dax's birth story

***if you have no interest in birth stories, skip this. i had no interest before i was pregnant, but then i devoured as many of them as i could. i'm writing so i remember … so if you do read, please excuse the unedited wordiness.***

i had no idea that hitting your due date, and then going past your due date, would be such a huge mental obstacle.

in the weeks leading up to our baby boy's february 16 due date, i had pregnant friends who were weeks away from giving birth and already trying everything they could to get their babies OUT. i totally judged and criticized them to myself (or to my mom), thinking - 'what's the rush? all babies come out when they're ready, why would you want them to come early?' 

while i didn't want our baby to come early, i guess i fully expected him to come out on his due date, or the day before or after. 

the day before his due date, we were at a child's birthday party and someone said to me, "ohh you're the one whose due soon, huh? so and so was worried you might have the baby here!" people kept saying things like, "oh my friend was at a birthday party the day before her baby was born! you'll probably go into labor right after this."

even though i felt no signs of labor, i took it as encouragement that maybe that would be the night. we drove home under a full moon and i thought, 'full moon - this is another very good sign that he'll come out soon.' 

we went to church and by the end of february 16, still no signs of baby. i was going c-r-a-z-y inside.

everywhere i went people said, "you're still here? you didn't have that baby yet?" yes. i am still here. i feel fine. and so help me god if you can't tell by looking at me that i did not have that baby yet, because i am enormous.

all week people would offer one suggestion after another of what worked for them. i tried everything - the obvious, evening primrose oil, eating dates, spicy food and pineapple, drinking raspberry leaf tea, lots of walking and jogging up stairs at the park, squats and lunges. 

the only "trick" i didn't try was castor oil, but i told lance that if the baby wasn't out by the next weekend i would try it, even though it freaked me out. i did not want to get induced.

on wednesday i jogged up and down stairs at the park, and instead of my usual walk i did a walk-jog-walk-jog. it felt good at the time, because it had been months since i'd gone running and i missed running. but afterward i could barely move. my muscles were so sore and i was mad at myself for thinking jogging was a good idea.

at my doctor's appointment on thursday, i was thrilled to find out that i was three centimeters dilated! (after nothing at my last two appointments.) my doctor was very optimistic that my water would break soon and i would have the baby before the end of the weekend. lance and i were THRILLED. 

my doctor wanted an ultrasound just to make sure all was well, and we went from being on cloud nine to crashing when the first thing the tech said once he was on the screen, "oh he's breech! no wonder he doesn't want to come out."

in retrospect, my sudden crash of emotions seems silly … but at the time i was devastated. i had pumped myself up so much and prepared for a natural birth and i was so sad that i now had to schedule a c-section. 

he offered me the choice of attempting an external cephalic version to try to flip the baby … but  i decided to go with my gut and skip the flip. he said normally there's maybe a 50% chance of it working, but with baby's estimated size, being past term, and my "uterine anomaly" it was a 10% chance of working. 

the anomaly … is a bicornuate (heart-shaped) uterus … and it is a rarity. (because what isn't rare about me?) 

they told me about it after my first ultrasound. some women are born with it, and no one is sure why. sometimes you can't tell that it's heart-shaped later on in the pregnancy, but sometimes women deliver early or require c-section because their baby is breech. initially i was scared, and googling it increased my fear. but as my pregnancy went on and everything looked great week after week, and my doctor said he thought the baby was in the right position … i honestly was not worried a bit. plus they say women with this anomaly have trouble conceiving … and that clearly was not a problem for me … so i was confident i'd be able to deliver naturally.

we made the appointment for a c-section on friday, february 21 at 7:30 a.m. i was angry because i knew that friday is the most popular day of the week for c-sections and even though i LOVED my doctor, i was wondering if he had been conspiring against me all along. 

from the doctor's office, we went straight across the street to get our instructions from the hospital, and i was a wreck in the little room with the labor and delivery nurse, skitch. we had to answer a billion questions that overwhelmed me because a csection was what i had NOT researched, and i do better when i am mentally prepared for things.

annoying: "what's your birth plan?" my whole birth plan went out the window with having a csection lady, i have no plan. instead i politely said i want to do skin to skin when he's born and she told me i couldn't. i still have no idea how she wanted me to answer that question or what the point was?

the worst: "who will take care of you after your surgery?"

"my husband." 

"who else?" 

"just him." 

"you don't have any family here who will help you out?" 

"NO. JUST MY HUSBAND."

please skitch, remind me again that my family is not here ... because i'm not already terrified about having a major surgery without my mom anywhere nearby.

the rest of the time (we were in that room almost two hours) i was not looking her in the eye because i didn't have the energy or desire to melt down there. but no, she insisted i look at her and of course i started crying, and it was awful. that's when it occurred to her to ask - "oh are you guys military?" and she gave a little spiel thanking us for our service … but i just wanted to get out of there, and not hear her story about her cousin in the military.

i felt much better when we finally got out of there and could talk, just the two of us.

we got chipotle for my "last meal" and lance was making me laugh a lot, and everything was really funny. i called my mom and she was great and again, i felt better. lance reminded me how good it was to have a planned csection, not an emergency one. 

i was at peace, and excited that we would finally get to meet our son. 

it was the weirdest feeling to know that dax would be born the next day. our last night sleeping in our apartment just the two of us. lance fell asleep no problem, but i was awake for awhile. 

we had to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. and when we left it was downpouring. lance made a joke about dax already playing tricks on him. (he hates rain.) 

it was nice getting an early start while the world was still asleep and things were peaceful at the hospital. it was kind of fun being in a hospital together again, because that's where we met … so we have lots of fun memories of wandering through lancaster general hospital together. 

