Positive Natural Birth Story In A Hospital
In honor of our little guy’s 2nd birthday, I want to share his unplanned (but prayed for) natural birth story before I forget all the details of that night…..I really should’ve done this a lot sooner!
First, let me give you a little bit of backstory.
I thought for sure I was done having babies. My boys were already 15 and 13 years old, I was in full raising teenagers mode. Within the last two years I had donated all the baby gear and clothes I’d been holding on to for years.
We had our first baby the same year we were married so we never really had any married alone time together. We were already dreaming of all the things we would do in the next few years after our boys graduated high school.
God however had other plans for us!
In August of 2019, I found out I was expecting my third baby. I took a pregnancy test in a bathroom stall at the mall. When those two little pink stripes showed up, I had a flurry of emotions, happy with little bit of shock and sadness if that makes any sense. I went to my car, prayed over the baby growing in my belly and drove home in silence thinking about how much life was about to change for our family.
I kept the news to myself not even telling my husband for a couple of days. Just needed to digest the news by myself first.
I told my husband at 2 o’clock in the morning one night after waking him up with all my tossing and turning, and then we both told our boys the following day. They were ecstatic!
Early Pregnancy
I waited to make an appointed to get checked until I was well over 12 weeks along. I had already started my journey into all things natural living, so I decided to find a midwife that also delivered babies in a hospital setting, hoping to have a natural birth but still too nervous to try a home birth.
The first trimester was like all my others, with pretty bad morning sickness.
I was still struggling with having a baby at this point in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED the baby growing inside of me but I was struggling emotionally.
I dived even deeper into all things natural living. It helped me, I think, not wallow in my shaky emotional state. I looked closer at labels in our food, cleaning supplies and hygienic products. I started shopping in a much more conscious way. At the same time, I made the decision to be very minimal in the things we purchased for baby. Since I was planing on going all organic and non-toxic for baby clothes and supplies, there was no way we could afford all the baby things anyway!
The Pandemic Hits
We had my baby shower March 14, 2020 and on March 17th Utah declared a state of emergency. The Corona virus that we had been hearing about for moths had reached the state of Utah. Everything shut down. Later that same week my husbands mom passed away (completely unrelated to the virus).
So there I was 8 months pregnant in the middle of a world wide pandemic, mourning with my husband the loss of his mom, and completely terrified of having to go into a hospital to give birth- hello! there were corona patients in there! But even more terrified that I would HAVE to give birth at home. There was just so much uncertainty about everything in those days.
Praying Like I’ve Never Prayed Before!
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Praying every free minute of the day, and every sleepless night until the baby came.
I prayed for peace and health.
I had been seeing a group of midwives but really felt comfortable with one specific midwife, so I prayed that she would be the one on call the night I went into labor.
Prayed for strength to be able to have a natural birth EVEN though I had not prepared for it mentally or physically.
I didn’t want to spend more time than absolutely necessary in the hospital, so prayed for labor to go quickly.
My husband’s job was never affected by the pandemic so I prayed for him to be home when I went into labor.
During this time I read the book Anxious For Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World by Max Lucado. In it he talks about praying for every little detail that worries you. He says nothing is too insignificant, bring everything before the father in prayer.
So that’s what I did. I prayed for e-v-e-r-y small detail I was loosing sleep over.
Ultimately just praying for God’s good and perfect will to be done.
Unconventional Natural Birth
We had spent our entire Saturday not doing much, the entire world was in quarantine after all. My mom called in the late afternoon asking how I was doing. I was 39 weeks pregnant at this point. I told her I was fine and there were still no signs of baby coming any time soon.
By 9pm we had kissed our boys goodnight and were all heading to bed. But our lazy uneventful Saturday quickly turned into a night none of us will soon forget.
At around 9:30pm I started to feel contractions, nothing too painful but definitely noticeable. I told my husband, but neither one of us thought anything of them at first.
By 10 o’clock I was definitely feeling pain so we started timing the contractions. We didn’t know this at the time but our 15 year old son had been sitting outside our bedroom door after hearing some commotion from his bedroom.
Contractions were about 5 minutes apart, so at 10:30 we decided to start heading to the hospital. The hospital is a 45 minute drive from our home (we live in a small rural town). We gathered our things and told my son we would see him soon. I walked out to the car and sent my mom a quick text telling her we were on our way to the hospital.
We hadn’t been driving for 5 minutes when the pain started getting unbearable! contractions were so close together and labor progressed so quickly. My water broke and I could feel the baby’s head start to crown.
I can’t imagine how panicked my poor husband must have been with me screaming and him trying to get to the hospital on time without getting pulled over.
We arrived at the hospital at 11:10pm and by 11:15pm I was holding a healthy baby boy in my arms! It was a whirlwind of a night!
Answered Prayers
Although not exactly the way I expected things to go, God answered my prayers the night our son was born.
Because baby came in such a hurry none of the midwives were there when he was born but the on call midwife who checked on us that night was who I prayed for.
I was able to experience a quick all natural birth, not in the beautiful way I imagined but natural nonetheless!
And we spent exactly 24 hours in the hospital, not bad for a hospital birth I think.
Our Family Today
Now almost two years later, I’m the blessed mama of three handsome boys ages 16, 14, and almost 2.
Being their mom and my husbands wife is my calling in this life, and I wouldn’t change a thing!
Now when I think about having more kids, I try to keep an open mind and leave it in the Lord’s hands, whatever he has in store for our family is fine with me.
From The Blog on Motherhood
