Nine months ago...

Nine months ago last night, Red Head and I found out that we were pregnant. November 18, 2009 changed our lives forever. And as terrified as I was at the time, I'm so beyond grateful today. We love our precious baby boy and I honestly cannot imagine life without him. And even though it has only been a month, I can hardly even remember life before him! What did we do with all of our time back then? We must have been so bored! :)

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Our Andrew is such a blessing to us and we thank the Lord for his little life daily. What a mighty God we serve!

Happy four weeks, sweetpea! Mommy and Daddy love you, little monkey.

When Two Became Three

"The preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD." Proverbs 16:1

I had everything planned out, down to the smallest and most minute details. I knew exactly how I wanted things to go, exactly how I wanted my experience to unfold...

...It wasn't at all like I had planned. In fact, just about every single one of my "plans" or "requests" never came to fruition. No, it wasn't at all like I had planned- it was much better. And I wouldn't change one second of it for the whole world. Let me start at the beginning...

I woke up the morning of July 21, 2010 with contractions around 5:00am. Unfortunately, I had spent many a morning (especially the wee AM hours) waking up to contractions and I'd had gotten my hopes up one too many times to get too excited about these contractions. I had been having a mixture of Braxton Hicks and real contractions, but they never lasted, never got more painful, never got closer together (aka- they were never REAL labor contractions!). But on that morning, I woke up in pain and thus began the contraction dance of getting up to go to the bathroom, pacing the room, bending, squatting, stretching- you name it, I did it. In all my commotion, I woke up my husband who proceeded to try to snuggle the contractions out of me. As I settled back down, the contractions just picked back up. So, sweet Red Head advised me to take a warm shower to relax my muscles. We had our 39 week OBGYN appointment that morning so I needed to get ready anyway.

While in the shower, I remember thinking that we would never make it to our 9:40 appointment; surely I would be in active labor by then and we would be on our way to the hospital. Right? No, wrong again. As the hour hand on the clock moved from 5 to 9, my contractions started to space out and get less and less intense. My hopes were dashed again! Since I was still pretty uncomfortable from the contractions, my precious husband offered to drive me to the doctors appointment (normally we took two cars so he could go straight to work afterwards). As I signed in, the same sweet receptionist that I saw every week asked, "So are we having a baby today?" "Whew, I hope so!" was my reply. There were no other words to describe the depths of my longing and supreme impatience for our baby to make its arrival. I had checked out of the pregnancy hotel and was ready to move into Mommyville. After that little conversation, it was the same old, same old. Sign in, wait in the lobby, pee in a cup, step on the scales, blood pressure check, and into a room. The nurse asked me how I was feeling and I mentioned the contractions to her but she seemed pretty unphased. Maybe that was because I'd been having contractions for the past four months and she thought I was crying wolf again.

When the doctor walked in briskly with a nurse, I thought maybe my comment had scored me the golden ticket. But once he said, "I'm going to check you for progress really quick because they are waiting for me outside to sing happy birthday to someone so I will run out there and them come back so we can talk" I knew there was NOTHING special about the day. I wasn't in labor. I was just a big old pregnant lady. Thirty-nine weeks and five days. Yes, I was sure that I would be pregnant forever.

Once our doctor (who we love!) checked me, he informed me that no progress had been made in the last week. Still two centimeters and 50-75% effaced. Ouch. My hopes hadn't just been dashed, they had been drop kicked, punched, exploded, and hung out to dry. Once the doctor's singing gig was over, he came back in to talk to us about our options for inducing. I shuddered when I heard the word. Induce. He was going to have to make my baby come out. I wasn't pleased with the news, but I also wanted to do what was best for our baby, so we scheduled an ultrasound and a non-stress test for the following Monday so we could make our induction plans with all the information we would need.

After the appointment, with my head hung down low and still having contractions, my husband informed me that he was taking the day off to stay with me since I wasn't feeling well. Apparently he knew something that I didn't! We decided that walking would be the best thing for me to get things progressing so we headed to Walmart and Costco so we could stay in the air conditioning. (Side note- I had spent the past week and a half walking outside everyday in the excruciating Memphis heat- our heat indexes got up to 130 degrees several times. That was the depths of my despair- walking for miles and miles in the heat advisory. No other human was stupid enough to be outside, no one but crazy me!)

