I have a great birth story to share that I am honored to have been a part of, even if I would have changed a couple of things along the way .  I told this mom early this morning that I would have to share her story on my blog, as an encouragement to other moms like me (and so that you could get a good laugh out of how I spent my night).  See, this mom had had a very long first labor- very similar to mine with Harper.  And, like me, she was able to finish it out, have her son where she wanted, and totally natural at that (so proud of her!).  When she asked me to be her doula this time around, with son number two, I was very honored and excited.  And, I began encouraging her about how second babies come so much faster than the first ones do.  We both agreed we hoped this would be the case. 

This week, she called me to tell me her midwife had checked her at an appointment and said she was pretty far along already.  She wasn’t really contracting, but expected when she started that things would probably move fast, and she just wanted to give me a heads up.  She lives outside of west Fort Worth and was planning to birth at a birthing center in Denton, but wanted me to support her in labor at home before going to the center. 

Last night, after being out late with a friend in the hospital, I came home to finish up some work before heading to bed.  At 12:29AM, my phone rang, while I was sitting at the computer.  It was my client on the other end, telling me she had just woken up to her water breaking, and although she wasn’t contracting that much or hard yet, she was ready for me to head to her house.  I quickly gathered my stuff, and headed out the door.  This was easy, I hadn’t even gone to bed yet!  But, when I got in my car, the temperatures had dropped quite a bit and it was raining heavily.  As I got on the highway, there was ice in patches and it was hard to see.  I prayed for safety, protection and for my client to have a wonderful ”butter birth”.  I asked the Lord to put everyone at the right place at the right time, and that I would be able to do what my client needed.  Then, I called my client to check on her and let her know the road conditions, and warn her that I may not be able to get there as fast as I wanted to.  She said things weren’t really bad yet with her contractions, but they were definitely picking up and were stronger and closer together.  Then she asked me if I thought we should go ahead and go to the birth center.  I told her she would have to make this call, but that there would probably be some ice no matter when we went.  She quickly responded, “No, just go ahead and come to my house.”  I was hoping she was progressing nicely, and quite surprised at what long conversations she could have with me without having to put down the phone for a contraction.  She wasn’t even acting irritated in between contractions, as we talked.  We hung up the phone, and I kept driving as fast as I could to get to her, all the while very curious to what the situation was I would find at her house.

Two minutes after we’d hung up the phone, my phone rang again.  “I just spoke to the midwife”, my client reported, “and because of the weather and what’s going on, she wants us to head up to the birth center.  Do you know how to get there, can you meet us there?”  At this point, I was probably very close to arriving at her house.  “Yes”, I replied, “I’ll see you there.”  I turned my car north instead of west, and continued to hurry to my client.  I knew they were behind me, having not left yet, but I knew they’d probably be driving pretty fast. 

The weather definitely got worse as I drove north, and the visibility with all the rain was poor.  It felt like it took forever to get to the center!  I do not like driving by myself in bad weather very late at night!  As I was exiting to the birth center (finally, I had made it!), my phone rang again.  “Cindy, this is ____, ___’s husband.  Where are you?”  His voice was hurried and excited and nervous, all at the same time.  “Turning into the birth center.”  I replied.  “Well, we are at a hospital in southwest Fort Worth.”  I was very confused at this point.  “Okay.”  I replied, thinking whether or not something had gone wrong and why they were still so far behind me.  “We had the baby a few minutes ago.”  He replied, again with excitement.  I was so confused at this point; again, I have had a long day and been driving for quite some time.  I took longer to process what was going on.  It was 1:48AM, only about an hour after her labor had barely started!  “Did you make it into the hospital?”  I questioned.  “Barely.”  He answered.  I could not believe what I was hearing!  All that driving, and I wasn’t going to get to enjoy helping welcome this precious baby boy into the world.  But, as much as I was disappointed to have driven so far and long and have missed the birth, I was so elated for my client that she had had such an incredible, fast birth. 

Still in disbelief, I turned my car around to head back near where I was originally trying to go.  After a lot more driving, I finally arrived at the hospital.  When I walked into my client’s room, I was blessed by her sweet warm smile and her precious baby boy nursing away!  She had the priceless look of love, “I did it” and “I can’t believe it’s over.”

