The Delivery

Or, the agony and the ecstasy

I debated whether to even do a post about the delivery or to just end the blog at the end of my bed rest, since this story mainly has revolved around the pregnancy. Plus I know other women who have had even worse birthing experiences than I did, so I don't want to leave the impression that I think mine somehow was more unique than the rest. But it just didn't seem right to bring you up to the end of the pregnancy and then just say, "And then he was born and everything was hunky dory." Because besides being anti-climactic, that wouldn't really be telling the whole truth. So here it is, in all its gory glory--Caleb's birth story.

I ended the previous post at the point when I woke up to my water breaking in the wee hours of Saturday, August 25. After I shouted at John, telling him my water broke, he responded, barely conscious, "Are you sure?" (The guy was understandably gun shy after so many trips to the ER). Growing more agitated by the second, I said, "Yes, I'm SURE. Come take a look for yourself." It took him what seemed like years to get out of bed, and as I told him to grab our bags and put Bauer outside, I sent out a group text to my friends and family and called my mom. We were planning on using our miles to book her a last minute flight out once I went into labor, rather than having her come out before, since we had no idea when Caleb was going to be coming.

So John shoved our bags in the car while he talked to an airline agent to get the flight arranged. After he got off the phone he took one look at my soaked pajamas and said, "Let me get a towel to put down on the seat." Barely keeping it together, I said, "Okay, but HURRY!!"

I know they tell you that you usually have quite a bit of time even after your water breaks before the baby arrives, but I was still feeling panicky because with how far progressed I was, I had no idea how close we might be to Caleb's grand entrance.

We arrived at the hospital and an attendant wheeled me up to L&D, where a nurse got me settled into a room and told me the doctor would be in shortly. It was weird to be back in the maternity wing, where I had been so many times before, because while in the past we had always been trying to stop him from entering the world too soon, this time we were focused on ushering him into it.

The contractions were starting to get stronger than I had ever experienced before. The nurse checked my cervix and said that it was still dilated about 3 cm, then another nurse started inputting information into the computer next to the bed. (I don't know why they had to re-enter all that stuff every time I visited...you'd think they'd still have my address and birth date in their system). As she asked me questions about insurance and medical history, my contractions were gaining steam and making it hard to talk. So it was then that I had my first "momzilla" moment and said, "Shouldn't...you guys...already have...all this...info...BY NOW?!" John could tell I was about to go postal on the poor woman so he took over and answered all the questions as best he could.

Sideways

At this point I asked if they could call my doctor and see if he could come in, but they told me that unfortunately he was still on vacation and wouldn't be back until Monday. The doctor on call was the one who had done the cervical ultrasound so many weeks before and had told me I was doing everything I could to save Caleb. When he walked in and saw me at a much bigger 38 weeks, he recognized me and said how surprised and happy he was that we had made it that far. His soothing voice and gentle demeanor instantly helped calm me down a little bit.

As he checked my cervix and Caleb's positioning, I could tell by his face that something wasn't quite right. He said that Caleb was sideways (which explained why my belly had been so lopsided for the past several weeks) and that we would have to try to turn him in order for him to get through the birth canal. I immediately said okay, not realizing how painful the turning process was going to be. The doctor reached his hand up there and started twisting, breaking my water even further. My guts felt like they were being wrung out like a wet rag as blood and fluid gushed out onto the bed and floor (sorry, didn't know you were in for a Stephen King novel, did you?). He said he was able to turn Caleb's head to the correct position, but he wasn't sure how long it would stay that way.

The contractions intensified after that and within a couple of hours I was dilated 5 cm and eligible for an epidural. I decided to get one. I had gone into the delivery with the philosophy that if I could do it naturally that would be awesome, but if I felt I needed the epidural I was going to get it. (I now have a slightly different philosophy, given what ended up happening).

The anesthesiologist came in and got the epidural going. He had to redo it once because the first time it gave me a burning sensation that apparently wasn't normal. But after everything got worked out, the drug started setting in and I became a lot more comfortable, enough so that John and I were even able to take a nap for a couple hours. The doctor came in and said his shift was ending and that he had been hoping he'd be there for the delivery but that it looked like it would be the next doctor on call who would do the honors.

Post-epidural. Drugged and delirious.

The new doctor (who is one of the doctors in my doctor's practice) came in and introduced himself and asked if I had any questions. I wanted to know his stance on episiotomies, and he said he only does them if they're absolutely necessary and that he would ask my permission first if that became the case. That sounded all right to me.

Around this time my mom's flight arrived so my friend picked her up at the airport and brought her to the hospital. I felt a huge sense of relief when I saw her, because it was important to me that she be there for Caleb's birth. Shortly after that, at around 10 a.m., I asked a nurse to check my cervix again because I was pretty sure that I was fully dilated. She said I probably wasn't but that she would check. Sure enough, I was at a 10 and probably had been for a while.