we got upstairs and i changed into my gown, and they came in and started getting me ready. my nurse was surprised i didn't even have my ears pierced. it took the other nurse three times to get my IV to stick, and it hurt, but she was so nice about it i didn't mind. the catheter they put in really bothered me and was the most painful part. 

my friend tianna, who is a labor and delivery nurse, popped into our room and pretty much made our morning. she prayed with us and i felt so peaceful. 

my catheter was bothering me, and i started fidgeting and telling lance to talk more to distract me. 

a monitor started beeping more, and that's when everything gets blurry. my nurse rushed in and then called in more people, and the anesthesiologist came in too. they were checking everything and yelling and an oxygen mask was thrown on me. i could barely see lance through all the people, which i didn't like, but i was honestly kind of relieved this was speeding things along because the catheter really hurt.

i was nervous about getting a spinal and we had specifically prayed for a good anesthesiologist. my immediate impression was that i didn't like him. he had a thick accent that made him hard to understand, he was making bad jokes, and i could barely hear him through the noise and with my mask, but he didn't seem to understand that so i kept having to ask him to repeat his questions. 

people were yelling and i was in and out, clueless as to what was happening, but someone was telling me to roll over and get on my knees. the baby's heart rate was dropping. i could hear them talking about how fast my doctor could get over there to start the surgery - that it needed to start NOW, not at 7:30.

they started wheeling me out of the room and i got scared because lance wasn't coming along, so i said a weak, "bye, i love you babe. does he get to come?" 

lance told me later that tianna was a godsend, because she found out what was going on and let him know that everything would be okay.

when we got to the operating room everyone was in a panic, rushing around, still talking about how soon the doctor could get there. my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. i do that sometimes. (it happened when i was in the car on the way to our wedding and got nervous ... my teeth wouldn't stop chattering until we got there, and then i was fine.)

finally someone was standing over me and kindly, clearly explaining what was going on. i got the spinal and it didn't bother me, and everything went numb.

lance came in, all dressed in his blue scrubs and even though he had a mask on i could tell he had been crying. it was the first time i ever saw him cry. my heart already felt full. :) 

i was a little dazed and mostly relaxed during surgery. before i knew it, they lifted dax out at 7:30 on the dot. (and joked about our doctor being super punctual, since that was when surgery was scheduled to begin.) i had prayed that dax would cry right away, but it took a few minutes - to me at least. someone said, "yup, he's definitely a boy." and then everyone was saying, "oh he definitely looks like dad!" this made me laugh, because lance had been saying at every ultrasound that dax looked like him and i just rolled my eyes and laughed all along. naturally he would come right out of my womb confirming what lance said and i laughed at. ;)

i was relieved when i heard dax cry, and glad that lance could be with him while they finished up with me. someone brought dax over to my side for a quick look, but i could barely see him it was so brief.

lance left with dax and the nurses, and as they finished sewing me up everyone gathered around to check out my uterus. it's rare enough that a lot of the staff had not seen one like it before, and i still wish that i could have seen it.

eventually they wheeled me back to the room where lance and dax were, and my heart could have burst again because i could tell that lance had been crying and he looked so happy to see me. :) i was so curious to see dax! i had worried that it would take forever to see him after the surgery, and i'm not sure if it was the drugs that made it feel shorter or if they really just moved that quickly, but it went by fast for me.

i got to do skin-to-skin with dax and he loved it. he was cute from the beginning. and yes, i had been concerned … i'm not always crazy about newborns. but i had prayed for a nice big baby, and when they told me he weighed 9lbs 7oz and was 22 inches, i was elated. :) perfect proportions, nice skin, and just the right amount of dark blonde hair. he aced his apgar tests too.

i loved that when i talked to him he recognized my voice and calmed down. i loved that right away in that hospital room i felt complete, like we were really a family. 

dax is super snuggly - another trait from lance. :) he loves laying with his head on our chests and loves tummy time too. he really does look like lance. i can't stop saying "i love you" over and over again.

we chose his name because we like the way it sounds, and the meaning. (and we like that we don't know anyone with that name.) dax means "leader" and his middle name, moses, means "deliverer." moses is one of lance's favorite people in the bible. we know dax will be strong physically, mentally and spiritually … and that God will use him as a leader.

now that dax is here, lance has said he "should have seen it coming" that i would end up needing a csection … and we laughed about it. we both tend to get thrown for loops in life. if there was a theme to the past year of my life it might be: you're not in control. God is in control and you can (should … need to) trust Him.

when we were hashing out the csection verdict the night before, i told lance i didn't even feel like praying anymore because obviously God didn't care … i had prayed so specifically the whole pregnancy that baby would be in perfect position for a natural delivery. almost every night i would declare these and other things out loud. i was so mad. lance of course said he understood, but that really wasn't a good attitude. ;)

sometimes i think that nothing being impossible for God means Him doing it my way. for example: i want a natural delivery, my body might not be shaped for that or baby positioned for it, but nothing is impossible for God so i'll ask Him to get things in order for it to go my way, because He can. 

but just because God doesn't answer my prayers according to my vision, doesn't mean He is giving me something less than the best … and it certainly doesn't mean that anything is impossible for Him. God is God and He is in control, and i am not - even though i so often forget and pretend that i am. God's way is always best, and i think that is extremely evident in the design and miracle of new LIFE.

i had mixed feelings about newborn pictures pre-dax, but i'm so glad i decided to have them done! the photographer was an answer to prayer. i searched the area for one who was my style, and the only one i liked was mega expensive. i was torn between choosing a cheap photographer whose pictures i didn't love, or splurging on the amazing one whose price was way too high for me … prayed about it, and the next day i found dinah reece - an amazing photographer with amazingly cheap prices because she wants to build her portfolio. perfect - thank you Jesus for caring about the details.