The Story of Asher's Birth...

After recently reading this amazing birth story it has inspired me to write my own.  Some of you may already know this story, others may only know parts, and some of you may know nothing so here it is...

It's hard to believe that it is really almost 4 years since this event as it seems not that long ago and some of the emotion of it all still lingers to this day.  I recall having a fairly good pregnancy and enjoying it with the exception of two small scares when we thought that we had lost him.  I remember early on in my pregnancy I was really jumpy, small things would scare me and I was a bit nervy.  I also recall being sooo tired after work some days that I literally had to have Brad pick me up off the couch and help me to the dinner table.  But all in all my pregnancy was good.  About 1/3 of the way in a friend gave me a book called "Supernatural Childbirth", another friend had told me about it and I was keen to read it.  It did wonders for my faith and there was specific prayers that we could pray in it - it was really good.  Brad and I prayed all sorts of things over our baby (good things of course) and when we found out that 'it' was actually a he I recall being disappointed as I had longed for a girl and I cried a fair bit that day.  However, when asking God why He hadn't answered my prayer He simply answered, "This boy is for Brad."  I felt much comfort from that moment on and then did what any sane pregnant woman would do - went shopping!  I bought the cutes two outfits I could find.   Shopping for a boy was different as I had never done that and when in baby stores naturally had always gravitated to the pink!  But it was fun all the same.

As we lived in Melbourne, my mum was a 2 hour flight away (and my sister) and so when it came close to when I was due Mum flew up 2 weeks before just incase and Jules a week before.  Unfortunately for Jules, Asher decided not to come when due but 10 days after much to Julie's disappointment, as she was ready to be in the delivery room with us!  Before she left I entrusted her with the biggest secret we had been holding on to - the baby's name! 

A few days later my Dad arrived for a short visit, we knew that I would be induced any day so he was sure to meet his first grandson.  The night he arrived (Dad that is), I didn't feel like eating dinner and my back was really sore.  We had done a lot of shopping in the past few days and it had been fun freaking out shop assistants when they asked when I was due. I would tell them, "Any minute now!"  I had always thought I would have been scared to go into labour in public but when you are 10 days over, its a loooong 10 days and you don't care where you go into labour.  I digress, after sitting and still feeling huge back pain that evening, I realised that every so often it would subside and then mum realised that I was having contractions!  I had no idea what I had been expecting but I think I thought I would feel it in a different place, but the pain was all in my back.  Now we had a dilemma, should Brad go and get Dad from the airport or get our good friends to go?  I figured it would be a long while so I sent him.  Dad was amazed when they were driving back and he casually asked Brad how I was, to get the reply, "Oh she is having contrations."  HA.

The pains were 5 minutes apart from the very first time that I timed them.  By 12pm that night we called the hospital and they said if things didn't change in an hour to come in.  So we did.  They checked me over and said I was only like 1cm.  So they sent us home and told me to go to sleep.  I was REALLY tired and knew I would need the energy but every time I laid down I was in soo much pain that I couldn't sleep.  It was really cold being Melbourne and the middle of winter.  I didn't want to wake Brad more than I had to so I went into the baby room and turned on the heater and prayed.  By about 3am I had had enough, and I thought that my waters had broken, so action stations... off we went for the second time that night (mum included) to the hospital, before leaving I KNEW my waters had broken.  YAY!

What I haven't told you, is that one major thing we had prayed for was that the birth would be quick, pain free and natural and I wouldn't need drugs.  I know some of you are thinking - YEAH RIGHT!  But we truly were believing for this knowing that others had had this experience.  When we got to the hospital all sorts of things started to happen, first they said I was only 4cm and that it would be a while and they nearly sent me back home again but because my waters had broken they couldn't as I had to have some injection - I don't recall what though now.  I was instructed that a shower would help and they sent me in for one... oks had had this experience.  When we got to the hospital all sorts of things started to happen, first they said I was only 4cm and that it would be a while and they nearly sent me back home again but because my waters had broken they couldn't as I had to have some injection - I don't recall what though now.  I was instructed that a shower would help and they sent me in for one... ok here is where is gets funny, picture this (not in too much detail though)... Me on a fit ball in a shower, with not much pressure (Melbourne was in a drought) Brad with his jeans rolled up using the nozzle to hose me, me saying "Here, here, here." (The parts that were cold.) I was freezing and trying not to slip off the fit ball all whilst having contractions!  Needless to say I felt MUCH better, dry and back in my clothes!

My doctor came in at about 8am before going into her practice to check on me and said she would be back around lunchtime.  By the next visit she said I should have some stuff to make the contractions stronger so it would quicken the process, so at 2pm I was given and epidural.  This was a tough choice as I wanted to go the whole way without drugs and I felt like I was letting all the prayer that we had done be tossed aside, but I decided then and there that it was in God's hands.  I was worried when they gave me the needles for the epidural that Brad would faint!  He didn't thankfully.  I remember being so relaxed after the epidural and Brad massaging my feet which felt odd as I couldn't feel them.  I recall the doctor coming back that afternoon and saying that if I wasn't progressing by 6pm she would book me in for a cesarean.  Things didn't progress any faster and as time was ticking on and a few other things (won't go into the gory) happened I was booked for a cesarean.  This was NOT how we had intended this birth to go.  Needless to say I was not happy but knew I just had to go with it.

