A Birth Story: Part 1 - Reconciliation

A walk through the transformative birth of myself through the delivering of my daughter.

Part of the reason I have been absent from my blog the past couple of years (aside from teaching at a private school in which there is zero work/life balance) was due to the excitement of September 2023 when my husband and I welcomed our first child — a beautiful baby girl.

To say that this adorable human being has been a source of healing and joy in my life from her conception would not even scratch the depths of her cathartic existence.

And how God has done some of the most sanctifying and hard work on me that I have ever encountered in my life.

Before I Formed You…I Set You Apart

My husband and I had been given sage advice from a friend of mine — wait until about the 3rd year mark of marriage to have a baby. At that point, you’re out of your honeymoon stage (if you’ve had the blessings of having one) and more in the rhythm of marriage when adding a large wrench into the system shouldn’t upend you too much.

We would be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary in June of 2023 and felt like we had navigated some of the ‘hard’ of marriage and were ready to start a family. I was very ready. Baby fever had hit me hard.

We began trying at the beginning of the year and were quickly pregnant (thank you functional medicine and leaving birth control in the long past!).

When I found out I was having a girl at my 20 week ultrasound scan (the one and only scan as I received care from certified midwives at a stand-alone birth center), I had gender disappointment. I know that this is something we usually make fun of the men for having when finding out the gender, leading to shaming and belittling them for wanting a boy, but that was my dream. I wanted to be a boy mom, to deal with the rough and tumble of raising precocious little men who I would train up to become good leaders in society. I wanted to make a difference with boys.

And I felt utterly unqualified to have a girl. I was the oldest, a girl born into crushing generational sin and trauma, and I was so unprepared to raise a girl. When I was going through it as a young woman, I was constantly nitpicked for my looks, taunted to tears at the dinner table, and reminded that I wasn’t the catch with the boys — all by my mother. I endured the constant bullying at school because I wasn’t the pretty girl on the block (and I was oh so painfully awkward to boot) and then would come home to an even larger adversary. I could not deal with the “drama” that came with girls; I did not want to think about having to navigate my daughter through catfights.

I did not want to have people tell her she was going to be the “ugly duckling” just like her mother — the one who wasn’t nice to look at when young but who may grow into a more acceptable-looking adult. I didn’t want her to be left out as groups of other young girls gossiped and giggled about her in the corner. I didn’t want to have a girl who could potentially go through all the pain I had endured, all the trauma I was trying to work out so it could stop coloring the world I was living in and kept me living in fear, hypervigilant and afraid to trust.

Yet here I was — having a baby girl. My gender disappointment wasn’t because she was flawed from the start. It’s because I was.

Looking back, that was right where God had planned me to be. He saw all that I had endured because of my gender at the hands of an insensitive matriarch, He saw how I witnessed the cruelty that can come with girl cliques and circles, and He saw just how much it had grieved me at times to be a woman because it felt like I had these impossible standards I needed to achieve - heightened as a single girl in the conservative community. He knew that I wouldn’t know how to do better on my own.

By His Grace However - I don’t think I’ve inherited the cold detachedness of the feminine example I saw in the house. I’ve never had a desire to run a household or be the breadwinner, a feat that was demonstrated for me and pushed into me at a young age. He somehow brought me out of that home, wanting to do better, be better, and actively looking for ways to seek healing.

Even now, with this beautiful baby girl playing the cymbals loudly in front of me as I type, I know that I will not fail her the way that I was failed. When she has big emotions, I will do the foreign work of going down to her level or letting her have her moment to work through them. I do not need to jab. I can defend her when she is voiceless at this tender age, and teach her how to advocate for herself when she has the words and ability to do so. I can nurture relationships with other young women by allowing her to spend time with them outside of church events; I can foster a community of love and kindness within my own daughter and pray she attracts the same.

And I will do something when I see her struggling. If she has the mood disorders I had as a teen, we are going to talk with someone. I am already taking steps to avoid her developing an autoimmune condition that has made my weight and complexion a battle. So that she can remain healthy— the most attractive a person can be. I will not sit back and see her struggle and laugh.

There is so much more God can teach me in my weakness as a mom who was not adequately taught to parent a young woman. His grace will be sufficient where my ability is lacking.

