For as long as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with planning my future. More specifically, dreaming about who I would fall in love with, planning our perfect wedding, how many kids we would have, and what their names would be. I had three baby dolls, “Claire Ann”, “Ayden Reed”, and “Eliza Joy”, I had pictures on my wall of the dress I would get married in, the bouquet of tulips I would hold, and the pale yellow dresses my bridesmaids would wear. My conversations with friends as a child were often spent asking them what their kids names would be and if they did not yet know, I often responded with a gasp! What kind of monster has not had this planned already? All I have ever wanted in life is to fall in love, get married, and become a mom. After a fairytale love story, wedding, and happily ever after with my perfect prince of a man, I got a positive pregnancy test the week of our 2-year anniversary. Everything was going perfectly according to my plan. I weirdly even remember saying things like “It would be good to get married at 20 and have my first child at 22” and that’s exactly what I did. Now the REAL planning begins, I am finally becoming a mommy!
I always knew I would have a natural birth, in a birth center, surrounded by my family, a doula, and in an atmosphere of worship. After all, God created my body for this. He purposed my body to carry life and then bring it earth side! No matter what, my baby was created for my body and my body for my baby. I remember throughout my pregnancy people telling me stories of how their baby was “too big” so they had to be born via c-section. I would internally roll my eyes, knowing that’s just not how it works. I had women scoff at me when I shared with them my plans to go drug-free. I even had a family member legitimately tell me I wasn’t capable.
My pregnancy with our son, Emmett was not the easiest. I was sick every single day, what felt like all day, for literally half of my pregnancy. I had to do my glucose test three times. We listed and sold our first home, bought a new one, packed and moved in with my parents for several months while we completely gutted and renovated the new house, and finally moved in while I was around 8 months pregnant. Oddly enough, my third trimester was the most enjoyable, despite all the renovating and moving chaos. Emmett was “due” on October 16th. 2019. I remember being at church on my due date and feeling so proud to be out and about, with a cute outfit and my hair and makeup done ON my actual due date. Someone told me that night they thought, by the looks of me, I was going to have a 10-pound baby. I rolled my eyes and said, ”NO WAY! Tyler and I were both small babies! Not a chance.”
I will never forget going to bed on the evening of October 21st with contractions and feeling so excited. It felt like I was preparing for the biggest event of my life. Like the Super Bowl! My water broke while we were sleeping on October 22nd after 3am. Once we confirmed I didn’t in fact pee the bed, we jumped out of bed, called the midwife, text our doula and were ready for the “big game”. We were encouraged to get some rest and then go walking in a few hours to try and get contractions going. In case you don’t know, once your water breaks, you need to be in active labor within 24 hours. The longer your womb is exposed, the higher the risk is for infection. We began walking the neighborhood, resting, doing different positions with our doula, bouncing on my exercise ball, and more. We alternated these things all day until my weekly appointment with the midwife later that afternoon. She did a membrane sweep and checked my cervix. If I remember correctly, I wasn’t even dilated at that point and if I was it was like 1cm. She encouraged us to do everything possible to induce labor. I got home from that appointment and went gang busters. I was pumping, walking, taking castor oil, bouncing some more and working with our doula. You name it, we did it. Contractions would get closer together and more intense and then out of nowhere they would slow down. It was a very frustrating roller coaster. The clock was ticking. As things sped up again, the midwife called, and we planned to meet her at the birth center at around midnight. When midnight came, my contractions had nearly stopped. I remember looking at my doula in tears. I didn’t understand why my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. I felt so incredibly defeated. We left my house to go to the birth center anyway. We continued working hard to speed up contractions and get active labor started. This included using a peanut ball, more membrane sweeps, castor oil, and pumping. Things simply were not happening. The midwife came in and mentioned a hospital transfer. Our doula pleaded with her for one more hour so I could get some rest. Maybe THEN, my body would get the freakin message! After an hour came and went, I knew what had to happen. The midwife came in and broke the news that we needed to go to the hospital in order to bring Emmett earth side. Although, we knew this was coming, our hearts were broken to finally face the truth and that my plan for a natural birth was shattered. I just kept reminding myself that Jesus loves my baby more than I do and he has the perfect story written of how he will be born. We got to the hospital at around 7am on October 23rd and got checked into a room. We were greeted by the most amazing nurse followed by the doctor on call who immediately wanted to get an ultrasound to determine the size of my baby… to which I, of course, rolled my eyes. The ultrasound tech came and did the ultrasound and determined I had a large baby. Again, I scoffed. How can you determine the WEIGHT of a baby from an ultrasound?! I have heard so many stories of these predictions being way off. NO WAY is my baby close to ten pounds. The doctor came in following the ultrasound and recommended a c-section