11-12-13

As I type this, our newest bundle is sitting happily on my lap watching my fingers and hiccupping while her older siblings nap. I am reminded every day how incredibly blessed I am to live this life and to have been chosen as the mommy to these three amazing children. God has been so faithful in His plan for each one of them, and it's about time we shared the story of sweet Abri Joan's arrival into this world!

Like all my pregnancies, I started experiencing uncomfortable contractions between 17 and 20 weeks. But after one night in the ER at 28 weeks, we learned that I was already dilated to 2cm! I tried to stay as inactive as possible (chasing two toddlers around all day....), but I was almost positive that Abri would come early and remember feeling SO much relief as each week passed and we finally made it to full-term. And then...the weeks started to drag on and my hopes of her coming early started to dwindle. I had been extremely prepared the whole time (given how quickly the other two came). We had back-up plans, back-up plans for our back-up plans, and even packed the car each night just in case we had to make a mad dash to the hospital. Every night, the contractions would be less than 5 minutes apart for hours at a time (much like the other pregnancies), but they wouldn't increase in intensity. A head/chest cold was being passed around our house, and I was quickly losing energy for what I expected to be a fast and intense labor and delivery any day. I tried to stay motivated, but it was getting hard to drag the kids to school and therapy appointments while being so physically and emotionally drained, always on the edge of having to drop everything and speed to the hospital. For the sake of convenience and for my own sanity, in those last couple weeks we tried everything - walking, "labor-stimulating" foods, dancing, hanky-panky (wink), acupressure/foot massage, a cervical stretch to 3+cm/90% effacement by my midwife...the list goes on. I was terribly sick with a cold that I couldn't kick, and I had a feeling that my body was going to be too drained to fight it until my immune system wasn't compromised by the pregnancy anymore. Heck, just the amount of coughing alone should have put me into labor. But day after day....nothing. Meanwhile I was getting sicker and sicker, and just prayed that I'd be able to breath well enough when the time came.
Oxygen is pretty important.
Ya know.

After a restless evening of obsessive nesting and cleaning (you'd think this was a sign, but I had been doing this every night for like 3 weeks - Jake had just about had it with me), around midnight on my due date (11-12-13) I noticed some mild, but decently consistent contractions. Still nothing out of the ordinary for me. A little while later, I woke Jake up to tell him that I thought this might be it, only because I was hoping so much that it was, and they didn't seem to be going away, even though they still were not incredibly consistent or painful. We didn't exactly want to call and wake up Jake's parents to drive all the way over if it wasn't absolutely the real thing, but we also didn't want to wait too long, because last time we finally figured out it was the "real thing," Eden was born just one hour later. Both Jake's parents' house and the hospital were about 15 minutes away (in opposite directions), so we spent the next hour debating what to do and trying to figure out if it was real. We finally decided that even if it wasn't active labor yet, it was probably at least a precursor to the real thing, and given how fast things can go, we decided to chance it and call Jake's parents. When they came over, we told them to just go to bed, and we did the same. I honestly don't remember exactly what time we finally left for the hospital. Probably around 3:30am. I still wasn't even positive I was in labor, but I didn't want to have the baby in the car, so we went.

We had been given orders to call my midwife directly on her cellphone as soon as we thought I was in labor, as well as the ER and the labor and delivery department, given my history of precipitous births. When we showed up, everyone was in rush-mode except me (I was praying that I was actually in labor and hadn't just red-alerted the entire birthing center for nothing). It turns out I was about 4cm (they checked me around 4:30ish am), and I was actually quite proud that I made it there with plenty of time, but still avoided a false alarm. Woohoo! We hung out, did the mandatory 20 minutes of fetal monitoring (something new for me - usually I'm pushing by the time they want to do that), chatted, and my awesome midwife even honored my request to not have an IV line put in (I've never even had IV fluids, but it's sort of hospital policy to put a line in just in case). We discussed the risks and what would happen if I suddenly needed it, which I was fine with, but decided against making me walk around with an annoying intravenous device in my arm. I was pretty exhausted after waking up the previous day at 7am, and not getting any sleep, but seriously. Who can sleep when they're in active labor (without drugs)? Oh, right.

Husbands, that's who.

It was way too exciting for me, and we all expected that the next time she checked me, I'd be almost complete. Less than an hour later (5:00am), I was 6cm, so that part went pretty fast, and was barely noticeable, thankfully. I finally got to enjoy hanging out in the tub (FINALLY!!! I've waited 3 times to be able to labor in a tub!), and it was so relaxing and peaceful. I also texted with my sister and sister-in-law for a while (Cassie's daughter was diagnosed with posterior tongue tie like Eden, so we had lots to talk about regarding latching behavior and getting her clipped, etc. According to a text message I sent her, Jake was passed out on the chair around that time.) Meanwhile, my texts with my sister went like this:

Yeah. With my history, the fact that it took a looong 40 minutes for me to get from 6 to 7cm basically left us in shock. And bored. We decided to have her break my water, even though I'm generally against intervention, only because all the other times, that was the catalyst for rapid progression, and I was exhausted and very sick (breathing was not fun)...and I figured the longer things took, the less oxygen she'd have access to. Confused about the slow progression even after my water broke, my midwife finally determined that little Abrielle was in a right occiput posterior (ROP) position. Apparently this can lead to 20+ hour, extremely painful labors (but of course I didn't focus on that at the time - I just kept praying that things would pick up and that we wouldn't need intervention).

