Following is a very, very long post detailing the whole story of Lilly’s birth. Part of the reason I’ve recorded it is to share with friends and family. The other reason I wanted to put everything in writing is so I would have it recorded for Lilly. I forget so easily, and this way I can someday tell her the whole story of her birth with all of the many little details. Enjoy!

The story of Lilly’s birth actually has somewhat of a back story. Twelve years ago I was determined to have babies in the most natural way possible. For my first birth experience we hired a midwife and planned a home birth. Not only was it to be a home birth, it was to be a water birth. Talk about earthy and natural!

I finally went into labor with Laura eleven days after her due date. Labor was long, as we expected with a first baby, but it was tolerable with much of the labor happening in the warm water. Unfortunately there were some complications at the end of the labor which resulted in the midwife insisting we transport to the hospital. Everything turned out ok, but the midwife explained to me that I was too high-risk to be considered for home births in the future.

When it was time to have our second baby, I was determined that the experience would be as natural as possible within the hospital setting. But when Isaac refused to be born on his own two weeks after his due date, we finally consented to having labor induced. Even then, I refused to take any more than the minimal pain medication during labor. After all, I wanted to do this naturally!

Two years later we were expecting our third child, Luke. But as the pregnancy grew closer to the end, the doctor warned that it looked like we would need to do a C-section based on the baby’s position and the location of the placenta. What a shock for a “natural” mom like me to hear that this next delivery was going to be as far from natural as it can get. Sure enough, Luke was delivered by cesarean, and we were just thankful that both mother and baby were healthy and alive after it was all over.

At this point in my story, my doctor retired and I had to choose a new doctor. What a difficult decision to make, but God seemed to very clearly lead us to Dr. Harold Nord. So when I found I was pregnant with Amelia, we started seeing Dr. Harold for our care. My desire was again to try to have this next baby naturally. My due date came and went, and when I was a week overdue, we finally decided to induce labor. I hoped that labor would go quickly since this was my fourth child. However, labor took all day and Amelia wasn’t born until after 1 a.m. the next morning. I did get through it without any further drugs than the labor-inducing drugs, but it was a very long, slow, intense process.

By the time I was ready to have baby number five, I had given up on the idea of ever going into labor naturally, and we decided to induce labor a week early so Miguel could be born on his daddy’s birthday. Again, I hoped labor would go quickly, but again, I labored very long and it seemed to take forever. By the time this baby was born, I was exhausted and discouraged and I felt that I never wanted to do this again.

So when I knew I was expecting Judah, I took the encouragement of my sister and decided that I would at least try the option of having an epidural. We waited to have labor induced until his due date, and then we headed to the hospital for the very long process that we have learned is called “labor and delivery”. But this time, I had the hope of not suffering so much during labor. When I requested the epidural, and then it started to take effect, I was in amazement at how wonderful labor was without all the pain. On top of that, since I was so relaxed, labor progressed more quickly than usual, and Judah was born by 10 pm. I decided that if I was not to be allowed to go into labor naturally, that having an epidural was certainly the way to go.

As God would have it, we were given the gift of Baby Lilly, and we eagerly anticipated her December birth. My deepest heart’s desire was that by some miracle I would actually go into labor naturally and that I could try to experience natural labor and natural delivery without any drug intervention. But I knew that the odds of it happening were very low. When my due date arrived, I talked to the doctor about what we should do. He encouraged us to be willing to schedule an induction, especially with the terrible weather and ice storms that kept hitting our area. He said that having family lined up ahead of time to help is much preferred to scrambling around at the last minute with the stress of labor added into the mix. Before I had the conversation with him, I prayed that God would give my doctor a very definite opinion on what we should do, since usually Dr. Harold is very laid-back and relaxed about things. Sure enough, no matter what argument I presented to the contrary, he had an answer as to why scheduling this baby for Tuesday morning was the best thing to do. I went home with my answer, and we prepared to have a baby. We worked hard all day Monday to accomplish as much as we could on our house project. We invited my brother, David, to spend the night Monday night so that he wouldn’t have to try to drive through the ice that was scheduled to arrive during the night. I packed my bag, and went to bed, somewhat apprehensive Monday night about the big day coming on Tuesday.

Around 12:30 Tuesday morning I woke up to use the bathroom, as was very common for me to do, and I could not get back to sleep. I tossed and turned and worried and wondered about my big day up ahead. I adjusted pillows and tried to get comfortable. About the time I would get comfy, I would have to disrupt everything so I could waddle off to the potty again. By around 2 a.m. I finally realized that I was having some fairly strong and regular Braxton-Hicks contractions. So then that started keeping me awake as I pondered what it would feel like to actually GO into labor. I’ve not had much experience with that, so even though this was my seventh baby, I was quite clueless as to how to determine true labor pains. I wasn’t sure if I should wake up Michael or not, but Judah solved that problem for me by coming to our room and crying and needing attention. I took him to the potty and then since Michael was awake, I went ahead and told him that I wondered if I might be in labor. I told him I was going to take a shower, and that I would wake him up if anything came of my suspicions. Even while I was in the shower, the mild yet more-intense contractions kept up their pattern, and I even felt a little nauseous, which is typical for me when in labor. So after my shower I got dressed and took the laptop computer out to the living room where I flipped the switch on the gas fireplace and sat down to see if my sister-in-law, Mary, who lives in Taiwan, was anywhere near her computer. Sure enough, Mary was there, and eager to hear if I had any news. I told her that I wondered if I might be in labor, but that I wasn’t sure, and I wanted her advice. Since Mary has gone into labor naturally more than I have, I felt she might recognize the signs. I described the contractions and where they seemed to be focused. She asked how far apart they were, so I started timing them. About 3-4 minutes apart seemed to be the case. She said that it sure could be labor, and that I shouldn’t wait too long to go to the hospital.

