his baby too and I knew he only wanted the best for me and the baby. He told me that he and Kay had agreed that the epidural was the right course of action. Of course, I was now looking forward to a break from the pain. I didn’t feel like I was giving up, I knew I had worked really, really hard and that I trusted my midwife to help me have this baby at the lowest level of risk, given the circumstances.
Kay saying from her own mouth that my birth plan had been shot to heck from the beginning was somewhat encouraging, because I was reminded of laying in bed with my husband the night before crying before the Lord as I laid down my plans and submitted to His perfect will. All I could think of was how amusing this all was that things had taken this course. YES – this was totally about me giving up control! In every way, it was.
Seemed like minutes and the anesthesiologist was there (the best, per Kay) to give me the epidural. I leaned my head against Kay’s chest as he put the epidural in my back. It seemed like in just a few minutes I was rolling over on my side, the pain from the contractions waning. It was like the whole room opened up to me… I was now no longer in the “zone” of trying to deal with the pain – I was able to talk with Jason, Luci, Laura, and the wonderful L&D nurse Carol who had been assigned to me that night (she was there finishing her night shift the morning I arrived). I was able to rest a little, but could still feel my body working and the baby descending – I actually still felt the urge to push as well which was something I was concerned about, since I was afraid I would not be able to do so with the epidural. The thing is, the pitocin was up to 14 ml an hour for nearly 2 and a half hours before I felt the urge to push. Can you imagine if I hadn’t gotten the epidural – how long it would have taken me to get her to move down? Would she have even turned and descended down into my pelvis? That part blows my mind and I am even more glad for the epidural!
I was able to tell the nurse that I could feel the baby was ready to come out because with every contraction I could feel her – like she was pushing out. When the pressure got closer and closer together, the nurse checked me and the baby was actually already right there! We could even see that she had a head full of hair – which was a wonderful surprise as I had prayed for the baby to have some hair when she was born!
Everyone gathered around for me to push the baby out. I was totally relaxed and able to feel when I needed to push for the most part. Kay literally sat there and was able to guide me when needed as I pushed and guide the baby out. I think I pushed 8 or 9 good times and out she came! Jason got to deliver her and cut the cord… and all I can remember is she spat when her head came out, and I just started laughing my head off as she was delivered… then they put this beautiful, warm, gorgeous baby girl on my chest who was just the most beautiful pink color and had the most beautiful pink lips and head full of hair I’d ever seen! I was just full of complete and total joy as she was born. And I laid there and couldn’t believe how perfect everything had ended up. I didn’t even tear (which was a fear of mine considering I’d had an episiotomy with my son)! I realized that in spite of the fact that my plans had been so disrupted, God had brought Shiloh out in the most perfect and unique way… she had been delivered according to His plan!
As my nurse Carol assisted me in getting me cleaned up and ready to go to the recovery room, I just sat there in awe and amazement at how perfect Shiloh’s birth had been. Laboring to have our baby was important to me, I wanted to be sure I had worked to bring her here… I sure was able to look at how hard I worked and see that I had truly done all that I could. The epidural was a blessing as well, as I know given how long I had to labor with the pitocin cranked high in order to bring Shiloh down and ready for birth. God honored my desire to avoid a c-section by giving Kay the wisdom to suggest it. I wouldn’t change a thing. This was truly not about my experience in the end, it was about what was best for Shiloh and God’s plan for her delivery. I truly have a meaningful story that is not about me imposing my will and my way, but about God’s tender heart preparing mine to relinquish control. This lesson continues to radiate beyond Shiloh’s birth into my day to day life and experience. God has been highlighting how much I hold on to doing it my way, and in my time, and how I try to control things around me. He is showing me that it comes from pain and brokenness in relationships where trust was violated. It is part of his healing that he brought me through this and showed me then and even shows me today how I can let go and let him orchestrate life, and bring beauty from ashes… strength from fear… Isaiah 61!!!
Finally, the Lord gave Luci a scripture that is our heart for our sweet baby girl. And it is true! The joy of our hearts is our precious one…
1 Thessalonians 3:19 & 20:
For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.