because of my “big baby”. Pretty sure I, in the snarkiest way possible, declined. This doctor did not make a good impression on me. Not to mention, I went from all female midwives that I knew to a male stranger who is doing all the typical “doctor” things that go against my beliefs about birth. You women know sometimes you just don’t want a male va-jay-jay doctor. They start me on Pitocin and labor starts to pick up. I labored all day and I vividly remember by afternoon things got intense and by evening I wanted to die. Not really, but we’ll just say it hurt real bad. 30+ hours after my water breaking, they checked my cervix and I was only 4 centimeters dilated. This is when they suspected I had a four bag. A four bag is basically a balloon of fluid pushing up against your cervix. Every time you have a contraction it pushes up against the four bag so you aren’t dilating. It is essentially working against all your contractions. SO, they had to use what looked like a very large, long crochet hook to burst this “four bag” because oh yeah, turns out I did indeed have one. By 11pm that evening, I had endured so many hours of some of the worst pain I could even imagine. I had been putting in a lot of hard work. Labor was intense. It was way worse than I could have imagined. Not only was I physically exhausted, going on almost two days of no sleep, but emotionally, it felt like there was no end in sight. I had almost lost sight of what this was all for. Not only was I drained, but my sweet husband had endured so much seeing me go through immense pain and disappointment. At this point, they checked my cervix again to find that I was now 4 ½ cm dilated. You read that right. After all that, I dilated A HALF A CENTIMETER. Another disappointment. It was at this point, the doctor recommended an epidural. Having an epidural was nearly SIN in my book. I had read the risks! I’ve heard the horror stories! I swore to myself when I left the birth center that under no circumstances would I get a wretched epidural! I looked to my doula, expecting her to have the solution for this mess. She agreed with the doctor’s suggestion. Receiving an epidural would help me to get the much-needed rest my body needed in order to progress the way it needed to get Emmett to where he needed to be which was out! After over 40 hours, I was so desperate, I consented to the epidural. Another dream shattered.
Thankfully, after receiving the epidural, Tyler and I both slept. Honestly, I felt like he needed it just as much as I did. He never left my side and worked through every contraction with me. He was so incredibly strong. Shortly after Tyler and I went to sleep, I was awakened by gradual pain. My mom, my aunt(doula), and my Mother in law came to check on me at this exact moment. I slowly but surely felt all the writhing pains of active labor coming on. My peaceful sleep turned into agonizing screams. Come to find out, my epidural medication site was leaking. There was nothing I could do. I could not get out of the bed and move through the contraction like I learned in birth class because you can’t get up once you’ve had an epidural. I was chained to the bed, forced to lay there as my body all of the sudden fell into burning pain. By the time the anesthesiologist made it to my room and fixed the problem, it took a while for me to be back at peace and relieved of the pain. By around 3am the same night, all at once, I awoke from my sleep again and was thrown into without a doubt, the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. I almost climbed out of my skin. It was happening again. This time I remember yelling “help me!” so that SOMEONE in the hallway would hear it. It felt like hours before the anesthesiologist arrived. Because my epidural had completely worn off, it took about a half hour for it to take effect this time. I remember just lying there taking deep breaths. Tyler was at my side, rubbing my arm and I just kept asking Jesus to help me over and over again. It felt like it would never stop. They kept reassuring me that it may take a while this time. It did. Thankfully, I again, drifted off to sleep. By the time morning came on October 24th, I felt great. I had an army of family members there and it felt so good to actually SEE them. They had all been in and out throughout my time at the hospital, but let’s be honest, so was I. I was not seeing or noticing anything around me while working as hard as I was laboring. I got to sit up in the bed to chat and visit with my favorite people, my family. When the doctor came in to check my cervix, I was given the best news. I was 7cm dilated! Okay, maybe not the best news, but it was SOMETHING! My body finally did something. I was beginning to wonder for a minute. The rest was exactly what I needed to get this show on the road. It was certain, today was the day. Emmett’s birthday! I would finally see my boy face to face, a face I always imagined looking exactly like the man I fell in love with when I was 14, his daddy. I remember texting my best friends and telling them today would be the day. At this time, a new doctor went on call. She came in and introduced herself to us. I couldn’t help but think this was a little wink from Jesus that I got a new doctor just in time. By afternoon, I reached 10 cm and was encouraged to “labor down”. Laboring down is where you sit up in the bed in a chair position and gravity encourages your baby down as far as it will go before you begin pushing. I can see in my head, the nurses coming in and setting up the room for a baby to be born! The blue paper, the instruments, they even asked who would be in the room when Emmett was born. I remember everyone guessing his weight. They wrote it on the board in front of my bed. There were a lot of people emotionally invested at this point! It felt so real. So tangible. All I had to do was push this baby out! We were almost there. I began pushing at around 