Pleasing Man Before God

The gender disappointment was not the only part of pregnancy I struggled with, perhaps the biggest obstacle I wrestled around was ignoring exactly how I was feeling and what was going on in my body and my head.

I would push myself past the breaking point. My midwife encouraged me time and again in the summer season to quit my teaching job; that it would be better for me in the long run especially as I clearly displayed signs of perfectionism and meticulous planning. I brushed off her suggestions, ensuring her that I would be able to balance everything once the time came. I ignored how tired my body was. I should have taken FMLA far before my due date, as it was still hot in Florida and I was exhausted. Our school did not have proper air conditioning so by the end of the day I was often weary and overheated. I also was not receiving clear information about what would happen once I went on maternity leave, which was making me so stressed out and causing sleep that was already difficult to achieve to be elusive.

I was taking on that Luisa persona of needing to make everyone happy — my administration, my department, my husband, my care providers — but I was exhausted, I didn’t feel like I was being cared for, and I certainly was not taking the time to rest and prepare.

Too add to my exhaustion, I was involved in a low speed car accident at the beginning of the my 39th week of pregnancy. A 20 something man rear ended me as I approached a red light at a major intersection on my way to school; I was already dreading the week and so desperately wanted to go on my maternity leave early. Looking back, I truly believe this was probably the LORD telling me to cease my striving, yet I did not listen — again.

I was spent by the end of the week and looking forward to getting some sleep and rest on a weekend that might be our last as a “childless couple”. This mindset sent me into a tunnel vision of wanting to just get through the day, leading me to ignore one of the greatest journeys a woman goes through in life.

Friday morning, I woke up to soaked underwear, which I chalked up to urinating during the night because of a cold I developed and the position of the baby. I rise long before my husband ever thinks about getting out of bed, so I completed by bible study and was on my way to work without a word to him. I was set on just getting through the day.

As I went throughout the day, the leaking continued to happen, and it was far more than a dribble here or there. However, there was no great rush of water. My worst fear was that I was going to end up with a hospitalized birth and receiving an unwanted (and probably unneeded C-Section), so I kept my mouth shut and proceeded through my day. I subconsciously thought if I just ignored it, the leaking would stop, and I’d have nothing to worry about.

The stresses kept piling on. One student I loved dearly was wrestling with what his understanding of who God was and was asking me some hefty questions I desperately wanted time to answer. I met the woman who was filling in for me— and I could already tell it was going to be a disaster. I had no answers yet as to who was going to be grading my student’s work when I was going to be out on leave. By the end of the day, I wanted to get home but did not want to face Friday rush hour traffic. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week and then deal with having a baby. I grumbled to myself as I continued to organize materials for my leave, realizing this hard work was going to be in vain for a woman who clearly just wanted to babysit on my leave and not teach.

I mentioned to a co-worker what I was experiencing throughout the day, and having had kids herself. She said neither was normal and that I should probably talk to my provider. I nodded — and waved this off. I continued to put in the hours to try to get ahead in lesson planning for this reluctant and unprepared replacement when my husband called at 4:30, asking me when I’d be home. In tears, I told him about the substitute predicament. He encouraged me to call my midwife and come home. Packing a stack of papers to grade, I discouragingly packed up to face rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon in Florida (the worst drivers in the country, bar none) yearning for a hot shower and my bed.

What a joke.

Ignorance Is Not Always Bliss

I had my biggest emotional meltdown my entire pregnancy the day I went into labor. After arriving home, not having actually contacted my midwife or doula, I was excited to have Chick-Fil-A and rest. I had resigned that my leaking was potentially amniotic fluid, but I also knew that fluid can regenerate and that “running out of fluid” is an actually pretty uncommon occurrence the medical industry uses to bully women into hurrying their births along in medicalized fashion. I did not want to know that my bag had broken and was leaking while I was having no contractions. I arrived home, and my husband took the car we shared in Florida to go and get dinner. I took the opportunity to grade even more. I felt like I was drowning from taking my maternity leave, and I hadn’t even started it yet. .