I kept waiting to feel the "transition" feelings, knowing that I was at least 7cm, but I still felt like I was in early labor. Not only that, but my contractions still weren't even consistent, and if I stayed in one position for too long (or walked, believe it or not), they would dwindle and get less intense/frequent! So, because I happen to have a hypersensitive uterus (weird, right?) I was trying to "give myself" contractions by standing up, sitting down, laying on my right side, standing up, cat-cows, using the ball...etc etc....yeah. Some women are scared of contractions. I was doing everything I could to make them more intense and frequent, all the while chatting with my midwife. It turns out that she has one biological and one adopted child. We chatted about adoption, since that's something Jake and I have always been interested in, and are considering for our fourth. Yep, we chatted about a fourth child while I was in labor with my third. This went on for some time until Jake woke up, and I finally utilized his mad birth partner skillz when my back started to get sore (he learned them in our doula's childbirth prep class back in 2010 and we haven't really needed them yet since things tend to move so fast). For the record, he is a PRO double-hip squeezer, and definitely got his workout in for the night. He earned his keep. This picture was probably taken around 7-8am, and I'm guessing that I was probably about 8cm dilated around then.

Around 8am I started really fatiguing. It was hard to cough (though I always needed to), hard to breath, and I barely had a voice. I also hadn't slept in 24+ hours, so in combination of being so physically sick, I was kind of sleepy and delirous. That's also when it started feeling pretty uncomfortable (still didn't feel like transition, but at least I could feel some intensity), and like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. All you ladies out there - try your darndest to NOT go through natural labor when you can't breath. Little tip. Finally a little after 9am, I felt kind of like pushing and asked my midwife to check me. I was 9.5cm, so she told me to "push to 10," which was the weirdest thing ever, because I didn't "have" to push yet. So far I've only been told *not* to push, so the idea of pushing before I had the urge was just strange. But it worked, and 3 contractions (10 minutes) later at 9:29am, she was here! And she was absolutely PERFECT and GORGEOUS! We were immediately in love!

Abrielle Joan just seconds into the world!
7lbs, 6oz and 21.25 inches

When all was said and done, Abri was born about 9 hours after the first incling of labor, about 5 hours after getting to the hospital (still doubting I was in labor), and about 1.5 hours after things started feeling intense/uncomfortable. Overall, even though I was not feeling well, we needed zero intervention, and the fact that I was able to stay calm and confident in God's control over the situation really helped reduce my discomfort. Looking back and knowing that she was "stuck" in the ROP presentation, which can take a really long time, be extremely painful, and often end in medical intervention or a C-section, I have so much to be thankful for! AND I didn't have my baby in a car!! My first two labors may have been "easy" and "quick," but this time God showed me that He can take us through the "less-than-ideal," and He is still SO faithful to renew our strength and bless us with beautiful outcomes that we couldn't have planned more perfectly!

He gives power to the weak

and strength to the powerless.

Even youths will become weak and tired,

and young men will fall in exhaustion.

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

They will soar high on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint.

~Isaiah 40:29-31~

The Testimony of Eli

Many of you may know that my son, Robert Eli Bollinger was born five days ago. What you may not know is what a testimony his birth was. Unlike me, Sarah has been a long time proponent of the advantages of a natural birth. It took me a while to come around, but with some lessons from a new friend, I began to see that a natural birth was not just about the medical advantages. It was about the the accomplishment and the willpower of a mother. It's like pushing yourself to climb a mountain, when you know you could just hop on a train to get to the top. And its about the power of prayer and the support of family to get you there.

First of all, I would like to say that I am so proud of Sarah and how strong she has been through this whole process. Her fortitude speaks volumes for the type of mother that she is going to be. But even in the beginning she said that she doesn't want this to be about just her. She wants this to be about God, how he provides, and how he makes all things possible.

More than two weeks ago was when Sarah's labor began. It was not an intense active labor, but something more difficult called prodromal labor. This means different things for many women, but for Sarah it meant that she didn't have intense pain, just a long exhausting kind of pain that would intensify for six to twelve hour periods, but never enough to push her into active labor. In one particular instance, after a very difficult sleepless night, we took Sarah in to be checked, only to find that her dilation had actually reversed. During this process we were in constant prayer. We prayed for relief from the aches and pains, we prayed for Eli to arrive quickly, and we prayed for a quick delivery.

