the story of Emmy’s birth

I am so pleased to present this birth story, written by Emmy’s mother, Cyndi.  Enjoy!  

THE FIRST DAYS OF PREGNANCY- 
It was a Friday night in April of 2005 and I was visiting with two girlfriends at home, my husband Mike was in New Zealand visiting family. I had suspicions of being pregnant already because I had become very in touch with my body since doing Natural Family Planning, so I mentioned it to my girlfriends and they insisted on going to the store to pick me up a pregnancy test… 20 min. later they were back and demanding I present them with the results. So I returned from the bathroom in disbelief, they insisted I take another test using the alternative method… I did, and how I wish I could say that we all stopped and thanked God for what would be the greatest blessing of my life, but we all exclaimed with expletives and disbelief… I immediately got on the phone to New Zealand and Mike was not available, I was going crazy, I so badly wanted him to know our news. But ironically he was visiting his then 5 year old daughter. So many thoughts went through my head on how he would find out today after having been with his daughter, which was so complicated and I wondered how it would effect this significant moment of ours. After my 4th call to him I finally reached him and told him our news. All he said was, “weird”… Which pretty much summed up how I felt about it all as well. I wanted to share this part of the story because I think there’s a lot of people that aren’t immediately filled with feelings of joy and delight. For us it took some time to get used to the idea of our lives completely changing. And I know for my husband there was a lot to reconcile in his mind about the last time he experienced pregnancy and how this time might be different. 

DISCOVERING OUR BIRTHING STORY- 
As time went on and my morning sickness disappeared, I got passionate and excited about what was to be my birth story. All through and even before my pregnancy, I had many women around me that I admired and respected to take notes from, I felt so thankful that I had these different birthing stories and experiences to draw from and figure out what God had for our family and our story.

My prenatal care however, was a different story, I was often disappointed and frustrated by the lack of information I was given. Our visits were very brief and unless I had questions to ask there was very little that she shared with me. And when I did ask questions, she seemed irritated by me and my “out of the box” thinking. This often made me think of the countless women who didn’t have the examples I had and just went through their pregnancies barely educated and usually compliant with whatever their doctor desired. I wondered if they wanted to question if there might be a better way for them and their babies, but were too intimidated by their doctors, or if they just believed because of the plaque on their wall no questions were needed, that they could trust everything to their hands. Maybe I err on the side of being cynical but this complete trust in the establishment frustrates me. I think doctors can take advantage of our ignorance and intimidate us with their degrees. But thankfully, I felt empowered to follow through with my convictions no matter how many times my doctor looked down her nose at me, and it was all because there had been girls that had gone before me and shared their stories with me! Ironically my doctor was pregnant and didn’t tell me. She had her son a few weeks before Emmy was born, so she didn’t end up attending my birth anyways.
The Bradley Method-

By the suggestion of a friend who’s birthing story I was excited by, my husband and I decided to take Bradley method classes which lasted 12 weeks. The class was so informative and empowering. We learned all about the different drugs that are used today in delivery, and their side effects, we learned about the natural drugs that God has put in our bodies to deal with the experience of delivery. Nutrition, relaxation, labor and delivery post-partum care was all included and we learned a lot. Bradley method pays particular attention to husband coached birthing, and Mike did an amazing job! To start with he was uninterested, but he gave it a shot and by the end he was really proud when we graduated, it was cute. Going through the class together solidified our plan. We decided that we wanted to labor at home for as long as possible with as little medical intervention as possible and then deliver at the hospital…

SHE’LL BE COMIN’ AROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES-
Emmy’s due date was Friday the 13th of January, but there was nothing unlucky about this little one, she was gracious enough to come early for me! You might not think 77 hours of labor is “lucky” but in hind site, I do…Friday the 30th of December, Mike and I went for a 2 mile walk and returned home to meet for the first time my soon to be step dad, we sat and chatted for a while but I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable and told Mike that I thought my labor had begun. We got out the stop watch that has been ceremonially passed on from the Coughrans to the Samstags and now the Weeks, and began we to chart. 14 min. apart is how they started and each day they got a little closer. Now that may have been Braxton and Hicks but there wasn’t a break they just kept on truckin’ and got a little closer and a little closer.

So no sleep for me Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night you get the idea. We went on with life, even went out to lunch with friends and breakfast New Years day! Ran into Tiger Woods at Coco’s and someone there suggested they get me to the hospital and quick! But they didn’t know what I knew… If I had gone to the hospital, I’m sure the regular regiment of pitocin would have on the agenda and a premature breaking of my water and that’s just not what I wanted. So I had to deal with doubts in myself and wondering if she would really ever come.