I probably would have waited longer to wake Michael up, but since we had an appointment for 7 a.m. that very morning, I figured that going in a few hours early would be ok. So a little after 3 a.m. I woke up Michael and said that I felt I should go ahead and get to the hospital. He took a shower while I laid down to see if anything would relax and subside. By the time Michael got out of the shower, I was not in any better shape, so I popped up and started to gather things to get ready to go.

Since my brother was already here and sound asleep, we didn’t need to make any phone calls or wake up any relatives. Michael went out to see how icy the car was, and to our surprise, the ice hadn’t come yet, and it was just wet and rainy out there. What a blessing to not have to scrape ice! I woke up Luke, whose turn it was to attend a baby’s birth, and I also woke up Laura so she could come crawl into our bed and keep Judah company until he woke up. I found it fascinating, as I shook Laura and said her name, that when I said, “I think I might be in labor, so I need you to come sleep in our bed…”, her first response was to yawn and say, “Oh! Congratulations!”

We got to the hospital around 4 a.m. and they got us set up in a delivery room. They asked all the inane questions required of them by hospital policy, gave me my own personal copy of the privacy laws, and then we settled in to wait and see what would happen. Shortly after 5 a.m. they called my doctor to give the report that I was having regular contractions and was dilated to 3 cm. (Remember, we’re heading to 10 cm before it’s all said and done.)

Dr. Harold had a scheduled c-section at the other hospital in town at 7:30 a.m., so he promised he’d stop by after that to check on me.

The nurse predicted that the doctor would order some Pitocin to supplement my natural labor, and I didn’t argue with her. I sure didn’t know what was going to happen. I did worry a little that since my contractions were still staying about 3.5 minutes apart that it wasn’t going to work very well that way. But the pain was very mild and tolerable, so I just let it go. My statement all along was that if I had to have labor induced, I’d ask for an epidural, but if I went into labor naturally I would try it without an epidural. (As you can imagine, I fully expected to have an epidural again for this labor!)

The nurse checked me before Dr. Harold came, and she felt I was at 5 cm already. When the doctor arrived shortly after 8 a.m., he said that I was probably closer to 7 cm. He broke my water and then headed to his office which adjoins the hospital. Once the water was broken, my contractions were definitely more painful. The nurse asked me, “Do you want an epidural?” Even with the cloud of labor hovering over me, I knew that at the rate I was going, this baby would be born soon. The time it would take and the discomfort involved with an epidural just wasn’t worth it, so I declined her offer.

Can you believe that even at this stage, the contractions were still about 3 minutes apart? So even with more-painful labor, the pains only came every 3 minutes or so.

According to the nurse’s story later, within 25 minutes I was ready to start pushing and they were hollering for the doctor to come back and deliver this baby.

If you have never experienced the natural forces involved with delivering a baby, you can’t understand how impossible it is for a person NOT to push when all of your body is bearing down on that baby. But still the nurses and my dear husband were hollering and scolding and cajoling for all they were worth with every contraction, “Don’t push! Wait for Dr. Harold! Don’t push! Breathe through it!” As much as I wanted to please them and be an obedient girl, there was only so much I could do to avoid pushing. As long as the contraction was only at it’s beginning stages, I could avoid the urge. But as the contraction would swell and intensify, there was nothing I could do to avoid the pushing instinct. (It also occurred to me that as much as folks wanted to yell and scold, there was nothing they could do to prevent me from pushing, either. )

Fortunately Dr. Harold’s office is close-by, and within minutes his comforting voice filled the delivery room with the wonderful statement, “You can push as much as you want now.” I have no idea how long he was there before the baby was born, since I was a bit distracted with my task at hand, but I worked as hard as I could to obey my labor coaches and my doctor, and before I could make any threats to never do this again, my daughter was born and the pain vanished like the wind. Immediately I was trying to sit up and see my baby. The doctor handed her to me as quickly as he could, and I held this little miracle in my arms. It was all done shortly before 9 a.m.

So, to recap, labor started somewhere around 2 a.m., and didn’t get really intense until around 8 a.m., and the baby was born by 9 a.m. That’s only seven hours from the very start until the finish!

On top of it all, I was only a few days past my due date.

As I thought back over the sequence of events, I was astounded at how God had worked out every little detail. We had childcare already arranged, an appointment at the hospital, and that’s exactly when God allowed me to go into labor.

I’m claiming this as my best Christmas gift ever. It’s what I really wanted, and if it never happens again, at least I’ll have experienced it once in my life.