When push comes to shove

Since I was dilated 10 cm, they told me I could start pushing. So I put my knees up and tried to push, and that's when I discovered a problem. I couldn't feel anything. I had no idea if I was pushing or not. And then they discovered another problem. Caleb's head had gone back to being sideways.

The doctor came in and was able to reposition Caleb again, but he said he wasn't sure if it would hold. He also said that we were going to have to wait for the epidural to wear off some since I couldn't feel enough to push. By this point I was ready for the whole experience to be over and asked exasperatedly, "Can't you just reach in there and pull him out?!" Apparently that's not an option if the baby hasn't even crowned yet, but at the time it seemed pretty feasible to me.

As the medicine wore off and the contractions grew stronger, I started trying to push again. We fell into a rhythm where I would do three pushes and then rest. The first push was always my best one and Caleb would move down a little further, but then during the second push I started losing steam, and by the third, rather than moving down he would instead retract upward to his previous position.

Part of the problem during this whole thing, I think, was that I hadn't been able to take any birthing classes, since I had been on bed rest the entire third trimester. John had rented a couple DVD's at the library and we had watched them on the laptop while I was in bed, but it's not the same as being able to practice it. On top of that, I had zero energy as a result of being bed ridden for so long, and I had no muscle strength to draw upon to get through the pushing and the delivery.

On top of being physically unprepared for labor and delivery, I was completely unprepared psychologically. For so long, I had been doing everything I could to avoid delivering Caleb that I just wasn't ready for this experience. It was like I was stuck in a completely different head space than the one I needed to be in at that moment.

The nurse could tell I was in emotional distress and asked what I was afraid of. I told her I was worried I wouldn't be able to give birth vaginally and that they'd have to do a C-section. I told her this partly to explain why I was scared and partly to make my feelings known on the matter in case they were going to start pressuring me in that direction.

I didn't want a C-section for the normal reasons---it's better, if at all possible, for the mother and for the baby to do a vaginal birth (obviously there are situations in which this isn't possible and a C-section becomes the safest option for all parties). But additionally, for me it was really important to avoid doing a C-section because when a woman with an irritable uterus like mine has a C-section she can have serious complications in subsequent pregnancies...as in, her uterus ruptures. Obviously, I wanted to avoid the potential for that complication at all costs.

My doctor and I had already discussed this, but I wasn't sure where the doctor on call stood on the issue. Fortunately he completely agreed, which is why I think they ended up letting me labor and push longer than they usually allow women to do these days.

So I kept pushing. And pushing. At one point, after another round of three pushes where they could see Caleb's head start to emerge and then retreat back again after the third push, the nurse said to me, "Are you sure you're pushing as hard as you can?" I've never wanted to deck anyone more than I did in that moment. John later said that if looks could kill, mine would have.

But I would like to point out that even though John and I both expected that I would be cursing like a sailor during this whole experience, I didn't swear once. I think I was too traumatized to even get a four-letter word out. Instead I just kept gazing at the crucifix hanging on the wall and thinking, "God help me. God help me. God HELP ME!" While I didn't end up flying off the handle with anyone, at one point I did turn to John and say, with complete conviction, "Not a single person in this hospital knows what they're doing!" He still laughs about that one.

You've got to be kidding me

I wish the doctor had come in more frequently, because the next time he finally did, he explained why the pushing wasn't working. Caleb's head had returned to being sideways. And since his head was sideways, I was basically trying to push out a head circumference twice the size of what I would normally be pushing out. So Caleb's poor little dome was getting stuck under my pubic bone, and my poor pelvic muscles and joints, which were already completely shot from how low I carried him during the pregnancy, were struggling to accommodate this unusual delivery.

The doctor said he wasn't going to be able to get Caleb's head turned again and he and the nurse asked if I wanted a little bit of an epidural to take the edge off. Looking back, I shouldn't have done it. But I didn't know what would be best and I wanted to do everything I could to help myself get through this ordeal without having to resort to a C-section. (I now understand why it's beneficial to have a doula or someone present, because I could have used an objective third party to help me weigh my options. It's really easy for a woman to lose her voice during this whole process when so many medical people are telling you what you should be doing).

So they gave me the epidural bolus and guess what happened? It killed my contractions. The labor completely stopped. So there we were, Caleb partway through the birth canal, and my body was no longer trying to push him out. After some debate, they ended up giving me Pitocin to induce contractions again and the doctor told me I'd have to go epidural free from then on out and deliver naturally.