Eventually the days of prodromal labor turned into weeks, Sarah's due date came and went, and her frustration only increased. We had to begin to talk about induction and other means of intervention, and this was not what Sarah and I wanted. Eventually we set the date for the induction, but we continued to pray every day that this could happen naturally. Several days after her due date, I began to think maybe God wasn't going to answer our prayers. I began to think about how God doesn't always give us what we want, and that perhaps there was a reason we needed to submit to His way instead of our way. But the reality was, that I had given up hope, and I was preparing myself for the let down.

On Friday night, Sarah and I were relaxing around the house, trying to decide what to do with another long weekend of waiting, when suddenly something changed. At about 11:00pm, Sarah's water broke and our hopes jumped. This meant something was going to happen, natural or not he would be here soon. But for Sarah, her labor had not changed much, she was still feeling the same prodromal labor she had been experiencing for weeks. After a quick call to the midwife and doula, we decided to stay home. It could be over 24 hours before labor started, so we would wait and see if things progressed in the next twelve hours before checking in to the hospital. Sarah and I spent the next hour timing contractions, but for the most part things did not appear to have changed. She recommended I sleep, and she would try to if she could.

But for Sarah something had already changed, and she did not sleep. Less than two hours later, at about 2:30am, she woke me up and let me know her labor was getting more difficult. It was still not too unbearable for her, but I have a very strong wife. For about the next hour we spent some time trying the techniques we learned in our birthing class, to see if I could relieve any of her discomfort, but things where getting steadily more difficult.

At about 3:00am Sarah decided to call our doula. She didn't think her labor pains were too difficult, but she was beginning to worry about the car ride. Sitting had become very uncomfortable, so she wanted to make the trip before her contractions became too difficult. Our doula and I encouraged her to wait as long as possible, but Sarah decided she wanted to go anyway. And her instincts paid off.

At about 3:30am Sarah and I left for the hospital, and arranged for our doula to meet us there at about 4:15. We knew that labor would be long and difficult, so we were not in much of a hurry. As we drove, Sarah remained calm, listening to her ipod and squeezing my hand as difficult contractions passed. But halfway to the hospital her contractions continued to intensify. She remained strong and complained little, emphasizing her breathing, and using long monotone vocalizations to dull out the pain. At this point Sarah had an inkling that she might have progressed pretty far, but she didn't want to get her hopes up, and she was fully prepared to arrive with a report of 4cm and a long morning ahead of her.

Arriving at the hospital was the most difficult part of the whole process. We told them Sarah's water had been broken for several hours, and that the contractions were starting to get very strong and close, but the intake through the ER was still unbearably slow. I suppose they see many laboring first time mothers, who believe they are much further a long than they are. But they don't know how strong my wife is.

After about 15 minutes of waiting for Sarah to get entered into the system, and for someone to take us up to labor and delivery, we finally made it upstairs. But the waiting wasn't over yet. For Sarah things were getting much more intense, and the pain relief techniques I learned were really starting to pay off. Sarah was beginning to feel strong discomfort and a urgency to push. So she asked me to go look for a nurse. Three times I left the room to let the nurse know how intense things were, but she continued to reassure me that "she could hear Sarah" and "she only had a few more things to enter into the computer before she would be in".

Finally by about 4:10am, the labor and delivery nurse came in to check on Sarah. It's normal hospital procedure to hook up a baby for about 20 minutes of monitoring, and for the nurse to check a mother's dilation when they arrive. The heart rate monitor went on first, and everything looked fine. Then she asked Sarah to try to lay back even though she new it was uncomfortable. Sarah used a short break in between contractions to lay down. Once the nurse had checked her she looked at Sarah and said "alright were having a baby." Sarah in turn asked, "How far am I?" And the Nurse responded, "You are complete and at a plus two station." And she began preparing Sarah for transfer to the birthing room.

Everything from this point on went exactly how Sarah and I had prayed for. Our doula arrived and she was a great support, and a much needed advocate. The birth was a water birth, and in less than 15 minutes of pushing, Eli was here. Born 7lbs 2oz at 5:04am. It was an absolutely unbelievable process. My son was born into a wonderful calm environment, with no medication and no intervention. He cried briefly to let us know that he was breathing, but then for the remainder of the morning he was calm, content, and alert.

Earlier this summer our Pastor gave a sermon that I call the "Yes, No, Wait" sermon. During this sermon, he told us that God had three responses to our prayers "Yes," "No," or "Wait." Eli's birth was what we had hoped for, it was a testimony to the power of prayer. And an example of how the love, support, and prayers of family could transform such a frightening process into something beautiful that glorifies God. But it was also a lesson for Sarah and I about "Yes, No, Wait." We both wanted Eli's birth to be a testimony, and we couldn't understand why God wasn't answering our prayers. Why would he want us to have a induction when things could be so perfect? As things came down to the line, we began to lose hope, but God had other plans. We needed to just need to learn to be patient and that sometimes God answers our prayers with "wait." And let me tell you, it was worth the wait.