We managed to walk again on Monday in spite of the intense pain during the contractions, but I’d just hold on to Mike and people would drive by and probably think we were having a sweet moment… little did they know. I believe my water broke sometime this day, but I still really don’t know as it was such a slow trickle.

71 HOURS AND COUNTING-
Around 8pm my close friend Desi and her husband who had hoped to attend my birth had to get going home to Washington, but I protested, I said I think my contractions are close enough that we could go to the hospital, will you stay? And so they did and so we went. The drive there was intense, but Mike reminded me to relax through my contractions, which took every bit of strength I could muster, but it really worked. I got to the hospital and gave them my birthing plan, they measured me and I was at 5cm! Hooray! The nurse asked me how we were going to manage the pain, and I told her, I was just gonna have a good attitude. She looked at me almost amazed, and said “oh, you’re gonna be fine.” But that didn’t mean that the next six hours weren’t intense.

My mom and good friend Jamie arrived, they had my worship music and birthing ball and they did all they could to help keep me comfortable. Looking back I feel so blessed to have had all of these wonderful people there with me for this experience, each one brought something so important to my labor. The nurses came in and out of the room every once in a while, but really they let me and my friends and family to the work, it was great!I had pretty bad back labor, so my girlfriend’s husband, Mike C. (who is by the way, a nurse) was assigned to putting pressure on my back, my Mike was assigned to hold my hand and remind me to relax to breathe. Desi and Jamie took turns rubbing my legs and feet, they encouraged me, and showed me how my last contraction had gone off the chart, haha, it was intense! All the while it never entered my mind to use drugs, but I do remember thinking, this is why women want drugs. But all the while I reminded myself and Desi that it was do-able. She was planning on getting pregnant soon and I wanted to be a good example to her, they say you do crazy things in labor…

Transitional labor was definitely crazy, I couldn’t really control myself as far as the relaxation exercises during the contractions, but I kept preaching to my soul, saying just get through this one Cyndi. I was pretty focused.

And then it came, it was finally time to push, and it was completely surreal, I might as well have been about to be abducted by aliens, I couldn’t believe this moment in my life was actually here. That I was really gonna push a baby out of me and be forever changed. I felt very disconnected from the whole experience, mainly just focused on getting thru the pain. I pushed so hard, I bared down and used every bit of strength I could muster and got her out in 4 contractions about 12 min. which was crazy! I popped all these blood vessels all over my arms and chest and huge ones in my eyes… whoops! Don’t push with your face ;]

AND BABY MAKES THREE-
The doctor who delivered her arrived 7 minutes before she was born, this really encouraged me that I could do it in the future at home if God provided for that. After she came out we let her cord pulsate and then Mike cut it. They put her on my tummy and I got her to latch on right away. I have to tell you, it was so bizarre, I didn’t feel all the feelings of love that I expected my self to feel right away. Some might say Cortisol was the culprit here, but I couldn’t possibly take in all that this little person meant in that moment, it was intense trying to understand who she was, what Mike and I had just become, it still is complicated in my mind. But in this I think there is an important lesson that in hind site I’m thankful for. This is where I realized that attachment parenting is just as much for Mom and Dad as it is for baby. If I hadn’t learned all I had about bonding we could have missed a very critical step in growing close as a family. If I would have let my feelings do my decision making, Emmy would’ve gone to the nursery and I would’ve slept, and we would have missed some of the most critical bonding moments for all of us, not just her.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY-
Before I stated that I felt my 77 hour labor was “lucky”, a blessing… and I do believe that, if I had listened to conventional medicine, I would have gone to the hospital too early and the experience I believe that God had for us, might not have happened as I believe there would have been intervention to “get me going.” 77 hours seems like a ridiculously long time, but it was exactly how my body decided to progress, and maybe my labor was less painful this way, just more of an endurance game for me.

I truly believe that each one of us has a God ordained story that no one else should get to decide. I don’t want to alienate anyone by saying this, but I do pray that women wouldn’t be motivated by fear when deciding their birthing story, but be encouraged by the millions of women who have gone before us successfully delivering their babies without intervention. Having said that, I mean no condemnation for women who need intervention, praise God for modern medicine and the countless lives it’s saved! But I confess that I wish there would be a paradigm shift in the mind set of pregnant women, to see medicine as a last resort, instead of their first course of action. I know that some women just couldn’t go on with out the assistance of drugs, and so for that I am thankful for them, but I do believe God has designed our bodies to give birth, and I can say I’ve never experienced anything as empowering as delivering my little girl naturally.

Thanks for the chance to share my story I pray that it is a blessing for someone out there!