We went in to be induced for this third sweet babe and came home a few hours later still pregnant.
I’m still confused how it happened, but when the hospital bed phone rang and my off-duty doctor extended the previously unknown to me option to postpone the induction, (thanks to a high baby and high cervix), going home felt like the right move.
I had a scheduled c-section with the twins three years ago and have been clinging to a dwindling hope of a VBAC this go-around.
It’s funny, the one unifying thing about everyone’s birth story is they never go as “planned.”
Yet for some reason, we mamas keep on planning.
Grasping for a sense of control in the uncontrollable. Fighting against surrender until we’re forced to let go.
For my first pregnancy, I imagined an unmedicated, natural birth as a strong, golden trophy I longed to win and display on my shelf of achievements. I tell myself it wasn’t something I wanted just for me (though, probably it was), I also naturally am a little apprehensive of medical intervention, really did long for the empowering feeling that comes with seeing your body reach its limits, and desired what an unmedicated birth would grant my babies.
I elevated this ideal so high, that when both babes were breach and even my old school doctor recommended scheduling a c section, it took me months, even years to grieve not having the chance to give birth in an unmedicated scenario.
On a good day, I can talk through my cesarean as a beautiful birth story in itself, full of redemption, but I’d be lying if I ignored the moments my heart still pines for that trophy.
So weeks ago, when it became clear my lady parts didn't feel the urgency for a pre-due date delivery as my provider did, I threw the unmedicated birth goal out the window and crossed my fingers for a vbac period. Bring on the meds. We agreed to an induction at 39 weeks believing it our best shot.
We left the kids with my parents, got to the hospital, unpacked, and prepped for a likely long stay. They put me on fluids, hooked me up to the monitor, before getting around to check how "ready" I was to push out a baby. And as it turned out, I was not ready at all.
I had to send a lot of texts, after we decided to leave the hospital. I wondered how to post in stories about the delay in welcoming this babe to the family. But strangely, I feel like we made the right decision. And I feel like saying yes to the induction that never happened was the right decision too.
I don't know how this baby will enter this crazy world, but I do know I'm going to love being his/her mama. It’s that confidence that drives me as I consider the weird, momentous responsibility we women have to carry our children.
It’s the responsibility to carry them as they develop and to finally labor, whether through contractions, surgery, or kneeling in prayer night after night, to bring them from darkness to light.
And so our family continues to wait. Anticipating what is in store.
Knowing the baby who will come will change us--becoming part of us--forever.
A final thought.
If posts like these press on a sore spot for you, whether it be a longed for birth, pregnancy, marriage or family, know you are not alone.
It takes all of us, women around the world, mothers by birth, relationship, hard work, and love to bring forward and raise up today's children...the leaders and makers of the future.
Thank you, thank you for your minute by minute sacrifice.