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Peter’s Birth Story

My greatest piece of advice to anyone awaiting a baby’s birth is now: Don’t have ANY expectations. I’ve learned at least that over the course of 3 births.

Peter’s birth was about what I expected, and yet completely different from what I had envisioned. How often I’d troll through pinterest, checking out all of the homebirth and water birth photography, with beautiful glowing mothers welcoming their little ones into the world, supported by those they loved, and photographed beautifully through the course of labor.

None of those photographs happened for me, and yes, a part of me is a bit sad that I will never have those pictures of laboring and our little ones being born. I had mentioned how much I had wanted to just experience and enjoy this laboring and delivery, and I did, but it was all too short {I know, I’m weird to complain about that}.

The weekend I was 40 weeks {June 13th} we stayed home with the kids and did some belly finger painting. By Sunday night we figured we’d probably have another week of no baby and soldiered into the week. I wasn’t having any contractions or anything else that was hinting at labor.

Monday. Nothing.

Monday night I slept kind of crappy. I kept waking up every few hours and having to go pee, a bit of contractions when I was awake, but nothing to even mention.

Tuesday dawned per usual. I made the kids breakfast, we picked up a bit, and played outside. At that point my back was starting to hurt every so often, but again, nothing regular, nothing like contractions.

I posted this picture of Avelyn playing “mommy” around 9:15 on Instagram….

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And Ellie took this picture of me at 10:00, the last of me pregnant….

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My sister was planning on coming down in the afternoon, around 3:30, so that I could go and sign the kids up for swimming lessons at 5pm. My mom was on the route with my dad {doing what I used to do}, Matt was at my parents’ house receiving deliveries, and I was just continuing on.

By noon I called my midwife to tell her that I was having contractions, but nothing regular, nothing increasing, nothing intense. I was texting back and forth with my mom and Matt. By 2pm I had called my midwife and told her it was contractions, she cleared her calendar for the afternoon and got ready to come over and I told Matt to have his mom come down because the kids were driving me batty during contractions.

My mother in law was here around 2:30pm and we were working on filling the birth pool when Matthew showed up at 3pm. Oh boy! Was I glad to see him! My sister arrived around 3:15…we chit-chatted between contractions for a bit, but then I had to focus too much. It was all in my back and they came hard, fast, and boy did they hurt!

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I’ve never had back labor before, but it was something I was kind of expecting given the anterior placenta. Let me just say, it wasn’t fun and nothing could’ve prepared me for it. My mom arrived just before 4pm, straight from the route, donned my pajama bottoms and Matt’s shirt and got to work.

As my contractions grew stronger and closer my mom and Matt had to push on my back and hips as hard as possible…it was the only way I could handle them. I had tried kneeling the way I had with Avie, leaning on my yoga ball, and standing…none of those positions were helping. The best I could do was lie in bed during the contractions and focus on them, rather than just being uncomfortable.

At 4:05pm I had another strong contraction and felt my water break {kept waiting all day for that to happen, to confirm I was in labor and tell people to come}. I got up to go to the bathroom, leaking, and by the time I was walking back out of the bathroom I felt like I needed to push. The midwife wasn’t here yet.

For the next 20 minutes I literally had my legs crossed, lifting my belly, trying to keep this little one from being born. The midwife raced up the stairs just before 4:30 and I got in position to push. A couple of pushes and we had a head, shoulders. The baby just kind of chilled and the next contraction our little boy was born at 4:35 pm!

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It was intense! After he was born I felt like my legs were jelly and my back was finished. I was winded after all of that and felt like I had just run flat out for my life. He was born an hour after I started to have regular and intense contractions, 30 minutes after my water broke, and I think he would’ve been born earlier if I had let him.

Then I realized I never even had a chance to get in the pool!

For the first hour he lay on my chest and nursed a bit and we all kind of sat there in awe. In awe of him, in awe of how fast everything was, in awe of the fact that we did it! We had our baby at home! {and almost without a midwife…I was to the point that I couldn’t hold off anymore when she walked in the door. I was literally praying, Lord, let her get here NOW!}.

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We then cut the cord…

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got him weighed…IMG_1733

and still didn’t have a name. It was an incredible experience and one I would gladly do again.

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Our first family picture. The kids were a bit crazy!

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But, at least someone got to enjoy the pool…

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How will I shape my children and their faith?

Other parts from this series, Finding Faith
I. Where do you come from?
II. Do you own your faith?
III. Where is my faith going?
IV. How will I shape my children and their faith?

I touched on this idea a bit in my last post, a very little bit. To me, this is something I pray about more than I do my own faith. This, to me, is the very crux of my existence. How and what will I do that will help my children become the followers of Christ that I long for them to become?

I honestly lay awake at night, sometimes working myself into a frenzy about all the ways I am FAILING miserably in this.
A while back I read a book entitled “When You Rise Up” by RC Sproul, which revolutionized my entire thinking about raising successful children. It redefined, for me, what I think of as “Success”.

I think this is one of the biggest points of contention between Christian parents: Do I raise a child with the idea of making them successful by the world’s standard? or by God’s standard?

But so many parents, myself included, get blinded by raising children that will be successful in the world, with only a passing, secondary thought to their success by God’s standard. Which is more important to me, that they live a God-Glorifying life or one that is successful and self-serving? God-Glorifying absolutely. Hands down. No argument.

But what about their success in the world? They need to be educated, they need to know how to function and operate in this world. Yes, they do. But through living a God-Glorifying life they will be successful and ultimately better able to function in this world.

To the world, my husband and I are not successful people. We scrape by each month, with nothing saved for our retirement. We live in and old house, that is literally falling down around us {our back foundation is crumbling under a poorly constructed addition}. Our cars are not fancy. Our clothes are not designer. We are that family that others look at and think, “Sheesh, and they have HOW MANY kids?!”

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
~Matthew 6:26
Now, I’m not saying we’re successful by God’s standards, we fail miserably at living a life that glorifies Him. BUT we seek to trust Him. We seek HIM. We know that He will take care of us and provide for us, through and in all things. Even when we start to get a bit squeamish about being able to pay the bills.

Honestly, I can’t guarantee that my children will grow to love the Lord as they should, glorifying Him in all things, trusting Him through all things. But, I can start by redefining what I consider to be success, to be most important. We can live in abject fear that if they are not drilled on worldly subjects that they will end up homeless and incapable of providing for themselves and their families. Or we can trust in God’s faithfulness.

Now, does that mean I’m going to let formal education take a back seat, not bothering to educate my children in the subjects of worldly success? No, it doesn’t. In order to glorify God, we must educate ourselves and our children in His word. We have to know how to fight against our enemies, and the way we do that is by knowing our enemies and how and why they do and believe as they do.

“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
~Deuteronomy 6:6-7

So what exactly are we DOING then?

Right now, we’re memorizing bible verses, we’re reading the bible together, we’re reading bible verses, we sing songs that praise God, we talk about the things that God wants us to do, what things we can do for others to show them God, we spend time together, as a family, praying and worshiping {it is for this reason that my children won’t attend a Sunday school class that takes place during worship}.

We have begun doing the little things, which will, prayfully, turn into the big things. And even at these things we fail miserably, but that’s where trusting Him comes in. Even if we don’t do these things all the time, we are trusting that the time that we do spend in these things to Him.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little series of mine. That it has, in some way encouraged you as well as made you think. I’m sure there will be more to this someday, but for now I rest all of these words in His hands, to do with as He pleases.
Amen.

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