A Birth Story

If you like birth stories, here's one to read.  If not, feel free to skip this post.

On October 30th, 2010 I woke up around 3 am with some “real” feeling contractions.  After a half hour of them, I decided to start timing them.  I was six days overdue and had been feeling contractions for weeks.

I was relaxed, confident and ready to go -- my bags were all packed and ready and I knew I just had to throw some clothes on and get in the car.

I woke Ryan up, he called his mom, and we were off to the hospital around 5:30 am. 

Check-in was relaxed and calm, the total opposite of when I checked in with Dash.  When the nurse finally checked me, I was at 8 cm.  This kind-of freaked her out, but I thought, “Oh good.  We got here in plenty of time.”  (With Dash I arrived at 9 1/2 cm, so this was a cake walk.)

My doctor was out of town for the weekend and since the doctor on call switched with another one, she was mistaken on who would deliver me.  We had planned to donate Finley’s cord blood to a public cord blood donation bank based out of Duke University.  We had the big red box all ready for the collection and mailing.  Trouble was, the doctor had to be certified before the delivery of the baby.  But she had enough time to take the online video course (7 minutes) and even called the place to confirm some details.  So it all worked out.

I did really well through all my contractions.  I did the Rainbow Visualization through all of them, which worked beautifully.  For each inhale and exhale I pictured a color of the rainbow and an image of Jesus being with me in that color:

Red: Fire -- Jesus next to me near a warm, glowing fire in a dark close house.

Orange: Sunset -- Jesus holding my hand and guiding me into a brilliant orange sunset.

Yellow:  Field of daffodils -- Jesus walking with me, holding my hand as we wade through a thick field of sunny waving daffodils.

Green: Ancient Forest (like the Forest of the Patriarchs near Mt. Rainier) -- Jesus leading and guiding me through a thick, lush ancient forest -- this one was my favorite by far and always led me through the peak and downstart of the contraction.

Blue: Clear sky above Mt. Rainier -- Jesus standing with me at the base of the mountain (like at Paradise) looking up at the clear blue sky.

Purple: deep still ocean water -- this usually came at the very end of the contraction -- a peaceful floating away.

I used this through all my contractions.  It was amazing!  The doctor and nurses were SO amazed by how calm I was.  They really couldn’t believe it.  They kept calling me a rock star.  (I delivered Finley without any pain medication.)

The pushing wasn’t so great.  I pretty much fell apart and declared that I didn’t want to do it anymore.  Apparently that wasn’t a choice.  Third babies (especially ones smaller than your first two) are supposed to take a couple pushes but Finley took about 40 minutes.  The doctor said she thinks Finley was trying to come out face up instead of the right way -- (which, from what I’ve read, is super, super painful . . . which I guess is why it was all so painful.)  She said Finley did this super huge turn right at the end, which was so strange.  And she then understood why the pushing was taking so long.

At 8:34 am, sweet little Finley Jubilee burst into the world.  I was shaking and crying.  They put her right on my tummy.  The first thing I noticed was her shock of dark hair.  Neither Blazer nor Dash had hardly any hair and I thought, “Where did this come from?!”  But looking at my baby pictures, it’s the same hair that I had.  We look a lot alike as babies.

She weighed 8 lbs. 2.6 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long.  A little piece of perfection.

The cord blood was packed and ready to go, only problem was that FedEx doesn’t take deliveries on Saturdays in Moses Lake.  We only had 48 hours to get the blood to the bank and we weren’t going to make it.

While thinking of people to call and ask to drive the blood to East Wenatchee airport, one of our high school seniors called.  Ryan asked him, “What are you doing today?”  “Nothing.”  “Want to help save a life?” . . . so he came to the hospital right away and drove the big red box to East Wenatchee.  It had to be there by 1 pm.  He got there at 3 minutes til.  Amazing!

We found out some joyful news -- the hospital was now allowing visitors since Thursday evening.  Visitors had been banned because of a whooping cough epidemic.  We were overjoyed!

Our first visitors were Blazer and Dash.  They came in with such love, excitement and awe.  It was so sweet.  Dash was making these cute little sighing, laughing noises -- SO in love with his baby sister.  He was giving her kiss upon kiss.  Blazer was excited too.  They both took turns holding her and loving her and kissing her.  It was a sweet, sweet moment.  

Blazer talked about Finley’s hair-do (it had been made into a little curl/faux-hawk after her bath.)  He also asked, “How come she doesn’t want to look at us?  I can’t even tell what color her eyes are!”

Blazer and Dash came back later in the evening with their Halloween costumes on.  They had gone trick-or-treating with Grammie and Grandpa downtown.  Blazer was Mr. Incredible and Dash was his best friend, Fro-Zone.  Grandpa was passing out candy to everyone.

The next day we took Sweet Finn home.  The whole crew came to help take her home -- Blazer and Dash and the four grandparents.  When Blazer walked in and gazed at Finley he said, “It almost makes me want to cry.”  (Which almost made all of us want to cry.)  When we asked him why he said, “Because she is so, so cute.”  When we asked him what he thought when we saw Finley he said, “Hearts.  Just hearts.  Not running.  Not jumping.  Just hearts.”  Finley has two brothers that are totally enamored with her.

Dash kept pointing to Finley and pointing to her car seat and saying, “Home!”  “Home!”  He was so worried she wasn’t coming with us.

When we got home the boys were so excited.  They started taking her blankets off and Blazer said, “Take her out!  Let’s play!”

I am beyond amazed at Finley’s beautiful birth.  What a joy.  A jubilee!  I thank God for this precious gift.  I’ll never be able to express enough gratitude for my three beautiful children.  Thank you God.  Amen.