After walking and walking and contracting and contracting, I was starving. Red Head insisted that we eat spicy foods, since everyone says hot food induces labor. Again, he must have known something that I didn't! We went to Las Delicias and I ate as much spicy green salsa as I could handle. We had such a fun time eating and talking that I forgot my worries and let loose from nine months of pregnant frustration. At last, I was happy. I was with my husband, having fun, and the baby would come when it was good and ready.

I think spicy food was the cherry on top to make Baby Woods good and ready. :)

By the time we got home from our lunch date, my contractions had revved up to an uncomfortable degree. I went to bed to relax and they only got worse. Weird, huh? They always slowed down when I relaxed. My husband had downloaded a "Contraction Timer" app on his iPhone so we started timing contractions around 1:00pm, a good eight hours after they had begun. The next few hours are all a blur for me. I remember lying in bed, feeling a contraction coming on, beating my computer with the iPhone to call for Red Head's help, timing the contractions and being exhausted in between. That pattern went on for the next several hours, with Red Head running in and out of the room (he was working from home on a few things that he needed to tie up at work). A few hours into it, I began to feel a huge pressure on my lower back, the most excruciating pain I had ever felt- MUCH worse than the contractions. That's right, you guessed it-back labor. I am convinced that back labor is the ultimate curse that God laid upon womankind when Adam and Eve sinned. I was able to get through the contractions with everything we had learned from our Bradley book, but the back labor was all together a different kind of beast. Sweet hubby rubbed my back, applied counter pressure, everything he could to help. At times I was yelling for him to rub harder, then yelling for him to not touch me at all. Poor guy. But he held in there, stayed by my side, and saw me through every contraction.

At 6:00pm, Red Head and I watched a few Cosby episodes in bed while he ate dinner and I snacked on grapes. After that, all I remember is rocking in the glider in the nursery, Red Head playing the guitar for me, being on all fours in the nursery floor screaming in pain, and lots and lots more pain. The back labor continued, despite all my efforts to move the baby down and out of my back. My contractions were a pretty steady 7 minutes apart for a good number of hours. Then five minutes apart, when the normal woman would go to the hospital. I, however, was going to have a natural childbirth and thus I would be waiting at home until the contractions were two minutes apart. Well, after 7, then 5 minutes apart, they went straight to two minutes. And then I started freaking out.

As the contractions sped up and got closer together, I was terrified that we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time. Red Head started to get dressed and pack up the car, leaving me alone for a few minutes to handle the contractions on my own. That was the worst thing ever. I was in our bedroom, on all fours in the floor, grunting and maybe even screaming a little, digging my nails into the carpet, trying to get through each pain. But, even when the contraction was over, the back labor was still there. No, I mean absolutely no relief. It took me forever just to make it to the car and I kept thinking that I'd never make it to a hospital bed without the baby's head coming out. It wasn't that the contractions were that intense, but the back labor was. So, we began our five minute drive to the hospital at 11:00pm on July 21, with eight hours of easy labor and ten hours of very hard, active labor under our belts. I knew our baby would be born any moment.

Well, again, I was wrong...

As we pulled up to the hospital, the contractions got even more intense and I knew I must be in the transition stage of labor, where everything escalates and you go from seven to ten centimeters in dilation. I could hardly walk into the building so two kind strangers found me a wheel chair. I buried my face in my pillow while my husband did all the talking for me. Once we got checked in, we had to sit in the waiting room for a few minutes for a nurse to come take me back to a room. I sat in the wheelchair, in pain and scarred out of my mind, and looked around the room with a half closed eye. Families were in the waiting room, expectantly waiting to hear about their new granddaughter, brother, nephew or niece. I was struck by my own awkwardness. There I was writhing in pain and moaning! in a wheelchair while people sat there in the awkward dance of watching me and pretending not to watch me. Needless to say, I was trilled when the nurse came to get me.