I was looking forward to my chicken with honey mustard sauce, which is the only sauce I can have at CFA due to a nightshade allergy. I was absolutely devastated when my husband returned with honey mustard barbecue sauce. It was a mistake on CFA’s part, and my husband had only seen the honey mustard part of the sauce. But it sent me into tears. I refused the sauce, I refused the food, and I threw myself on our bed and just wept. It was the straw that broke my very swollen, very sore, very exhausted pregnant camel’s back. My husband rushed out to Walmart and Macgyvered a honey mustard sauce. He then begged me to call my doula.

After eating and settling in on the couch, I finally listened to advice given me and called my doula. I kept describing my leaking to my providers as “a little" leakage (not several pads worth), so my doula referred me to the midwife emergency line. I called to explain my predicament and my midwife asked if we could meet several hours later. I had thought about taking a nap, about taking a shower, but I was convinced that I was going to be sent home later that night and would get my Saturday sleep in. But this incident encouraged me to call out the next week at school. I wasn’t going to be able to manage it.

As we prepared to leave the apartment several hours later in a rental car (because the back end of our car had been badly damaged by the rear ending earlier that week), my husband began packing our “to go” bags. I told my husband we wouldn’t be needing them, we were going to be coming home in a few hours. He insisted on packing them all the same.

It was a tense ride to the birth center. What typically is a higher speed country road was inundated with old drivers on their way to their 55+ communities who could not see well in the dark. And Floridians do not believe in passing or staying in the right hand lane until passing happens. My husband weaved through the cars, clearly stressed by the events of the day. I still had no contractions, and had no bloody show up until that point, so I kept seeing this as a waste of time and energy.

At the birth center, it took us a moment to figure out which building to go to, but once we got in the door, we were greeted by my midwife, who was on the phone with another client. I was glad to have the head midwife, Lucie, that night. While I liked the other women I had worked with, I appreciated Lucie’s no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point loving care. And I knew I wanted her to catch my baby.

She had me enter the exam room and get prepared for a swab while she continued to help this other client make a decision on what to do with her birth. I lay back on the table, tired and ready to get this over with. Lucie returned and explained she would use a swab to test the liquid around my vaginal area to see if it was urine or if it was amniotic fluid. If it was amniotic fluid, it would turn blue.

A swab and a moment later, the tip turned blue.

I was leaking amniotic fluid. My worst fears were coming true.

I began to spiral in the back of my brain. I thought for sure that I was going to be sent to the hospital to have my baby¹. I was weary, having not listened to the sage advice around me to take these last few weeks a little easier. In hindsight, I would have benefited from Mark 2:27: “And he [Jesus] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” I should have recognized that this season I was in was a sabbath— none of the hard work I had put into lesson planning and making the world outside my home run smoothly without me ended up paying off. The woman who filled in for me told my students within a week that she wasn’t there to teach, but to babysit. All chaos broke loose in my class. The detailed lesson plans I had left behind were ignored. Had I taken this season to rest and to prepare my own home before worrying about pleasing other men, I would have been far more refreshed and prepared to welcome my baby. A lesson I am taking note of for my next baby.

It didn’t matter at this point what I hadn’t done, I was here now, and I was leaking amniotic fluid. If I hadn’t laid my plans down before the LORD, now would be a smart time to do so. (Spoiler alert: I wouldn’t truly get to this until several months later).

Lucie asked me if she could do a vaginal exam. I was originally going to deny these exams, as they tell you very little (you could go from 1 cm to 6 cm in 5 hours, or you could hover at 2 cm for days), but I felt the Holy Spirit tell me that I should consent. Consent I did. Lucie did a check (not comfortable), and that’s when she announced:

“You’re almost 5 cm…you sure you’re not having contractions?”

“I’ve only had Braxton Hicks,” I replied as she palpitated my belly. The benign squeeze wrapped my stomach again and Lucie shook her head.

“That is a contraction? You don’t feel that?” She said as she stepped back. I shook my head in the negative. “Well,” she teased, “all the women in the world are so very happy for you.”

The LORD had heard my cries. There wasn’t going to be a need to measure amniotic fluid or to start any form of induction. My body was going through the motions of welcoming our baby to earth, whether my mind was ready or not.

To be continued….

To be informed when I’ve published the next part in this journey!

1. If you had your baby in a hospital, this isn’t a knock against you. I wanted a natural birth and hospitals, by-and-large put as many obstacles in place to realistically keep this from happening