On Thursday, June 4th
I went to concert on the lake with my family. I was 40 weeks and 4 days
pregnant. We went home and Zach went to sleep while my sister and I stayed up
watching TV. That’s when I had my first contraction. They were about every 15
minutes so I was able to go to sleep but was woken up with a few in the middle
of the night. I woke up around 7:00 and told Zach that I wanted to go to my
parent’s house and get in their big bathtub. Zach totally kicked his ass into
gear. In 5 minutes he had everything ready and loaded into the car. I kept
grabbing things last minute and then out of nowhere I decided I wanted to make our
bed because if the next time we were going to be home was with our baby I
wanted the house to “be clean”. This made Zach very anxious but nonetheless, we
made the bed and then headed to my parent’s house 10 minutes away. I had a
contraction in their driveway. At this point, I’m thinking this has got be the
real deal. Then Zach looked at me and both of us were definitely on the same
page. We walked in the house and my parents were still asleep. I yell “hello! I’m
taking a bath!” They’re awake now. I walked to the kitchen to get some water.
My dad was already up making sure his cameras were charged and Zach was getting
some stuff out of the car. My mom was running my bath and as I took my first
two steps into her bathroom I felt water running down my leg. My water was
breaking. I laid down on their bed and told Zach I still wanted to get in the
bath but he called the doctor and she told us to go to the hospital. We got to
the hospital, they put me in a robe, checked to see if I was dilated and boom
my water broke FULLY. It was 8:30 and I was in labor. I decided very early in
my pregnancy that I wanted to have a natural birth. I labored naturally from 8:30am-5pm. Zach was
with me every step of the way. He never stopped encouraging and supporting me.
The doctor came in at 3:00 and told me that I had only dilated a centimeter
more since 8:30. Zizi was head down but her face was up and she wasn’t moving
down. At that point we decided to try Pitocin to try and get things
progressing. The pain was REAL. At 4:30 the doctor came in and my contractions
were consistent and strong. She
checked me and I still had not dilated any more. As she started explaining why
she felt like a c section might be the only way, I looked down and cried.
Couldn’t stop crying. This was not my
plan. My doctor got really close to me and said ‘this doesn’t mean you failed.
You are not a failure.’ God was using her to speak to me and I’m pretty sure
she wasn’t even aware of it. At 5pm I got an epidural, I dilated to a 10 in an
hour and a half, tried to push but Zizi was not budging , they rolled me to the
operating room, began the c section and we met our girl a little after 7pm. I
was staring at my husband when I heard her cry for the first time and then we
both looked and they were holding her up for us to see. At that point, I did
not care how she got here, I was just so glad she was here. Zach got to go help
clean her up and get her ready to go back to our room. When she was swaddled
they brought her next to my face and I kissed her for the first time. Crying
and overwhelmed I kissed Zach and laughed with so much joy. We could never
imagine the love that would invade our entire being.
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| Photo by Shanon Zais |
-Haley