Once in our room, Labor and Delivery Room 6, I was hooked up to all the monitors. Sure enough, I was in labor! The baby's heart rate was perfect and contractions were skyrocketing. This was it! As I settled in, though, the back labor only got worse. I couldn't find any relief. As a contraction would end, the back pain would only get worse. Suddenly, everything seemed to come down on me at once and I couldn't catch my breath. It was too much all at once. The contraction would start and I'd beat my hand against the bed rail or squeeze Red Head's hand until it almost broke. I needed a break, I needed to catch my breath. But, alas, it's called labor for a reason- it is the hardest work you will ever do in your entire life.

When the nurse came back in the check my progress, I mentally prepared myself to hear her say that I was complete and that it was time to have our baby. I never in my entire life ever could have expected what came out of her mouth. Three and a half centimeters.

What?!? Three and a half? I was two this morning! How could I have only progressed one and a half centimeters in eighteen hours of labor? No, it couldn't be right! Check again! But it was right. And then, I lost it. I became an emotional basketcase. Eighteen hours in and I was still hours and hours away from my baby being delivered. By 1:00am, after twenty hours of being awake and being in labor, I had had enough. I couldn't hold on any longer. I barely made it through the contractions, with only thirty seconds in between each one. I was hungry, tired, exhausted. More exhausted that I had ever been before. I was mentally worn down, and ready for someone to just cut my baby out of me. I couldn't go any longer.

At the end of my rope, I made a decision that I swore to myself that I would never make. I was the natural childbirth girl. I had preached and preached and shook my finger at more people that I knew. Natural childbirth was the only way to go. But for me, it wasn't going to be the way I went. Sometime between the hours of 1:00am and 3:00am, my doctor came in and I asked for the anesthesiologist.

I remember asking Red Head over and over again, "Are you disappointed in me? Are you disappointed in me?" His reply was always no, but I feared he was only giving me a brave face. I was beyond disappointed in myself. I had failed, hadn't I? I wanted everything done in a perfect way, and I was the weak link who messed everything up. Now I would be putting myself and my baby in needless harm's way all because the pain was too much to bear. Right or wrong, that's how I felt. I was a failure. I failed at the one thing that meant the world to me. And oh my, what would everyone else think of me? I would become a byword, a joke, an "I told you so" story. My pride was absolutely stripped away from me. Humbled does not begin to describe how I felt. And to be honest with you, I believe with all my heart that that was the Lord's doing.

No, I'm not saying that I think God made me take the drugs. That's silly. But if you know me personally at all, you know that I was MORE than prideful about natural childbirth. It became an identity for me. I lived it and breathed it. I spent hours everyday talking about it, thinking about it, researching it, preaching it. I looked down on those who didn't share my opinions. I was right, you were wrong. Natural childbirth is the only way to go if you love your baby at all... Yes, I was the worst kind of Pharisee. And in those hours of labor, the Lord brought me down in the hardest way possible. I cannot recall a time more recently in my life when I had been more humble than then. And to continue in my honesty, I'm so very glad. I'm so glad He humbled me. So glad He brought me down. So glad that He didn't let me continue in my prideful sin. So glad He moved in my heart while I laid on that hospital bed. I have no regrets now, I know He was in control the entire time. And the pain and everything that happened was His good will for me.

Once the anesthesiologist came in and sat me up to prep my back, the contractions and back labor worsened, and I could barely sit still through the pain. But, I did, and thirty minutes later, I was lying in bed, resting and finding relief. After the epidural, I went from 5 to 8 to 10 centimeters in the span of about four hours. It flew by. Suddenly, around seven am, the nurse came in to check me and YES! FINALLY! I was complete! It was time to push! My family left the room, while the doctor and my nurses came in to get everything ready. This was it! It was finally happening!

My sweet husband, who had been awake with me since the previous day when the contractions started, had only had a small amount of food and a large amount of coffee in the previous hours. That equaled a bad case of nausea for him. Moments before it was time to start pushing, he got the bucket so he could puke. Oh no, you don't! I was beyond nauseated and knew that if he went, I would too! Thankfully, as soon as I started pushing, his nausea ended and he got in the game. There was no way I could have done it without him!!

