Birth Story

Warning: Some of this is a bit personal and/or what you may consider too much information. I was going to edit it, but I decided to leave it as is for the sake of remembering the details of Judah’s birth.

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I was 41 weeks pregnant and I went for a regular check up at the hospital. My doctor, Dr. V had returned to her home country to deliver her sister’s baby. I had seen another OB twice, but this time I was with a new doctor, Dr. D. I went to get an ultrasound, and I noticed the lady who did the ultrasound wrote “low amniotic fluid” on the report. At this point, I didn’t have strong contractions. I had many Braxton hick’s, but nothing strong or painful. I went to talk with the doctor, and she said that I must be admitted immediately. I guess the fluid level should be around 8 (I don’t know what measurement system), but mine was at 5. At this point, I wanted to ask so many questions. I was trying to listen to what the doctor had to say, but I also didn’t know her well, and so I didn’t know whether I could trust her. I had many questions on whether it was necessary that I was admitted, but she brushed off my questions, and seemed surprised that I would question her. I don’t know if it’s Chinese culture, questioning an authority figure, or what, but she told me to just go to the maternity ward because she had to see another patient.

I didn’t have my bags with me. In fact, by this point all my stuff had been taken out of the bag because it was taking so long to go into labor! I figured I’d have time to pack it again. So Anthony had to go home to get our stuff while I went to the ward to be checked in. The room was really nice. It felt a bit like a hotel room with a hospital bed. First, they did a test on me with an IV where they gave the baby a stress test to see whether he could handle contractions. He passed the test fine. I was checked in on a Tuesday.

Throughout the night I was woken up to do fetal heart rate monitoring, but overall that first night I slept decently.

The next day, Wednesday, I believe they gave me a medicine to thin out my cervix. I can’t quite remember the days anymore, because I was in the hospital for so long. They shoved the medicine in a place you don’t want medicine to be, and I chilled in bed for a while. That day my water broke. I wasn’t sure it had because there was barely anything to show that it had broken. Because of this, Dr. D said that I needed to be on complete bedrest because the baby was still quite high and the cord was wrapped once around his neck. She didn’t want him to fall too fast. That really frustrated me. I know it’s actually quite common for babies to have a cord wrapped, and I also knew that by laying in bed and doing nothing, I wasn’t helping labor to progress. They gave me a bedpan! I used it once, and after that I rebelled and stopped listening to the doctor. That night I was so discouraged by having to be on bedrest. They didn’t even let me take a shower. On Thursday morning I hadn’t showered since Tuesday and I was so sad and discouraged.

The next morning, Thursday, there was a new doctor, Dr. C. She didn’t mention bedrest at all, so I proceeded to go back to moving around. I asked Dr. C if I could take a shower, and she said yes, and I started crying because she was so kind to me. That day they started Pitocin. At this point I was zero percent dilated and I think still zero percent effaced. I decided to make the best of it and I tried to move around and get things going by bouncing on the ball, and 8 hours later they checked my progress. I was 1 cm. In China they have to limit you to 8 hours of Pitocin per day, so they stopped for the night. I felt really discouraged.

The next day, they were figuring out the best dose of Pitocin to give me. They increased things quite a bit. That night, Anthony went home to wash my clothes and bring me new ones because I had run out. There’s an elder and his wife in our church who have 5 children. Tracy is so knowledgeable about birth, and she was actually there to deliver my friend’s baby when she accidentally had the baby in her apartment. I asked her to be like a doula to me, but then due to the COVID situation, she wasn’t permitted in. I could only have one person at a time. Anthony advocated for me a lot throughout the whole time in the hospital, and one of the things he did was convince them to let him and her switch out while he went home to get me more things. So Tracy came in, and I felt like I had a masterclass on how to labor well! She was so helpful having me try out different positions to help me get through them better. At this point the contractions were happening every 2-3 minutes and they were very strong. I was even feeling nauseous because of the pain. I ended up asking Anthony to get some sleep at home, and Tracy stayed the night with me that night. They checked my progress before they had to stop the Pitocin and I was 2 cm.

I went to sleep that night discouraged again. I think on Saturday morning, I felt like I didn’t want to go on anymore. I seriously considered getting a C-section. At this point I asked the doctor what she thought I should do. It had been so many days of Pitocin and my water had already been broken for over 48 hours. The doctor said I should keep trying for one more day. So I went ahead. This day they raised the Pitocin a LOT. Things got super intense. I remember whenever they would have me lay on the bed to do fetal monitoring, I felt the pain was unbearable. They had me on the monitor for a long time, because the baby’s heart rate had gotten a little funky at a couple points the night before. My blood pressure was also on the line for being too high. Whenever they checked my progress, my whole body would start shaking uncontrollably because the pain was so great lying flat on my back. Even after they were finished, I was still shaking.

