Baby Leu

Malachi’s Birth Story

My midwife encouraged me to write my birthstory.  If you don’t like details, skip this one. 

December 8 - My midwife comes to the house to do our home visit.  My urine test comes out with a +2 for protein and my blood pressure reads 145/??… up from 112/70.  Not good.  Looks like PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension).  They put me on a HIGH protein diet and a BUNCH of herbal and natural remedies hoping to stave off preeclampsia.  As long as I remain asymptomatic they will go ahead and deliver me.  However, knowing that the condition cannot be reversed and that I still have three weeks until my due date, I’m not particularly optimistic.  So we start praying for healing or for an early delivery.  Towards the end of the week, my protein and BP have shown no improvement and I am getting really worn out on trying to get enough protein down every day.

December 15 (3 weeks before due date) 7:30pm - I get up from lying down and my water breaks.  I call the midwife.  She is on her way to another delivery.  She tells me to take a shower, get some rest and call her when contractions start.  We’re both thinking it could still be a little while since this is my first. After finishing my shower my contractions have started.  This time she tells me to call her when they are five minutes apart.  They are sporadic but I am surprised by the intensity of some of them, thinking that I thought they were supposed to be mild towards the beginning. 

9:00pm - We decide we better hed over to  my parents (where we planned with the midwife to have the baby) because this baby may just come sooner than we expected.

9:30pm - We arrive at my parents and find out that my brother is leaving at 5:00am for a week long mission with the national guard.  He had planned the trip so that he wouldn’t miss the birth.  I tell him that I seriously doubt this baby is going to be born before 5:00am.  But I start praying that he will anyway.

10:00pm - I call the midwife again because although my contractions are still about 7 minutes apart, they are quite intense.

11:05pm - The midwife delivers the other baby and placenta and heads over to our house

12:00am - Midwife arrives and Adam and mom help her with setting up the back-up pool. ( I end up never using this because the house ran out of hot water and by the time they got it ready we decided it was best not to use it anyway)

12:45am - I’m really not sure if this was the time she first checked me, but when she did she was shocked to find I was already 8-9 cm dilated. I think it was also about this time that I went from about 6-7 minutes apart down to 3-4 minutes apart.

1:30am - Pushing begins.  At this point the time between contractions is simply a time of dread waiting for the next one.  My whole body has been shaking for a few hours now.  My thighs and back are burning intensely.  The midwife informs me that my outlet is tighter than average and they were also quite concerned about me tearing for other reasons.  So they encourage me to take it slow with the pushing.  I was then totally freaked out that I was going to rip wide open and was really hesitant about pushing.  So I started praying that God would protect from tearing. 

3:04am - Malachi Adam is born.  The most beautiful thing I’ve ever set eyes on.  Also I had no tearing. A very intense 7 hour labor, but totally worth it.  And Uncle David got to hold his nephew before he had to leave!  Praise God!