4pm. Each “push” is three pushes in a row for 10 seconds with a break in between. I was doing 4-5 pushes in a row. I was determined. Finally, something I could control. My doctor sat at the end of the bed from the very beginning. With each push I heard encouragement from my family in the room. The energy was everything I needed to keep working hard. An hour passed, and another, and another. They brought out a mirror so I could see my baby’s head. I stared at the mirror while pushing for multiple hours and his head didn’t budge. I pushed harder, I pushed more, I dug deep. His head didn’t budge. My sister was feeding me ice chips between every push. This was it, I was going to get him out! I looked in the mirror again… he didn’t budge. They drained my bladder to create more space. Surely this was what the problem was, so having a little help from the emptied bladder I pushed harder than before. I could see his head. My family was screaming in excitement saying things like “this is it, Abby!” and “OH MY GOODNESS, HE’S COMING!”. I heard those expressions for over an hour. The doctor looked at me and said, “Abby, you’re doing it. Any one of your next pushes is it!”. So I mustered up every bit of strength I had and pushed as if my life depended on it. I was going to do this! I was made for this! I looked down at the mirror, and he didn’t budge. Finally, the doctor offered me a last resort option which was to perform an episiotomy. I just needed to see my baby!!! “As long as I don’t feel it”… and before I could even finish the sentence, the episiotomy was done. This is exactly what we needed! I’ve been pushing for four hours, I’ve had my bladder drained, been cut, I can do this! I pushed even harder than before fueled by the encouragement from my family and the hope of another ice chip! I looked down at the mirror for the last time, and he just didnt budge. It was at this point, my absolute God send of a doctor recommended a c-section. I again, looked at my doula and then at my precious husband. He looked like he had been stabbed in the heart over and over. The pain in his eyes was so evident. We all agreed, it was time to let my final dream shatter. We were all in tears, having journeyed for so long. The last thing I remember saying to Tyler before going into surgery was “This is it! We are finally going to meet our boy. It’s actually going to happen.”.
I remember being put on the operating table and I remember being really in and out. I think it was a combination of the anesthesia and the physical exhaustion from the last three days. I had my eyes closed, honestly half asleep until I was jerked away by the most intense yanking on the other side of the curtain. A few minutes later they lowered the curtain and for the first time, I saw the face of my boy. The first thing I said was, “HE’S SO CUTE”. The most perfect thing I ever laid eyes on. I waited for the sound I dreamed about, his first cry. It was a sound that I didn’t hear. I remember my stomach sinking as the minutes passed. “He isn’t crying.” I said to Tyler. They rushed him over to work on him and Tyler went to be by his side. I’m lying on this table, in and out of consciousness, being sewn back together and have no idea what is going on. I have labored for 65 hours and now my baby might not even be ok. WHAT IS HAPPENING?! Is my baby alive?! He isn’t crying. The anesthesiologist came over and assured me that Emmett was ok. He told me that he had to be intubated due the breathing troubles but was now breathing on his own. He was such a gift to me during this time. One of the many moments I knew Jesus was near. I got rolled into recovery and truly, everything looking back, is really foggy. My mom snuck into the room
to be with me when I woke up. My family gave me my phone and pictures of my boy started flooding my messages. It was surreal. I soon found out he was 9 pounds 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long. I could not believe everyone was right. Shortly after, my immediate family was together. By the time Tyler got to me, he told me that Emmett had to be transferred to another hospital. There was a brain damage concern. In this moment, I wasn’t scared. For some reason, I had complete confidence that God is faithful and that our boy was going to be just fine. We both did. I just needed to see him! The first time I got to see him up close, he was in a big incubator contraption just before he got transferred. His face was turned away from my bed, so I never did get to see his face. That part was painful. I spoke over him that he was going to be ok in the name of Jesus as I held his little hand. They were pressed for time in order to start him on his treatment within the allotted 6 hours, so they whisked him away. Tyler followed them. I remember waking up throughout the night and crying. I woke up the next morning, crying. After all I did, after all my hard work, my arms were empty. I felt like my heart was shattered in a million pieces. I heard babies crying in the rooms on my floor and would cry. A representative from the hospital came in to share about offering newborn photos and when she left, I again sobbed. I wanted to just scream, “don’t you understand my baby isn’t here?!”