The Pitocin kicked the contractions into hyper drive. I started the whole pushing process over again and eventually, we got to a point where the nurse said they should bring the doctor in because we were finally getting close.

The final countdown

When the doctor came in and assessed the situation, he said we were closer but that I was going to have to push really hard to get Caleb out. My first thought was, "What do you think I've been doing this whole time?!" But all I could manage to gasp in response was, "This. Sucks." Everyone in the room laughed, except for me.
 
After some gut-wrenching pushing sessions, I saw the doctor reach for the scissors. John later told me the doc was about to ask if I was okay with him doing an episiotomy, because he could tell what was about to happen. But I didn't hear him because I was busy expending the very last ounce of strength I had to give one final big push. As I pushed I heard a loud scream and felt Caleb's head finally break free (turns out the person screaming was me). I felt my muscles tearing and skin ripping and then watched as the doctor quickly dropped the scissors and reached in his hand to help guide Caleb's head the rest of the way out as blood poured over his little face. I gave a couple more pushes to get his shoulders through, and then...he was out!

And so, after so many anxious months followed by 13 hours of labor, Caleb Brenler Proffitt arrived at 3:54 p.m. on August 25, 2012. He was safe. He was healthy. He was beautiful.

As they cleaned Caleb up I saw a big hemotoma on the side of his head where all the trauma occurred. It looked like he had a little horn. I asked if it would be permanent and the nurses laughed and assured me it would go away. And then they placed him on my chest. I wish I could say that in that moment I felt overwhelming love and peace, but all I felt was pain and I wanted it to stop. The delivery had given me a third degree perineal tear, which I won't go into detail to describe, but let's just say little Caleb blew the church doors wide open during his grand entrance. And because the epidural had worn off and the local anesthetic wasn't working for whatever reason, I could feel the entire stitching process. So I was annoyed and tired of being in pain and all I wanted to do was enjoy holding my baby.

The doctor finally finished sewing me up and people started clearing out of the room. And then there were three. Our little family. I stared at my boy's face, memorizing every feature, and couldn't believe he was actually there. Safe, in my arms.

Finally, safe in my arms.

With Caleb's birth at 38 weeks and a healthy 7 lb. 7 oz. and 21 inches, I thought we were finally out of the woods. And in the glow of that late summer afternoon, it was easy to believe the darkness was finally behind us. But as one trial ended, another loomed just ahead. Because for me, a new darkness was descending.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So after really wrestling over whether I would share what happened after Caleb was born, I think I've decided, for a few different reasons, to go ahead and write a post about it. But for now, I'm going to end this post with the most incredible moment of my life, after God enabled my broken body to safely deliver our precious son and John and I stared at him in wonder as he nestled against my chest, breathing steadily on his own with fully functioning lungs, our hearts beating together in time.

Three's company

I created a Labor & Delivery playlist in my Spotify account to have playing in the room to help me focus and keep calm. These two songs are from that list. The first, "Show Me," by Audrey Assad, is kind of morbid in one sense, but in another it's kind of the perfect song for someone in labor, because in a way, a woman really does go through a process that feels like death in order to bring forth new life. The second song, "In My Arms," by Plumb, is one of my favorites because it perfectly encapsulates how I feel when I'm holding Caleb.

Bed Rest, Part 3

Or, "Do you believe in miracles?!"

So I left the last post off at 32 weeks, when things started getting really unpredictable and we thought that Caleb was likely coming any day. Before I get back to the story, I want to emphasize something. I don't know why God chooses to do what He does, or in some cases, doesn't do. Like why did He enable me to carry Caleb to full term, while allowing many other babies to be born prematurely or with devastating disabilities, despite their parents' fervent prayers to the contrary? Why does He allow my mom, the saintliest person I know, to suffer from so many health problems? And why did He choose to take John's one good parent, his incredible mother, after a long, terrible battle with cancer, despite her heartfelt prayers for healing so she could stay with her children?

My list of "why's" could stretch for miles. But it just so happens that God doesn't answer to me, though sometimes I really wish He did. So I will admit that I'm not sure where my belief in the power of prayer fits into my belief in God's sovereignty. Yet I am convinced nonetheless that one of the reasons God chose to perform a miracle in this situation was because of the prayers said for me and Caleb. I'm certainly no mystic, but there have been a handful of times in my life when I've almost physically felt the prayers being said for me. This was one of those times. So once again, thank you to all those who prayed for us during that tumultuous time. I really believe you made all the difference for us.

So now, back to the story...

Deja vu all over again

On July 19, a week after my midnight hospital trip, while my mom was still in town and John was away on a day trip and my dad was headed over to stay with us for a few days before taking my mom back home, the contractions started getting stronger again. And once again, the Procardia wasn't stopping them. So that afternoon my mom took me back into L&D. The doctor on call was one I hadn't met before (although by the time this was all over I think me and my cervix had met every OB/GYN in that place) so she checked my cervix, said it looked a little more effaced, about 70 percent, but that I was still dilated about 1 cm.