When they came up to get me for surgery I was asked to "shimmy" onto the trolly bed.  I looked at the wardsman and the midwives to see if they were joking, (by this stage I had had a full spinal block ready for surgery) I moved as much as I could which included just my head, and I said - "This is me shimmying!"  We all laughed and then what felt like everyone in the room, helped to move me.  (I felt quite large at that moment!)  I recall telling the anesthetist that I was worried again that Brad would faint if he could see over the curtain blocking us from seeing the surgery.  She was so good, and made sure it was up super high for him.  They then told me that when I heard a gurgling noise it meant they were about to pull the baby out and I would hear crying, I did.  The first view they gave me of my son was not of his face, but the other end - the end which confirmed he was all boy!  This is when I started to get sad.  They took him off to the table to check him out and clean him up and they let Brad go and look at him and take pictures etc.  I couldn't move anything but my head remember.  They put the baby on me, and I wanted to have skin contact with him and look at him properly and just marvel at him.  But he was taken away again and then with him so was Brad.  I think I told Brad not to let him out of his sight and to go with him.  I knew they were stitching me up or so I thought but was told later that there were complications with my uterus and I vaguely recall the word "hysterectomy" being said, but I was sooo tired and wanted to sleep but I could also hear my heartbeat monitor and I thought it was sounding really slow and I was worried that if I closed my eyes I would never wake up... I prayed desperately that God wouldn't let me die and my boy and man would not be with out me.  The nurse asked if I was tired and I said yes, she gave me oxygen and said it was ok to go to sleep.  So I did.

Thankfully, I woke up in the recovery room, I have no idea how long later with a nurse by my side.  I was numb.  Not only physically, but in every other way.  I had just had a baby extracted from me, I didn't even give birth!  He was no where to be seen and I had no way of knowing if he was ok.  I couldn't even talk properly.  All the books you read to prepare you for your first moments of motherhood tell of how wondrous it is and how skin to skin contact is what the baby needs, and how breastfeeding is a fantastic bonding time.  I recall my first movement was me shivering.  I had a tonne of those warm hospital blankets on and still I was cold.  I couldn't stop shaking.  Apparently it was a side effect of the drugs they had administered to me.  I hated that feeling.  I have had that feeling of shivering and not being able to do anything about it before, but this lasted for what seemed like ages.  I had lost alot of blood and they were trying to give me 2 bags of blood in a transfusion, only one bag seemed to agree with me. Which meant I was really weak and literally looked like death warmed up. (Which I saw in the mirror a day or two later.)

After I was stable they let Brad and Mum come and see me and a midwife brang Asher.  She laid him next to me and as I continued to shake uncontrollably he fed his first feed.  It was the weirdest feeling in the world.  I can't say anything about it felt natural, or that we bonded.  I can say that my shaking put him off to sleep pretty quick.  I don't think that I had him for more than 5 minutes before they took him away again.  By this time it was about 10pm or later at night and I knew Brad and Mum were tired.  I told them to go home.  I think they were reluctant but grateful.  I later wished I had told them to stay.

After a while I was wheeled up on the trolly bed to the ward, where I could hear just one baby crying.  My baby.  Even as I sit and write this I can still picture the nurse holding him saying, "It is your baby you can hear."  I hadn't even been a mother for more than a few hours and already I felt like the HUGEST failure.  My baby was crying and I could do NOTHING.  After the wardsman and nurses left me in my room alone, I continued to listen to nothing else but Asher crying.  Tears streamed out and in the semi darkness of the room, I felt like I was in a huge black hole.  I remember nothing else from that night except looking up into the darkest corner of that room and saying straight to God, "I know you are there, but I don't know where." I felt completely alone.  I think I just cried myself to sleep that night.

Over the next few days I did bond with Asher, but I pushed the thought of his birth aside each day, but at night when I was alone with him the tears would come.  I even recall the last night I was in hospital I bawled when Brad had to go home.  I just wanted him to stay with me.  At home Mum, Dad and Brad were praying for me.  We were all a bit disappointed at how things had happened but each time we looked at a healthy, whole little boy no one could deny that God hadn't ignored our prayers. 

I guess its not really a pleasant "birth" story, but its ours.  My bond with Asher has grown and we have had lots of ups and downs with breastfeeding, and my health, and I it did take a long time for me to even ask the questions I had for God.  My healing has taken place both physically, and spiritually since then.  There are certain things that bring up the memories but they have become good memories not bad ones, and the feeling of being in that dark hole that first night, is not felt any more, but is just that - a memory. 

I thank God for everything that He did that night, delivering a healthy, whole baby and saving me from a hysterectomy and not allowing me to die.  I thank Him for the healing He has done.  I have now come to a place where I am ready to do it all over again.  However, this time, I know that God is in control and I don't have my own ideas of how things will go.  Now, if only I could shut those "what if"'s up this time round would be much more pleasant, but that is another story. 

I'm sorry there are no photos to go with this, I do have plenty but they are not easily accessible at the moment and if I put off posting this - you may not ever get it!