Birth Story

For anyone who is interested (and more for the sake of my own memory) here are the details of Jedidiah's birth. In the days leading up to his birth I had lots of different emotions about the whole thing. I was sad when I thought about having another c-section (because my previous experience was so yucky). After meeting with some ladies on Sunday and setting my heart more on the Lord I was in total faith for a c-section, reminded that Jedidiah's birth was God ordained and was the best for us.

In the morning as I met with the Lord, before going to the hospital, I read Luke 11:9-10,13 "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened....If you then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

As I read this the prayer of my heart was, "I trust you Lord, you know my desires for this birth but more than anything I want to dwell in your Spirit through it all." My faith was set on him and I found such comfort there.

We arrived at the hospital, checked in, several nurses we met said, "Oh if you are going to have a version, Dr. Shrout is the one to do it." This was encouraging but I still really expected to have a c-section. We met Dr. Shrout, who we had not met before, and we started to think that maybe the version might be possible. After getting fluids and an epidural it was time to start. All these people came into the room, a few nurses, two doctors, I'm not even sure who. Dr. Shrout started pushing on his head, which was up against my rib and told the other doctor to push/hold the butt which was sort of sitting of hip with his legs hanging down into my cervix. After, no joke, 1 1/2 minutes they were done. It was pretty painful BUT it was so quick. They stopped and I expected them to start again. The doctor said, "That's it, he's turned." I thought, "That's it! I can't believe it." They began monitoring him and checked him on the sonogram and everything was okay. They put a binder around my belly so he wouldn't move back and then they slowly started pitocin.

The next very exciting thing that happened was them breaking my water. They did this pretty soon after the version so that he would stay head down. When the doctor broke my water she was shocked at how much water came out. It was basically 2 liters of fluid. The nurse said she'd never seen more than 1 liter. I guess this is a condition called polyhydramnios. Anyway, it was very funny at the time as more and more water kept coming out and they kept sucking it up. Around this time, my blood pressure dropped and I started feeling pretty sick and Jedi's heart rate went down. Both Erik & I thought we might be heading for a c-section but again in God's kindness everything worked out. I eventually needed some medicine to get my blood pressure stable and I felt much better after that.

After this, things went pretty slowly. I got to 4 cm and then stopped progressing. They gave me more pitocin and I got to 5 cm and then stopped progressing. Then they put an internal monitor on my uterus to see if I was having enough contraction and then they gave me more pitocin. After this things went very quickly. Contractions started coming hard and strong and after about 45 minutes to an hours I was pushing. Pushing was intense and hard, he was face up and really twisted around inside but it was only about 20 minutes. I'm a total wimp and was saying, "I can't do it..." But he is here and we are so thankful for all the prayers prayed on our behalf and most especially to our Lord who amazed us in giving us more than we imagined.


Jedidiah, we are over-joyed to have you here with us and amazed at God's kindness in ordaining you to be apart of our family. We can't wait to learn more about you and find out who God made you to be.