So once again, I got to meet the business end of a Terbutaline shot. By the time the contractions died down, both John and my dad had arrived at the hospital. So we all went home together. My parents stayed a few more days, my mom continuing to make her home cooked meals to fatten me and Caleb up, and my dad doing various home improvement projects around the house. Thank God for grandparents.

I had a doctor appointment on July 23 (I was having them weekly at this point) and the doctor told me I wasn't dilated more but had progressed to being 80 percent effaced. And then the night of July 26, a few hours before we hit 34 weeks, yep, you guessed it, the contractions started getting worse again and the Procardia wasn't working. So once again, we made a late night trip to L&D, and thankfully my doctor was the one on call. At first he didn't really believe me that the contractions were so frequent, but when he hooked me up to the monitors and saw the jagged line, the nurse next to him said, "Wow, that's a really irritated uterus."

So once again I got a Terbutaline shot (I'd like to say I handled them better each time, but I didn't) and once again, the labor stopped. At 11 p.m., my doctor said, "Well it looks like you're going to make it to 34 weeks!" And then a little after midnight, the nurse came in to check on me and said I should feel very good about making it this far, but that "it would really be better if you could make it to 35." Every time I made it to another milestone, I never had long to celebrate, because I was told that we still weren't out of the woods yet. It was very frustrating, partly because I just wanted to be told that I had fought the good fight and could lay down my sword, and partly because I knew they were right.

I told my doctor I really didn't want to keep having to go back to the ER every week, which seemed to be the pattern that was developing. He agreed it would be better for me to be able to stay home, so he prescribed oral Terbutaline to take only as a last resort when the contractions got really bad and the Procardia wasn't working. Typically oral Terbutaline isn't prescribed anymore because of its risks for the mother, but I wouldn't be taking it routinely, so I decided to go ahead with it.

People have asked me why they didn't just let my labor continue and allow Caleb to be born, since "they can do so much for preemies these days," and "babies decide when they're ready to be born." It's true, they can do a lot for preemies now. But unless a baby's or mother's life is in danger (and our lives weren't), a mountain of evidence shows it's best for a baby to remain in its mother's womb for as long as possible and ideally, the full 40 weeks. So that's why we kept fighting to keep Caleb in my belly day after day, week after week.

I went home in the wee hours of that Friday morning, incredibly happy to have reached 34 weeks but also completely spent. You know how I said that being strong was really important to me? At this point, I had absolutely no strength left, and I had no idea how I was going to continue to carry this baby, even as I prayed that I would carry him six more weeks until his due date. But somehow, God kept giving me just enough strength to reach the next day. So while I used to think of weakness as a flaw, I started to see why God always seems to choose the weakest among us to display His power. Because it's in those instances that His power is most obvious. Truly, as I got weaker, He got stronger.

Hollywood starlet? No, bedridden mama trying to forestall delivery.

Burdened

The following Monday, July 30, I went to my next doctor's appointment. At this point I couldn't walk without contracting so I had to be wheeled up to my doctor's office from the parking lot. This appointment brought my final FFN test (they don't do them after 34 weeks because a normal pregnancy can come back positive at 36 weeks). I felt like I was leaking fluid and he wanted to rule out the possibility that I was slowing leaking amniotic fluid so he took a sample. Thankfully I wasn't. "Just urine," he said. Sweet. If I didn't feel enough like an 80 year old before...

He examined me and he said I had progressed to being dilated to 2 cm and was still 80 percent effaced. I forgot to mention earlier that for the past four weeks Caleb had also been head down and at a 0 station, meaning he was positioned right at the entrance to the birth canal, which normally doesn't happen until you're in the actual birthing process. This explained why my bladder was always leaking and why I felt such tremendous pressure in my pelvis, as if a giant bowling ball was hanging between my legs. To get a better understanding of birth stations, here's a diagram. (Some of you are probably thinking, "Seriously, as if she hasn't painted enough of a graphic picture already?")



I asked the doctor how in the world the FFN tests could still be negative when I was so progressed. He said, "It means the baby isn't the one doing this." The words twisted inside me, because this is what I had feared all along. People had joked that maybe Caleb was just too eager to get out into the world. But deep down I had always known that this was probably my doing, not his. It was the ultimate act of betrayal by a body that wasn't just failing me this time, it was failing my baby. Talk about mom guilt. So along with enduring nearly unbearable physical pressure, I also strained under the weight of a tremendous psychological and emotional burden. Because I knew the doctors could only do so much. When all was said and done, Caleb's fate rested on me and me alone.

