Jonah's birth story

Here is Jonah's birth story!  Leading up to Jonah's birth, Peter and I had lots of prayer requests.  We had been praying for a full-term pregnancy, health for myself and for Jonah, a successful VBAC (no C-section), no need to be induced, and an unmedicated birth.  Our desire was to experience Jonah's birth as naturally as possible, with little to no medical intervention.

My personal prayer was that this experience would give me a unique situation in which to rely on God's strength; and that the birth would be an opportunity to see God's amazing handiwork in creating life and designing women to give birth.  1 Peter 4: 12-13 became a birthing verse for me: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you my rejoice with exultation."  Christ spilled His own blood and was pierced in His side, spilling water, after His death.  In this way, Christ's immense sufferings brought life to all who would accept Him as their Savior.  I felt so blessed and honored that my "degree that [I] share the sufferings of Christ" would be to myself have the privilege of spilling blood and water to bring a new life God had created into this world.  My time with God and in His Word was powerful while preparing for Jonah's arrival.  God blessed me in this time, gave me a peace about the birth, and took away any fear of pain.

My due date of December 16th came and went without event.  I had a check up on Friday, December 17th, where I found out I was 3.5 cm dilated, 75% effaced and baby was at 0 station. On Friday night, Peter and I dropped David off with Grammie and Grandpa and went to our church's small group Christmas party.  We had a blast and babies/labor and delivery stories were a big topic of conversation as four of us women in the group were pregnant (three of us all due within a month of each other).  We laughed and played games and joked that we needed lots of laughing to cause labor to start:)


I woke up around 4 am Saturday, December 18th, with contractions strong enough that I couldn't sleep through them.  I took the opportunity to practice relaxing and breathing, got excited that "today is the day!", thought about waking up Peter, then didn't since the contractions didn't seem long, really strong, nor at all regular in timing.  I finally got to sleep a little bit more between 6am-7am when there was about an hour between contractions.  Peter heard me breathing through a contraction sometime after 7am and I told him I thought I was in labor. But I wasn't positive, since I had had an entire day of contractions the Saturday previous that had stopped when I rested.  The only difference this time was that there was some pain, when there hadn't been any before.

We got up and fed David breakfast and got ready for the day.  The contractions were all over the place.  Sometimes 6 minutes apart, sometimes 35 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes.  I told Peter that I really felt like going on a walk, so we bundled up and walked to Qdoba for lunch, then stopped at Target to pick up a few things.  We went to Chris and Craig's house instead of going home.  Paul and Rachel were there, so we put David down for a nap and played games.  Contractions were getting stronger and coming more frequently, though not at regular intervals.  While playing cards, everyone could tell when I was having a contraction because I would have to concentrate REALLY hard to keep playing.  Chris kindly had us stay for dinner.  After dinner, contractions were probably about 10 minutes apart, although I wasn't timing them yet.  We left sometime after 7pm, got home and put David to bed by a little bit after 8pm.  By this time, I couldn't talk through a contraction, and I was pretty sure that we would be needing to wake David up and take him back over to Grammie and Grandpa's sometime that night!

Peter started timing contraction length and intervals.  Now they were getting regular!  While timing, I labored for a little over an hour.  We called my parents and Peter's parents to give them a heads up that we would be heading to the hospital in the next hour or two.  When the contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart, and lasting about 70 seconds, we called the hospital and they said to come on in!  Peter packed a bag for David (we had forgotten to do that:), put in the carseat (we had forgotten to do that too:), and loaded up the car.  I got David up and needed to work through two or three contractions in the time it took Peter to buckle David in.  We left around 10 pm and stopped at Chris and Craig's to drop David off on our way to the hospital.

 Around 10 pm, getting ready to leave for the hospital!!

We arrived at the hospital around 10:30.  I had four contractions in the time it took me to get undressed and into a gown.  The resident came in to check how I was doing.  She had me guess how much I was dilated.  I guessed 5 cm.  She said I was indeed at 5-6cm.  I asked if I could stay up and moving around.  Since I was positive for Group B strep, I needed to get started on IV antibiotics.  So, the resident asked if we could compromise and I would stay in bed for as long as it took to get one dose of antibiotic (about half an hour), after which I would be free to be out of bed.  She also wanted me to lie in bed to prevent my water from breaking before I had some antibiotics in my system.  Getting an IV in was quite an ordeal and after the nurse couldn't get it, a nurse anesthetist was called to give it a try.  He finally did get an IV in and I tried to get myself relaxed again, since all the needle poking had me really tense.  By this time I was in transition, having a hard time getting back into a relaxed state, and definitely feeling the classic "self-doubt" emotional signpost.  Peter was a great coach and I was so grateful to have him by my side.  I was also relying on prayer, praying through Philippians 2:14 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me", and praising God that He designed me as a woman to give birth and that indeed my body could do just what He created it to do!  It seemed no time at all and the first dose of antibiotic was finished and I was feeling ready to push.  In rushed the resident, doctor and nurses.  They were all great to work with and helped with lots of encouragement.  I myself was shocked at how fast I had progressed since arriving at the hospital and very excited to be pushing!  For me, the pushing stage was incredibly intense and exciting but not painful.  After pushing for about 30-45 minutes, Jonah was born at 1:31am, December 19th!!  I was so thrilled to get to hold him right away!!!  What a precious gift from God!!!

Our precious baby Jonah!

Shortly after delivering, the nurses became concerned about the amount of blood loss I was having and the fact that my uterus wasn't hardening and contracting.  The doctor came back in and after checking me out, reported that he thought the hemorrhaging was due to large numbers of blood clots that were preventing my uterus from contracting.  He also wanted to make sure that the bleeding wasn't occurring at the site of my uterine scar from my previous C-section.  He decided to do a D&C to remove the clots, stop the bleeding, and prevent any possibility of a hysterectomy.  So, Peter stayed in the room with Jonah while I went into surgery.  The doctors were finished with me in about an hour.  We are praising God that I was in a hospital and that the doctors were so wise and capable in their medical decisions.  What a blessing that we live in a time of such medical technology and care!!!

Praise the Lord!  God gave me the strength and circumstances to experience an unmedicated birth, and we have a healthy baby boy, who came in God's timing without need for medical intervention to start the birth process!!!  Thank you, Lord, for blessing our desires for Jonah's birth and for the precious gift that he is!