We pushed for thirty minutes, which included one break. It was the most surreal moment of my entire life. I literally felt like I was hovering above my own body, watching the entire scene unfold from a distance. It was incredible. When they checked me the last time, the doctor mentioned that the baby was "right there" and after two pushes, they moved the mirror over so that I could see my sweet baby's head coming out. Oh yes, he was right there! Seeing his head gave me the strength that I needed and with just a few more pushes, out he came. I saw something fly out between my legs and felt the strangest "bloop" in my stomach. And then, the most amazing sound I have ever heard. A cry. My baby's cry. My husband got to catch the baby and immediately I heard, "It's a boy!" A boy!! A boy!!! It's a boy! They put him across my stomach and there for the first time, I saw his face. The face of the person I had known so intimately for nine months and yet was a stranger to. And there he was. No longer in my stomach, but lying on top of it. Crying and crying. I reached out and touched his slimy, precious little body and my entire being melted. Love. Like I had never known could even exist. Love at first sight is possible, I know that now. Daddy cut his umbilical cord while I took in his face, his hands, his little body, every little part of him I studied. I heard Red Head say, "He has ten fingers and ten toes! He's perfect!" We sat there as a family of three while my husband and I balled our eyes out. I've never seen a more clear miracle in my whole life. Life had been made. And I was holding it in my own hands.

After a few moments of family bonding, the nurses took Baby Boy to be cleaned off, weighed, and measured. 7 pounds, 10 ounces. 20 3/4 inches long. A perfect baby boy. The nurses asked us what his name was and all we could do was laugh. He didn't have a name, we would have to discuss that. Baby Boy Woods was taken up to the nursery and Daddy escorted him. As everyone left the Delivery room, suddenly, I was alone. Alone. I hadn't been alone in nine months. It was terrifiying. My baby wasn't with me. I had no idea what to do. Thankfully, about twenty minutes later, the nurses came back in to clean me up and take me up to my new room. Once in my room, I anxiously awaited the arrival of my husband and our new son. I was able to find my cell phone and called him to see what the hold up was. I wanted to hold my baby! I was having withdrawls!

Apparently during delivery, Baby Boy swallowed a good bit of amniotic fluid which caused his oxygen saturation levels to be too low for them to release him back to me. So they watched him for an hour and a half until his levels rose. (They eventually had to take him back to the nursery to pump his stomach to get all the fluid out because he was having a hard time breathing and choking on it). After two hours of not seeing my new baby, they finally wheeled him in the room. A wave of relief flew over me. At last! Our family was all stuffed into my room, waiting to meet our baby for the first time but honestly, I didn't care about anyone- I just wanted to hold my baby. As everyone peered into his bassinet, oohing and cooing and taking loads of pictures, I made it very clear that I would be holding him first. Red Head placed our sweet baby in my arms, and the floodgates of tears opened. My baby. In my arms. Nothing could be sweeter.

While Baby Boy was in the nursery, Red Head and I talked on our cell phones about what we should name our baby. However, we never came to a definitive answer. Everyone kept asking, "What's his name? What's his name?" I kept saying "I don't know." They thought I was joking, that I just didn't want to tell them without Red Head being there. That was also true, but honestly, I didn't know what his name was! :) So, once the family had seen Baby Boy and mommy had cried all over him, I knew it was time for the poor thing to get a name! I asked my wonderful husband to christen Baby Boy with a name. "Tell everyone what his name is!" (I was dying to know, too!) My husband proudly pronounced, "Andrew James Woods, Jr." Yes!! A junior!! That's what I wanted all along! Woohoo!!

We spent the next two and a half days in the hospital recovering, spending time with friends and family, and getting to know Red Head Jr. It was the most perfect three days of my whole life. It was as if we were in a little bubble of love and joy where no bad or evil could creep in. It was beautiful. We brought Jr. home the following Saturday afternoon and every moment since then has been more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.

No, it didn't happen at all like I had planned. It wasn't like I expected. It was better. And I am grateful for how everything unfolded. It was exactly the way the Lord had planned for it to be. Andrew James Woods, Jr. came into our lives on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 7:54 am, one day before his due date and after twenty-six hours of labor. He has been such a blessing to us for the past three weeks and six days. I am so grateful to be his mother and to have the blessing to watch this precious child grow up. He is such a blessing to our family. And yes, he has red hair. :)

P.S. My back was extremely sore for a week and a half after Red Head Jr's birth from the back labor. If you've ever experienced it before, you have my deepest condolensences. :)