I went home after that appointment feeling very heavy-hearted. There weren't a lot of distractions I could use to take my mind off things, since I couldn't hold up the trusty iPhone anymore. I could listen to music and watch movies on my laptop, or I should say parts of movies, since I had developed early stages of bed sores on my hips by that point and had to keep my belly propped up by a pillow and constantly rotate from side to side, like a giant rotisserie chicken, to alleviate some of the pain.

So I had a lot of time to think and pray. I couldn't talk much without contracting, but I talked to Caleb as much as I could, and sang him songs ("You are My Sunshine" was a favorite of ours...he started kicking whenever I sang it to him). And as I sang, I prayed that God would also whisper words of comfort to his strong little heart.

And as I stared at the closet door in front of me that day, memorizing the grooves in the wood, suddenly in my mind's eye I pictured Jesus standing in front of me, while water swirled beneath my feet. It was like I was in the Apostle Peter's shoes, when Jesus told him to get out of the boat and walk on water. That's when I understood that if I was going to get through this, I was going to have to stop looking at the water swirling below--all the scary statistics and labor indicators--and instead fix my eyes ahead on Jesus and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, trusting that He wouldn't let us sink.

And then the phone rang. It was my doctor. The results from the final FFN test were in, and guess what. It was negative. Negative! Caleb was halfway through the birth canal, and somehow, we were still getting a negative result. We couldn't completely rely on it anymore, but in the face of all the bad signs, it was a very encouraging one. A completely unbelievable blessing.

Still in bed, but smiling. Thankful for one final negative FFN!

Ode to a hot male nurse

I need to take a time out here to give a shout out to my hot male nurse. It's a good thing John's love language is acts of service, because he was doing a lot of them for me. (He also got to go play golf several times, leaving me with a sack lunch and some movies on the bed, so don't feel TOO sorry for the guy... and yes, I told him I was going to throw him under the bus on that one). I always knew the measure of the man I married, but this situation brought out further depths of John's servant's heart as he waited on me hand and foot. He was my short order cook, my walking cane, and my ghost writer (by this point I couldn't even type without contracting so he sent all my text messages and posted all my Facebook updates as I dictated them to him.)

Heck, the guy was even my beautician. I wasn't able to shave my legs since I could barely even stand long enough to take a shower, and I was really embarrassed about it. So the night before my next doctor appointment (the only time me and my hairy legs were seen in public), he placed a bowl of water on the bed, arranged a towel underneath me, and gently shaved my legs (and didn't nick me once, so maybe I should have him do it more often!) My curly head of hair was also basically in dreadlocks at this point since I couldn't brush it, so on another day he doused it with detangler and spent over an hour carefully combing through each kink and knot.

This might sound strange, but to me these were some of the most romantic things John has ever done in our eight years together. There's a passage in the Bible that talks about husbands washing their wives with water and presenting them radiant and clean. I know there are a lot of ways to interpret that text, but the words came to mind while John was giving me my own personal bed rest spa day, because his actions struck me as a very literal example of what I think those verses are talking about--a husband who treats his wife with care and respect. Tenderness is an underrated quality in a man, if you ask me, and I don't take for granted that I have a husband who displays it daily.

My trusty bed rest side kicks

But enough of the mushy stuff, am I right?

Thanks to the oral Terbutaline, I didn't have to go back to the ER when the contractions got bad again, which they did several times in the next few weeks. At my 35 week appointment, the doctor examined me and told John he should stop traveling altogether, because although he hoped Caleb would stay put for another week, he was most likely coming any day.

And yet, one week later, there we were, back at his office on Friday, August 10, all of us shocked we had made it to 36 weeks. They typically take women off bed rest at around 36 weeks, even though the baby hasn't reached full term, because the benefits of the mother having a little time to regain some of her strength tend to outweigh the risks of the baby being born at that point (although he told us that Caleb could still have some minor breathing difficulties and some jaundice and feeding problems, which didn't sound too bad compared to the worries we had before, but did turn out to be worse issues for Caleb than we expected in the weeks after he was born).

Our doctor was going to be out of town that weekend, and our five-year anniversary was the next day, so I decided to still take it easy and continue taking the medicines until Monday. Traditionally for our anniversary we have stayed overnight in a nice hotel to celebrate, so we decided to go ahead and keep with tradition. Let me tell you, it was so weird to go downtown after being shut in for 12 weeks. It was like I had been in a cryogenic chamber and had emerged to find the world had kept turning, had seen an entire season come and go, while for me time had remained frozen in place.