. I survived off pictures and videos of Emmett for the next two days and did everything in my power to get discharged as soon as possible. God opened the door for me to be discharged a whole day earlier than expected. I genuinely was shocked when the doctor came in and told me the news. I took a shower for the first time in days. I remember being so scared because my body was so weak. I was nervous about getting my incision wet, and my nurse told me new moms often pass out in the shower. My sister helped me. I survived. I got dressed and my cosmetologist sister braided my hair. I remember saying “I want Emmett to think he has a pretty mama”. My mom, dad, and sister came to pick me up. It was so surreal getting rolled out of the hospital. It was Saturday and I literally had not been outside since I checked in to the hospital on Wednesday. Finally, my little family of three would be together. I decided not to tell Tyler I was discharged. I wanted to surprise him. The energy in the room when I was wheeled into the NICU was unexplainable. Everything certainly wasn’t “ok”, but we were together at last and that was a start. A moment that was 10 months in the making. Seeing Emmett up close and personal for the first time was a moment I could never describe. I was introduced for the first time ever as Emmett’s mom to the nurse on call. She looked at me, at Tyler, and back at me again and said, “I think he looks like you”. He really did look as everyone said… exactly like ME! That was something I did not expect! And yet, he was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. The tubes and cords attached to him and little goggles on his face could not hide that he was in every way, fearfully and wonderfully made by the hands of God. The days to come were a roller coaster. I spent every waking hour in that NICU room cuddling that baby like there was no tomorrow. Some days felt hopeful and others looked dim. We had no idea when we would bring our boy home. From the very first day he was always very bright eyed and alert. All the nurses talked about it. I looked at him develop day by day and knew in my heart of hearts this boy’s brain was not only perfectly fine, but exceptional. Each night we would lay hands on him and pray before we left. When I kissed him goodnight, it felt like my heart was physically breaking. No mom should have to leave their newborn baby like that. It is such a helpless feeling. I am so grateful for the incredible nurses who loved on him in the hours that I couldn’t. Emmett underwent many tests throughout his time in the hospital and after 9 days there, at last we got to take our “buddy” as we called him, home.
So as I sit here writing this story, Emmett is currently 6 months old. He is beautiful, healthy, strong, bright, spunky, and exceptional. He is far beyond anything I could have ever imagined he would be. I walked through so much darkness and got the best possible outcome. So why is it that I ended up on my couch a couple of months ago, crippled with despair, sadness, and feelings of inadequacy ready to leave Tyler and Emmett behind convinced that they were better off without me? I knew with all my heart I wasn’t cut out to be a mom. I laid there in hysterics considering how my breastfed baby would eat once I was gone from his life. How did this darkness almost overtake me when my prayers were answered? I felt ashamed some days to admit that although I was smiling, I was dying on the inside. It wasn’t fair to be sad when my baby lived! Every single day there were voices in my head telling me I wasn’t a good mom. When Emmett cried, I blamed myself. When he smiled at his daddy, it was because he loved him more than he loved me. I found out when Emmett was four months old that I was going through postpartum depression. It was Tyler who realized I wasn’t myself. How could I be going through PPD? Emmett is 4 months old? I looked it up and read plenty of stories of women who went through the same thing. He encouraged me to seek counseling and I started the following week.
Through counseling, I have become a happy mom. I know that I am living in my purpose. I look at my boy every day and can’t help but be reminded of the girl with the baby dolls and wedding photos pasted on her wall. I am absolutely living my dream. God has revealed so much to me about myself through counseling. He has helped me realize what He has been trying to say to me all this time. I’ve been able to process the trauma we experienced and stop allowing it to haunt me and effect the way I parent each and every day. When I reflect on this journey, I am reminded of Proverbs 16:9 which says, “We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” Every plan I made, didn’t allow room for Christ. I made my plan and never invited the Holy Spirit to make His edits. I wasn’t welcoming His guidance therefore how could I be ok when he determined the steps that led to a MUCH different plan than my own. Not allowing room for God’s plan, I found myself in a pit when things didn’t go according to my own. A pit that wasn’t pretty. I was then left trying to pick up the pieces of the aftereffects of the hardest season of my life not knowing why or how He allowed it to happen the way it did. I never even asked the Lord. I never brought him my bruised and tattered heart and expected him to mend it. All I had to do was seek His face and ask “Lord, what are you saying? What are you teaching me?” I just was so dark on the inside and it was simply because I didn’t get my way. I didn’t make room, room for the Holy Spirit to shake up my plan. Room for Him to make me uncomfortable. I didn’t make room for the hospital, the epidural, the c-section, the NICU, none of it! There was no room for Jesus in that. How could Jesus be making a plan that wasn’t the one that I had dreamed of since I was a young girl?. But what I couldn’t see then that I clearly see now is that Jesus was in every detail of the seemingly dark and messy plan we walked out. He worked through the doula, the midwife, the perfect nurse to welcome us to the hospital, the right doctor who reassured me with every push and moment of disappointment, the anesthesiologist who let me know my boy was ok, the doctor who discharged me a whole day early… Jesus was so very near even when I made no room for His plan. He was in my disappointment. He was holding my broken dreams, and He was writing a story that would grow me into a better woman, wife, mother, and daughter of Christ. Why not make room? Why not trust? I wonder what will happen when I roll up the blueprint of my life, lace up my shoes, and go for a walk with Jesus.