By this point I was mentally and spiritually and physically maxed out. I felt like God had abandoned me. I felt like everything that I thought he had spoken to me about my birth wasn’t actually him, it was me. I went into the hospital confident that God had created my body to do this. I felt so strong and confident and I wasn’t afraid. On Saturday, I was weak, completely dependent on medical intervention for labor, and just so done. Physically, I had been laboring since Tuesday. Tuesday was easy, Wednesday and Thursday got harder. Friday was very difficult, and Saturday was unbearable. God had brought me to every fear that I had. I had to have an IV port, which terrified me before. I faced the idea of having a C-section head-on. And now I faced getting an epidural. At this point, I felt like I couldn’t get through contractions and relax enough to keep my blood pressure down. I felt like the epidural would save me from having any emergency. I knew I couldn’t relax and stay calm enough through the strong contractions, and I felt I couldn’t get through the pain. At this point I was still about 4 cm. I was surprised the epidural wasn’t that bad. It scared the life out of me while it was happening. I knew I couldn’t move but I was terrified a contraction would come. The doctor was brilliant and waited till a contraction finished and managed to give the epidural in the time between the contractions. The epidural was weird. My legs felt like raw chicken. They asked me to try to pee, and I really tried hard, but I couldn’t do it! So strange. But the contractions then felt like a distant neighbor. I could feel them, but the pain was distant. I managed to fall asleep for 4 hours.

I woke up, and the doctor talked to me and said to tell her when I felt like I needed to push. I told her I might feel that way now. I said it probably wasn’t it, but maybe I need to push. She told me to try to wait an hour. She told me to eat as much as I could. Anthony started feeding me dried mangos and popcorn chicken while the nurses brought in all the necessary stuff. About the time they finished setting up, I was ready to push! This was the best part of the labor. I finally had gotten somewhere, and I could finally do something. I had no time to be afraid of it. The midwife was excellent explaining to me how to push. I was so thankful that she made sure to tell me not to push unless I felt I had to. She was so encouraging. However, it was also a bit stressful because the baby’s heartrate kept dropping as I pushed. It was getting concerning. Finally, they said if I didn’t push him out in the next push, they would have to use the vacuum. I KNEW I didn’t want that to happen. I was determined! In my heart I screamed “JESUS!!!!” and I pushed with all my might. I thought my eyes were going to pop! And that was it! He was out! I didn’t want to look because I didn’t know what had just come out of me! But obviously I also really wanted to look! They immediately put him on me, and I looked at Anthony and he was blubbering crying! For some reason the doctor had told me I wasn’t allowed to cry for 48 hours because “if I cry, then my uterus would cry”. I think she meant I would bleed too much? So I told Anthony to turn around because he couldn’t be crying if I wasn’t allowed to! The only downside to this joyful moment was that they quickly took him away even though I really had wanted to start bonding right then. They did whatever they needed to do with checking him, and I was getting stitched because I tore minorly. Then they had checked his blood sugar and it was low so they gave him formula. Then I got to try to establish breastfeeding with him a few hours later. I think that contributed to ruining my breastfeeding relationship with Judah from the beginning.

We stayed Sunday and left the hospital on Monday. All the nurses and midwives were so kind and helpful. I never changed a diaper, and never used any of my own diapers while at the hospital. By this point I think I met all the nurses and midwives on staff and they were all so so kind. (P.S. I think in China “midwife” really just means a nurse who has special training to deliver babies). I left the hospital knowing my life had completely changed forever. I had walked out a new person.

There are many ways I would change this story. But this is the story. Judah is the shining bright light, and I will still praise God for Him. However, it’s been hard to process this story. The first weeks after I gave birth, I would take a shower and just sob. It’s a lot to have a baby. Physically, mentally, spiritually. It’s so much, and then to have the two first weeks where you get no sleep at all is just a lot. I’m thankful I got through it. In hindsight, I have mixed feelings looking back at the birth. On the one hand, I look back and see the picture of Judah on me for the first time and just being so in awe. But then I also look at how my body didn’t do what God created it to do, and I still somewhat feel like God let me down in that time, and I haven’t quite seen why he led me through the desert in that time.

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This was written back in June of 2020, a little over a month after Judah was born. His birth seems like a lifetime ago to me now, and all I can see is this beautiful baby who is growing like a weed and the best gift in the world that God has ever given me. Maybe the way in which he came was the greatest trial thus far in my life, but the greatness of the gift surely outweighs the trial.