I mainly stayed in bed during our getaway, but at least it was a different bed! And I was able to watch the Closing Ceremonies of the London Olympics, along with recaps of all the competitions I had missed. John kept wanting me to get up and walk around downtown, because he was anxious for Caleb to be born so we could meet him. But for one, I was hugely, uncomfortably pregnant and didn't feel up to waddling around downtown on atrophied legs. And for two, I felt it would still be better for Caleb to get closer to his due date (for the record, I turned out to be right).

Monday, August 13, came, and I stopped taking the medications and started trying to move around more (I still spent a lot of time on the couch, though, because it was so painful to move). As my contractions started up, we expected me to go into labor any minute.

And then...I didn't.

Two weeks notice

As we kept waiting for me to go into labor and I experienced nearly constant contractions, my back and hips started hurting worse and worse, and one night I even called L&D because it got so bad I was screaming and writhing in pain. The nurse condescendingly told me it was normal to feel "some stretching" at that point in the pregnancy, but I knew this wasn't normal. My doctor was on call and he got on the phone and told me I should probably come in to make sure everything was okay, but I was sick of going into the ER and I decided to just tough it out at home. (A few months after Caleb was born I found out why I had been in such terrible pain after I started seeing a physical therapist to try to repair the damage that had been done to my pelvis).

I went in for my next doctor's appointment on August 17, happy to be able to walk in instead of arriving in a wheelchair. When he saw me, my doctor said, "You know, I don't normally do this, but I was praying you guys would make it to this point, although I have no idea how you did it." I told him, "It was your prayers, and a lot of other people's." He said, shaking his head, "It must have been, because there's no other explanation for it."      

He examined me and said I was 3 cm dilated, 90 percent effaced, and Caleb was now at +1 station. How in the world he was still staying put, none of us had any clue. The doctor said he wouldn't be checking my cervix from then out out, because it didn't really matter. And then we scheduled another appointment for a little more than a week out, since he was going to be on vacation the next week. After she put it in the schedule the receptionist said, "I'm thinking we won't see you for this one, but that's what I've been thinking every week for the past two months, so we'll see!"

As the days unbelievably went on, people asked me if I had really needed to go on bed rest if I was now off of it and still hadn't delivered Caleb. But I truly believe, as does my doctor, that if I hadn't gone on bed rest and taken those medications, I would have delivered Caleb weeks, if not months, earlier. The months on bed rest had bought us the time we were now spending off of it, as Caleb continued to get stronger and gain weight the closer he got to full term.

Me and Caleb, hanging out (literally), at 37 weeks

It was really hot that week, so to cool off we decided to go to the outdoor pool at our gym. I sausaged myself into my two-piece and asked John, "Does this make me look fat?" (As I have done on countless other occasions, although this time it was a total joke because the answer was self-evident.) "It looks fine," he lied as he hustled me out the door to get to the pool before it closed.

When we got to the pool and I took off my cover up and slowly eased into the water, I could feel the stares from my fellow pool-goers as they took in the sight of a whale-woman carrying a baby at +1 station into the shallow end. Finally one guy floating near me couldn't help himself any longer and said, "So...are you going to give birth right here?" I laughed and replied, "Well he's supposed to come any time now, so I just might!" He tried to hide his horror, and then, to his credit, waited a few minutes to try to make it look less obvious when he paddled toward the wall and got himself the heck out of Dodge. (We took a picture on my iPhone to document the outing, but it's too National Geographic for even me, the TMI Queen, to share with everyone, so for now it will stay between me, my family, and probably some poor unsuspecting SOB at the NSA.)

The following Friday, August 24, we hit 38 weeks and Caleb officially reached full term (babies are considered full term at that point, although it still really is best if they're born around their due date). We went out to dinner to celebrate, and as I walked back to the car, I really did feel, as I had felt for weeks now, that he was about to drop right out of me.

Since I had been off bed rest, I had moved back upstairs because the weather had cooled down some. I still wasn't able to sleep in my own bed, though, because for some reason the couch was more comfortable for me, although I still had to get up every few hours to switch sides because of the bed sores.

That night, we followed our now usual routine where John would help me get comfortable on the couch and then kiss me goodnight and head to bed. Every night we wondered, "Will we make it to another day?" But since we had been through this for two weeks at that point, I kind of figured we would make it to another day. John had put sheet protectors on our bed in case my water broke during the night, but that night I joked to him that we should probably put something down on the couch since that's where I was sleeping. We both laughed, and he said, "We'll take care of it tomorrow."

But that chance never came, because at 2:30 a.m., I woke out of a deep sleep with the feeling that something had just punched through me. It literally felt like a water balloon had popped. Fluid gushed out, and there was no mistaking this time what it was. I laid there in stunned silence for a second, and then yelled, "John, my water broke!"

