A day of MIRACLES

Well, friends .... I have given birth to angel. I am so in love with him that it hurts. Here are the labor/delivery details, I will try to keep it brief (which clearly you know by now, is tough for me).

Pitocin and saline started about 7:30 am. The contractions instantly became quick and pretty painful. My awesome nurses had already called down to pharmacy and had a special epidural concoction (without fentanyl) waiting here for me so there was no delay. I had a long and detailed pow-wow with the anesthesiologist to discuss all the risks with the heparin and the fentanyl allergy. We had the epidural placed around 8:00ish. I had forgotten how scary that is, whewwwwwwww. Especially after the guy has just explained my risk for a spinal hematoma and paralysis.

About 5 minutes after the epidural, my blood pressure went down to 80/39. The anesthesiologist began running frantically and within seconds produced an injection of norepinephrine . That brought it back up a bit, but it never got higher than 90's/40's.

By 8:15 I couldn't feel my legs. Actually couldn't feel much of anything at all. At one point I even asked the nurse, "Am I still having contractions?". She replied, "ummmmmmmm, YES, they are huge and coming every 2 minutes!".

THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE EPIDURAL!!!!

At 8:30 the midwife, Joy, came and broke my water. I was so numb I didn't even blink. She reported at that time that my cervix was 4-5 cm dilated and 100% effaced.

Shortly thereafter, my beloved Dr. Garcia stopped in with a very uncharacteristically serious demeanor. He explained that he had a family emergency, his son was being transported to the hospital, and he was uncertain if he would be able to deliver me because he would be leaving at some point.

At first I kind of panicked, but then I reminded myself that God had already answered every prayer and that He had orchestrated every detail so I was trusting that it would work out regardless. We continued to hope that Dr. Garcia would be available, but made a back-up plan for the midwife Joy to deliver if necessary.

Between 9:00 and 10:30 I rested comfortably. Laura arrived with Gracie, Jessica with Adam, and my parents were both here. I was completely calm and relaxed with zero pain. Honestly if there hadn't been anyone else in the room I would've just fallen asleep. My mom stood by my bed and rubbed my legs, and I just layed with my eyes closed. I felt just an overwhelming sense of peace and calm. I did not worry, I did not obsess over details or what-if's, I didn't give any thought to all the things that could go wrong. THIS IS TOTALLY UNLIKE ME!!! So clearly the hand of God was at work! I swear I could feel His presence so close in that room and somehow all the scary things just melted away.

Around 10:45 the midwife came in and asked if I was feeling pressure like I wanted to push. I reported that I had not felt any pressure at all. She explained that she was watching my monitors out in the hall and it looked to her like it might be time for me to push. As she was talking to me about it, another contraction came and I did feel some pressure. So she checked my cervix and said, "the baby's head is HERE, it is definitely time to push, DON'T MOVE!"

I was shocked! I hardly felt anything at all, no pain, just a tiny bit of pressure.

My room was soon filled with nurses setting up equipment and making preparations. Joy paged Dr. Garcia and got his voicemail. She didn't even know at that point if he was still at the hospital or not. She stood with me and held my hand while we waited for a call back. I was praying that he would respond, but at the same time was not afraid of what would happen if he did not. Joy waited by my bedside with the phone in her hand for 8 or 10 minutes. Every two minutes or so she would lift my blanket to peek, and would say, "okay, I don't see the head coming out yet so we are okay to wait another minute or two". She told me I had to stay on my side and hold still because if I turned to my back then Jamin was going to come out. Totally crazy!

Dr. Garcia did call back, praise God, and a few moments later he came in the room, slipped on a pair of gloves, and began giving me instructions on pushing.

I started pushing at 11:05. I pushed through three contractions. Again, almost no pain. After the third contraction Dr. Garcia reported I was about to tear and asked my permission to do an episiotomy. As soon as he did the episiotomy, he asked me to give one small push. I did and at 11:15 Jamin fell right out! He was crying before his trunk and legs were even delivered! We knew in an instant that his lungs were just fine, THANK YOU JESUS!!!

I immediately told James that the labor and delivery were seriously the EASIEST part of the whole pregnancy! And it's true. All the months of injections, IV's, blood draws, medication side effects, blood pressure issues, and sleepless nights ....... truly a million times more difficult than actually giving birth.

As you can well imagine, we are just overwhelmed with gratitude for what the Lord has done. I can honestly say I have witnessed Him perform an absolute miracle with my own eyes. He carried us through an onslaught of nightmarish obstacles, and ended the journey by answering every single one of our prayers. Tonight I look back on my posts from earlier this week, I look at all those prayer requests, and I smile. God must've just used that like a check-list or something. He met every need, even those that seemed almost impossible. And then He poured his presence over us so heavily today, at every single stage of the labor and delivery, His hand was there and every single thing just fell into place beautifully. We could never have imagined a more perfect experience.

Tonight the three of us are resting and just staring at eachother in disbelief! Jamin is being a little lazy with the breastfeeding, he just wants to sleep and sleep and sleep. We have hardly heard a peep out of him since he got here!

Please pray for James and I to get some rest tonight. And please join us in giving praise and glory to the Miracle-Maker!!!!