I was due on August 25th. A Monday. There was a lot riding on me having that baby by my due date. My sister-in-law, who lives in Bolivia, was home for a visit and really wanted to meet her new niece or nephew before returning back to Bolivia the day after my due date. But alas, my due date came and went with no sign of baby's arrival. And then came the Question. Actually it had come before my due date, but more frequently after...Have you had your baby yet? As if I were hiding out somewhere keeping my newborn a secret from everyone I know. Really, I wasn't that bothered. But it was a strange feeling to be pregnant past my due date. I had several friends who were due in the couple of weeks after I was and three of the four of them had their babies before me, which didn't seem fair. But I also trusted that my baby would come when he or she was ready.
At 41 weeks, I had an appointment with the midwife. It was Labor Day. The midwife we saw checked baby out and let us know that he or she seemed perfectly healthy and content. She said that she could strip my membranes if I was interested. She explained that it would help labor to get going only if my body was ready. Otherwise, it wouldn't really do anything. We decided to go ahead with it and sure enough, several hours later I was noticing contractions here and there. At around 8 or 9pm, the same time my other two labors began, I knew that something was happening. After drinking a cup of raspberry leaf tea, I headed upstairs to get ready for bed. With both Caleb and Lilah, I'd labored at home through the night and I figured it was best to try to get some rest while I could. After an hour or two in bed, it became apparent that this time was going to be different. The contractions were increasing in intensity and although still somewhat sporatic, they were frequent. Lying in bed just wasn't working for me.
At around 1am, we called the midwife. She said we should probably go ahead and come in. We called Jason's parents, who headed over to stay with the kids, and we were on our way to the birth center. This was the first time we'd made the trip to have a baby in the middle of the night. By 3am, we were settled into the birthing room where Lilah had been born. Contractions just continued to increase in frequency and intensity. I had always thought that the faster the labor, the better. What I didn't realize was that, at least in my case, the faster the labor, the more intense. It all seemed to be happening so quickly that it was difficult to stay on top of it, difficult to relax in the way I wanted to. I spent some time just standing/walking around, but before too long I decided to try the tub. I labored in there until I started feeling the urge to push, which was at around 5am. And there began the most difficult, exhausting, and frustrating part of my labor.
Because of the intensity of the previous couple of hours, I was already wanting it all to be over. Instead, I ended up pushing for two hours. After I little while I began casting desperate glances at Jason and the midwife. I just wanted to be done. Or at least to know that something was happening. I felt like I was making zero progress and running out of steam. At around 6am, it was time for the midwife who had been there when I got there to go home. She was replaced by the midwife who had been at Lilah's birth. The previous midwife had been asking if I wanted her to check and make sure that I was indeed fully dilated. I was hesitant because I didn't know what I would do if she told me that I wasn't. But the new midwife convinced me to go ahead and do that so that we could know if it was time to just get baby out. She checked and I was fully dilated, but had an anterior cervical lip. Same thing that had happened with Lilah. She tried moving it, and then she suggested that I get out of the tub and try a different position. I was not a fan of that idea. Lilah had been born in the water, and I really wanted the same this time. But I trusted her judgment and went for it. It wasn't easy at that point to get out of the tub and over to the bed, but with the help of Jason and the midwife, I did. The midwife had me lay on my side on the bed. It was the least comfortable way to give birth that I can think of, but at that point all I wanted was to get that baby out. And before long (at 6:58am), there he was.
I was extremely relieved when he was born. Reminiscent of how I felt after Caleb was born. Except this was more a mix of joy and relief. I was in the midst of recovering from it all while the midwife and nurse had their attention fixed on baby, who hadn't taken his first breath. They began to use an ambu bag on him, and while I was aware that none of that was normal, I was still a bit in shock from the delivery. And so I just watched. I felt a peace and knew that baby was going to be fine. I peeked to see whether it was a boy or a girl, and we continued to wait and watch until our baby boy took his first breath. The midwife reassured us that he was fine. That he'd just needed a little help getting the hang of the breathing thing, and had still been getting oxygen from his cord, which wouldn't be cut for a while still. His breathing was a little irregular at first, but that worked itself out before too long.
We had a while to just lay there in bed and snuggle, but after a bit someone came to very apologetically explain that the birth center was unusually busy and we were going to have to move to a different room to free up our birthing room for another couple. Turned out that there was six babies born at the birth center that morning. There are only three birthing rooms. A couple of the midwives told us that it was the busiest day in the history of the birth center! They had to call in several extra midwives and nurses to manage it all. Needless to say, the hours after our baby was born were a little chaotic, and I felt a little more rushed getting out of there. But it all worked out.
In this midst of it all, we were trying to figure out what to name this little man. We'd decided on a girl name, but just couldn't settle on a boy name. When I came back from my herbal bath, Jason informed me that he and the baby had figured out his name. And while I didn't like the first/middle name combo that "they" had come up with, the first name struck me: Gabriel. It was not a name that had stood out to me in all the time I'd spent looking at names. Jason told me that it means God is my Strength. And in that moment, nothing could have felt more true. During my labor, I had repeatedly cried out to Jesus, confessing my need for Him. Without His help, I don't know how I could have done it. I did have a hard time with the thought of choosing a name that I had not even once considered prior to his birth. I'm a planner, after all. I don't do spontaneous all that well. And what about all the time I'd spent trying to figure out what to name a boy? And how almost every time I'd asked Jason, he'd just suggested something ridiculous? Now he was going to come up with the name that we would choose for our baby just like that? But it did fit. And I liked the way it sounded with Jacob, which had been my top middle name for a boy. So I thought that I could maybe deal with the spontaneity if I at least had a middle name that I'd been considering all along. In the end, we left the birth center without officially naming our baby. But after thinking and praying it over for the next 24 hours or so, we'd decided: Gabriel Jacob Fraze.
I forgot to mention that he was 8 lbs 4.5 oz when he was born. Over a pound bigger than either of our other two. Of course, he'd had a little more time in my belly than they had. But as I look back, I am very thankful that our baby boy was born 8 days past his due date. He spent a little longer inside and arrived with a better idea of how to handle things outside. Well, maybe not so much the whole breathing thing at first. But the nursing thing at least. And it felt really nice to get off to a good start with that. And so, about 5 hours (or was it 6?) after Gabriel entered this world, we headed home (not without stopping for coffee and Chipotle on the way) to introduce him to the rest of his family. And to get some much needed rest.
Here are some newborn photos, taken when he was 11 days old. Photo credit: Bottle Rocket Photography.
