Tabitha's birth story.

It has been one week since we first experienced the miracle of Tabitha in our lives, so last night while Tabitha was enjoying her four hours of awake time from 1am to 4am- I started writing out the story of how she was born...

I've heard that every birth is unique and no two are the same, but you can't help thinking, after one child, that SURELY it can't be THAT different, all the same components are there, right?!
Wrong. If I hadn't gotten a baby at the end of each experience my mind and body would have a hard time putting the two together at all, they were THAT different!

Without further ado, how Tabitha Lorien came into this world....

It should first be noted that Tabitha WAS going to be induced on Sunday the 7th. Something I reeeeally didn't want I figured my likelihood of having a c-section went way up if I was induced and I really wanted Tabitha to come on her own terms. That being said, I spent the week of Christmas and New Years WILLING myself into having a baby. I did anything ( minus cod liver oil, because...ew) and yet Tabitha did not come. Finally I gave up and resigned myself to an induction. On Friday, Brett, Ransom and I, all went in for my very last biophysical profile ultrasound and nonstress test. Tabitha did great and I said goodbye to all the nurses who'd seen me three times a week for a month ( and tons before that...) then Brett and Ransom and I spent the day together. We ate at the Black Walnut cafe for dinner and Ransom was horribly behaved ( we're talking spanking in the bathroom bad), but we put him in the stroller after dinner and walked the block or so it takes to get to the Chocolate Bar and bought a piece of their giant chocolate cake to go. My sweet friend Melinda had brought us a piece before Christmas and it was AH-mazing ...so much so I had been wanting another piece ever since! We then headed home to the Ronald McDonald House where Ransom had to have a come to Jesus moment where we informed him he couldn't ask for "water!" Every five seconds after being put to bed. He responded with tears of repentance. (Minus the repentance part). Finally around 8:30, we ate our amazing cake and read a little bit of the book Heidi out loud ( Brett never read it as a kid, probably because Heidi was a girl and he didnt read "girl books" a MAJOR misstep if you ask me...so I've slowly been rectifying his early sexist ways now that he's an adult..) then off to bed.

Around 3:30am, I was awakened by my water breaking. Just a little bit, enough to get me out of bed to investigate and then waaaay more to confirm that, yes, that wasnt a weird dream.
I then texted my parents and my sister because I wanted them to have a head start... Then I calmly woke up Brett and told him what had happened. He then called his mom and we implemented the plan that we had argued about a few days before... The "what to do with sleeping Ransom if I go into labor in the middle of the night." I had INSISTED that Ransom did not need to be awoken and dragged to the hospital so now the question was who to watch him at 4:00am until my family arrived.... It ended up being a Ronald McDonald Mom who was (strangely) awake and playing on her iPad outside her bedroom. We prevailed upon her to watch the baby monitor till my parents arrived and off we went to the hospital. All this was done calmly and without much drama because even though my water broke I wasn't having any contractions. In fact, when I called the hospital saying I was coming in, the resident doctor was incredulous that my water had actually broken. "Well, come on in and IF your water has ACTUALLY broken.." To which I kind of laughed, because I still don't see how you'd mistake something like that... And then the doctor realized she'd been rude and tried to tell me how she'd delivered 4 babies that night or something...But, like I said, I hadn't had any contractions yet -so lucky her I wasn't super annoyed.

At the hospital we got checked into triage and I was relieved to see that Tabitha's heart was doing great and she didnt seem to be in any distress! This was good because we got a call from the lady at the Ronald McDonald house saying Ransom had woken up ( I'm guessing he'd rolled
over in his sleep and she'd jumped the gun...) so Brett went back to wait for my parents and to put Ransom back to sleep ( it was about 5am at this point).
When they checked me when I arrived at the hospital I was about 4cm-which, considering I'd been having pretty serious contractions for almost 12 hours with Ransom and I was only a 3...I was shocked! I hadn't even had any seriously painful contractions yet!
But they set me up in labor and delivery and I started feeling the contractions more and more and by the time Brett and my Mom and sister arrived around 6:30 I was definitely feeling them pretty strongly. But I was still able to talk through them and figured I still had a way to go ( once again I was comparing to my previous delivery on how much pain I had been in). But, when they checked my cervix again, I was at 7cm!! I was SHOCKED. But, definitely excited that things were moving so fast!
I also started discussing getting an epidural ( something I really wanted because, somehow the thought of delivering two babies... No matter how small Priscilla may be, just seemed easier with drugs) and I told my sister and mom that I would wait till after shift change ( it was 7am by then)...however, Anna has had a fast delivery before and she pushed it a little bit knowing that my pain level and the fastness of my contractions was steadily increasing. Boy am I glad she did!! By the time I got the epidural I think I was actually past transition ( and the doctor who did it warned me that it probably wouldn't be in full effect before I delivered!) sure enough, I was in more and more pain and the nurses were discussing bringing the doctor back in when I told them they had better check me again before doing anything. And sure enough... I was a full 10cm! I had to literally wait to push for Dr. Ruano to arrive!!! ( it was very important to me that he deliver the girls and I'm so very glad he made it!)

Once again things were sooo different from Ransom's delivery where I just had a midwife and a nurse and Brett with me, this time I had two doctors, their attending nurse, two nurses on one side of me and Brett and my mom on the other... Plus a good 8 people who were the nurses and doctors there to assess Tabitha once she was born ( believe me I did not begrudge one person in that room!!! They were all important). The other marked difference in delivery is than while I got an epidural with Ransom when I was 8cm and hadn't progressed in two hours, I had time for a full on nap before I woke up and was ready to push. With Tabitha, I got one when I was around 7cm and was pushing her out within the hour... And it had NOT taken its effect! Ring of fire indeed! It probably only took about 15 minutes all told in pushing but it felt like an eternity ( also in comparison to the two pushes that got my "giant" 8lb baby out two years before... Go figure). Anyway, I am grateful that the epidural did start to work for the afterbirth and the birth of Priscilla. I had decided I didn't want to see her knowing that seeing her on ultrasound after her passing was hard enough) , and after asking Dr.Ruano what her condition was and his advice to Brett, Brett decided the same. I am so glad she was wrapped in her special blanket I made for her and I know that she will always have our love and a major roll in the story of her sister's life as well as our own...
The longest half second in the world was the half second after Tabitha was born and she let out a cry. I think I still had so much fear wrapped up in her birth, and while it was TERRIBLY hard to have her immediately whisked to the other side of the room for assessment I was grateful we had a team of doctors there to check her over. And when we did finally get to hold her ( and it probably wasnt even that long) she opened her eyes and looked at me and Brett for longest time and we all fell in love. Tabitha, our little miracle baby born at 9:33 on 01/05/13 at 5lbs and 7 oz, 18 inches long.
When Ransom was born, and the nurse called out the time of 14:21 as time of birth, we immediately looked at each other and knew we were claiming John 14:21 as Ransom's birth verse. With Tabitha we once again found ourselves in John 9:33... Especially since the story of the blind man who is healed spoke to me during this experience. But in verse 33 the man who was no longer blind told the Pharisee's that someone who could heal someone like him must be God. In the same way we acknowledge that even a room full of doctors could not heal Tabitha's heart to the point that she does not need any of the many surgeries projected for her future. Those doctors and all their medicine could not keep her from delivering till full term, or give her a perfectly healthy uncomplicated delivery. Only someone who must be the Christ....