And so, after 38 weeks and one day of pregnancy, 12 weeks of bed rest, four hospital visits, and two unbelievable "bonus" weeks, D-Day had arrived. Caleb was coming!

In the next post I'll tell the birth story, which was an experience unto itself. In the mean time, here is the song, "Never Once," by Matt Redman, that became my theme song during the pregnancy. If you listen to the lyrics I think you'll understand why.

Bed Rest, Part Deux

Or, "Don't give up, don't ever give up"

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?" -- C.S. Lewis

This quote pretty much sums up my pregnancy with Caleb, particularly the second half of my bed rest when I really did feel like we were hanging over a cliff, clutching a rope and praying it would hold even as we watched it unravel strand by strand.

I left off the last post at 31 weeks pregnant. By that time, my routine had changed somewhat because it had gotten too hot in the house (we don't have air conditioning) for me to stay upstairs. So I relocated to the downstairs guest room and spent both day and night in the guest bed.

Up until that point, even though my cervix was slowly shortening, the FFN's continued to come back negative and I hadn't dilated yet. These were two very positive signs that I clung to for reassurance.

And then on July 10, the safety net evaporated. John was out of town for the week so my mom had flown over to take care of me while he was away. The second day she was there, I started having more contractions. They were stronger than before and the Procardia wasn't helping, so I called my doctor and he told me to come in. During the exam he checked my cervix, and then said softly, "Well, you've started dilating." The words fell with a thud.

I was dilated 1 cm and more effaced than before. Not. Good. I wasn't due for another FFN for several more days, but he said it was close enough that we could do it again. He warned me, though, that it was almost definitely going to be positive now that I had dilated. So he tried to reassure me that even if it was positive, a fair number of women with a positive result still don't deliver in the next two weeks.

That said, he recommended that I get steroid shots to speed up Caleb's lung development. At 31 weeks, a baby's organs are fully formed, but the lungs and digestive system are the last to mature, which is why breathing and feeding problems are two of the biggest concerns for premature babies. Steroid shots, however, have shown to really help speed up the process and give babies a fighting chance. As I've said, I don't like drugs, but I wanted to give my little fighter all the chances we could.

I've had cortisone shots before for other health problems, so I knew what to expect. If you've never had one, the best I can describe it is that it feels like liquid metal being injected into you. In other words, it doesn't feel good. For the baby to get the full benefit, the mother has to have two courses of the steroid. So I got one shot that day and if I didn't go into full blown labor, I would get another the next day.

I called John while my mom drove me home and we both agreed that he would fly home immediately. Then I crawled back in bed, rubbed my throbbing hip to try to make the medicine spread faster, and prayed. In the past I prayed for days, for weeks. Now I was praying for hours, for minutes. "Just get us to tomorrow, Lord, so we can get the rest of the steroid. Just 24 hours."

Strange as it may sound, this was one of the gifts the pregnancy gave me. I'm typically someone who lives more in the past and future than I do in the present. But through this experience I've learned to measure life by moments and to be thankful for every new day we are given.

John got home that night, and we waited for the call from the doctor. I wasn't as anxious about this call as I had been in the past, because we felt pretty sure we knew what the news would be and I wasn't looking forward to hearing it. The phone rang, and then I heard the doctor's voice telling me, with a bit of an incredulous laugh, "Well, Emily, I can't believe it, but the test was negative." Wait, what?! "How is that possible? What does this mean?" I asked him. "I don't know," he said. "I've never seen this happen before."

He said that we should be encouraged by the negative test, but that we could no longer count on it, because the fact I was dilating was an indication that the preterm labor was progressing. I asked him how much time he thought we had, and as always, he was reluctant to give me a definitive answer. But he said that if at all possible, John should stay home from now on, because Caleb could be coming at any time.

As a salesman, John makes his living on the road. But neither of us was willing to risk him being gone at this point, so he decided to not do any more overnight trips until Caleb arrived, trusting that God would provide for us. For someone who has a hard time trusting, I was certainly having to do a lot of it.

I think all parents have big dreams for their children. When John and I found out I was pregnant, we immediately began talking about what our child might be like and what we hoped for him. Would he be smart? Athletic? Musical? Artistic? Yet when faced with whether our child would even be able to breathe on his own, all those other things seemed inconsequential. So our constant prayer became, "Please, Lord, make him healthy and strong." But beyond even his health, we prayed most of all for his heart, that no matter what happened in this earliest stage of his life or any other to come after, Caleb would know God loved him and would love Him in return.