I soon found out that as they were driving to the birth center, she felt a lot of pressure and knew the baby was coming soon.  Her husband asked her if she needed him to pull over at the hospital exit.  She said yes, and then she changed her mind and told him to continue on to the birth center.  But, no sooner than she decided that, she changed her mind again and said, “Just take me to the hospital.”  As they drove up to the emergency room, the baby was crowning.  She barely made it into the ER, and her precious baby boy was born.  Totally different in every way than her first birth!  I told her I was glad she was able to pay attention to what was going on.  I knew she wouldn’t have made it to the birth center, and she would have delivered in her car on a very cold night. 

I was able to enjoy a few hours with them, and got back home at 6:30AM this morning.  We all agree we definitely like birth centers much more than hospitals; however, we are so glad she had such an amazing birth!  As I drove, I couldn’t help but smile and feel such joy and hope.  Maybe my second birth will go that fast…  That was definitely a night to remember, and we will all have something to share with that little boy about the night he was born!

First, a mom whom I had seen throughout her entire pregnancy and planned on assisting with her birth very unexpectedly lost her baby.  Then, a family friend lost his five month old baby.  And, to top it off, two other long time patients had miscarriages- one of whom was expecting twins.

Two funerals in one week can certainly make anyone yearn for the next week to start quickly; to say the past few days have been hard is an understatement.  Plus, I think you take everything a little bit harder when you are a sleep-deprived, hormonal, nursing mom.

I don’t share all of this with you to ask for your notes of sympathy or prayers for me because I had a rough week.  I just wanted to share this to point out some very important lessons I feel I have learned while watching these families gracefully walk through their tragedies.  Man, I hope if I had to experience the same grief that I could handle my situation with the grace that these families did!  I have cuddled with Harper longer this week, cherished the mundane moments and held him a little tighter than normal.  Watching other people loose their children really humbles you as you hold yours.  I told the Lord each morning that I trust His Sovereignty and know He has a plan, even if we don’t always understand it.

In our culture, something I see on a daily basis, is that we are so busy and we really fail to realize how blessed we truly are and cherish every moment.  This is especially true during the life stages of pregnancy and infancy.  How many moms come in savoring every day of pregnancy, especially at the end?  Hardly any!  More often than not, in the last trimester of pregnancy, I am encouraging moms that they will have their babies soon.  They are begging me to use any tricks I have to help them have their babies sooner than later.  They tell their growing babies, “It’s time for you to be evicted!  Mommy wants her body back.  I am so tired of being kicked in the ribs and having to go to the bathroom all the time.  I am so ready to have this baby!”  And what about new moms?  Yes, they appreciate their babies and talk about how cute they are.  But, I know I am just as guilty as anybody, there are also the constant complaints about sleep deprivation and having to feed around the clock and never getting a break.

Well I have a whole new perspective after the past few days.  Unexpected, horrible events have a way of stopping you dead in your tracks and really making you look at life with a whole new perspective.  You know what?  Those parents who lost their babies would kill to live out the worst days of pregnancy and miss out on all those hours of sleep to hold their babies.  I should be so ashamed that I have complained at all, I am so blessed, and I don’t deserve any of it!  If I am blessed to experience the nausea of a pregnancy again, hopefully because of these precious families letting me watch them deal with their tragedies with such poise and grace and being able to learn so much from them, I won’t complain about how I feel.  Instead, I hope I will look at it from the perspective of how blessed I am to carry life.

What a wonderful thing that our bodies are made to force us to rest when we are growing a baby, that they won’t allow us to eat things or breathe in air that would harm our growing child.  When I get to the stage where my joints ache from carrying all that weight, hopefully I won’t moan about it.  Instead, I will hopefully be so grateful to have made it to that point in pregnancy; and, I will cherish every second I have knowing exactly where my baby is and feeling his/her every move.  Right now when Harper is still wanting to wake up constantly, and he wants to nurse after only having gone an hour since the last feeding, I am trying to take my negative thoughts captive.  In this season of Thanksgiving, I have learned a really hard lesson about truly, truly being so very thankful.  What a new, hard perspective to attain!  I hope I can pass this lesson on to other families because we are so blessed…  Beyond measure!  Hold your family extra tight, cherish life!!