From bed to worse

We made it to the next day and I was able to get the second steroid shot. Every additional day afterward was considered a huge victory from then on. Meanwhile, my bed rest went from strict to absolute. I got up to go to the bathroom, but that was it. I took a shower every few days, because even that amount of time on my feet made me contract too much. So I ate in bed, most of the time laying down, which let me tell you, is an art that I never quite perfected. I was taking close to the maximum dose of Procardia at that point, every three hours, which meant setting an alarm through the night so I would be sure to wake up and take it (actually turned out to be pretty good practice for having a newborn!)

My mom stayed for a couple of weeks so she could help take care of me and help John take care of the house and set up the nursery. It was hard for me to not be able to do that myself and get into nesting mode, but I was thankful for their help. Although in the back of my mind, I thought it wasn't really going to matter much because if Caleb was born he was going to be spending his first few months in the NICU, not in his nursery. But it was still comforting to be able to do something to help prepare for Caleb's arrival, since everything else was out of our control.

My mom stayed in bed with me, since I was using the guest bed, and it was really comforting to have her by my side during those long nights. The weather was getting increasingly hot and even though I was in the basement it was getting harder to keep me cool. I had like three fans blowing on me and a cold pack on my neck, but as I got hotter, the contractions grew worse.

Even though it seemed it would be impossible, I was praying we would make it to 32 weeks, which is a major milestone in a baby's development, because statistically, babies born after 32 weeks do better than those born earlier. Although each additional day in the womb is vitally important, for preemies there are certain milestone weeks you really want to hit--27 weeks, 32 weeks, 34 weeks, and 36 weeks.

My world had come to revolve around these milestones, and I had become obsessed with the statistics--35 percent of babies born at X have Z, 50 percent of babies born at Z have X, and so on. I think with medical issues, in particular, it's easy to get caught up in the stats, because they seem like the only concrete thing you have to hold onto. But as we continued to rack up more days we weren't supposed to have, defying all the odds, I came to realize that ultimately, my son was not a statistic. And neither was I. Because we were under the care of a God who is greater than the odds, who can do the seemingly impossible.

Midnight rider

Then on the night of July 12, the day before Caleb would reach 32 weeks, a thunderstorm rolled in and the weather grew unbearably hot and humid. The contractions were getting worse and not letting up, so I called L&D and my doctor turned out to be the one on call, which was an unexpected blessing. He told me to come in because with me being dilated, we couldn't take any risks. So at around 10 p.m., John, my mom and I piled in the car and headed to the hospital.

Even though I had gone to the bathroom before we left, about five minutes into the journey I had to go again (I told you I had bladder problems!). So there I was, hugely pregnant and peeing in the bushes next to the car under the light of the moon and the occasional lightning bolt. As a car full of stunned-looking teenagers drove past, I thought, "Well, there went the last shred of my dignity." I got back in the car and John said, "You'll laugh about this someday." I gave him a look that said that day was a long way off, and we kept driving.

After I got to the hospital they put me into bed and hooked me up to the monitors, which confirmed I was having constant contractions, and my doctor checked my cervix. Thankfully I wasn't dilated further yet, but the contractions weren't letting up. Since the Procardia wasn't working, he said the next step was Terbutaline. This was the drug they used to use all the time, before they knew about Procardia, but it has worse side effects for the mother so now they only use it as a last resort. I again found myself between a rock and a hard place in weighing which was worse for the baby, drugs or possible prematurity. So I agreed to take the Terbutaline, which they administer via a shot in the arm.

Let me tell you, now that I've had both, I would take a steroid shot over Terbutaline any day. It feels like a thousand bee stings as it's being injected and for a while afterward, and you feel like you're having a heart attack. I was shaking uncontrollably, which my doctor said was normal as he sympathetically layered warm blankets over me.

Thankfully Caleb was doing just fine during all this. I asked the nurse to turn up the volume on the monitor that recorded his heart rate. As the sound of my strong-hearted baby's steady heartbeat filled the room even while my heart raced, I laid on my side, clutched the bed railing, and looked back and forth from the monitor to the clock as lightning flashed through the window in the dimly lit room. Shortly after the clock struck midnight, my doctor came in and said quietly, "Well, congratulations, you made it to 32 weeks."

My contractions went away completely after about an hour. They kept me under surveillance for a few more hours, then the doctor said I could go. So around 4 a.m. we went back home and I once again crawled back in bed, just thankful that we had turned the page on another day, reaching another seemingly impossible milestone.

Happy to have made it to 32 weeks. Every new day a gift.

With 32 weeks behind us, we started praying for 34, even though none of us, including my doctor, thought we'd get there.

So that's where I will leave things for now, and will pick up again in the next and final bed rest portion of this story. In the mean time, here's the song I played a lot during this time. It's called, "Restless," by Audrey Assad, and it seemed tailor-made for me and my situation, since I was on bed rest but feeling far from restful.