Corrie Elaine - October 3, 2002

(Almost straight from the email account)

10/26/02--So ... I know everyone’s waiting ... I’m supposed to write Corrie’s birth story. How do I put down in words something that was so NOT what I was hoping for, that once again stretched me to my limits and beyond, where I’m pleading with the Lord to remember His mercies, that I am only flesh and blood, and the release still doesn’t come? Maybe a better question, at least in the minds of some, why don’t I quit this foolish self-martyring and just get myself to the hospital next time—if there is a next time—for a nice, comfortable epidural?? LOL! But seriously, is it really so important I do this the "hard" way? I would say no, except that I KNOW this is the direction the Lord led us .....

One thing that I’m finding very cool about this time is the fact that I faced my worst fear—the pain—went through it, and actually have NO fear of having to go through it again. After Cameron’s birth, which was also very intense, I had this terror in the pit of my stomach whenever I thought of having to face another labor at all, let alone another like that one. A couple of months before Corrie’s conception, the Lord made me face this and delivered me of it—obviously in preparation for His giving us another baby, which was wonderful since she was such a surprise! And most of you know how I struggled again in the last few weeks before the birth. I have had to conclude that the Lord’s solution was to lean on Him and walk straight into the fire rather than be "saved from" it. "When you walk through the fire and through the water, I will be with you ... the fire will not scorch you and the water will not overflow you ..." (my paraphrase) I ran across that scripture a few days before the birth ... the Lord had given me that one specifically before Ian’s birth (my second), an induced labor that until Cameron’s was my absolute hardest. When I flipped to that passage before Corrie’s birth I was thinking, "Oh great, it’s going to be another one of those!" Still, there is the verse just following about how great the Lord’s love is for us, how He "gave Egypt ... Ethiopia and Seba" for us. (That’s Isaiah 43 if you want to read the whole passage.) This was at one point a very great comfort to me—I was literally weeping over the awesomeness of His taking our sin, when we are simply fallen creatures who deserve what pain is laid on us (IYKWIM).

Ok, now for the mundane details. I had weeks and weeks of Braxton-Hicks this time, and a good week or two of what I’d call true prelabor. This always happens—I don’t know why each time it seems like such a surprise. Maybe because each time I’m hoping THIS labor/birth will be the exception to my "late" rule—but it wasn’t. (I had made that first week of October my personal due date since I’ve always gone at least 41 weeks and have just decided that’s what’s normal for me.) Wednesday evening, around 8 pm, I had contractions start that were halfway serious (for prelabor) AND fairly close together. Trying to get the kids in bed that night, while Troy was at work, was an aggravating process. By the time I made it to bed, the ctx spaced out quite a bit, and I slept from about 12:30 till 2:30 AM before being awakened for a "potty break." (I did have a good, long nap in the late afternoon, so I wasn’t completely sleep-deprived.) The ctx picked back up then so I stayed up, folded laundry, etc. till about 4 AM or so, when I was growing sleepy and decided to go back to bed. This time I couldn’t sleep solidly; each ctx, though pretty far apart, kept waking me up. At 5 I gave up and got up again, and got online to divert myself. Between then and 5:30 they started in VERY serious—I had to get up from the chair to get through them—but were still only about 8-10 minutes apart. By 6 I was chatting with Tracey online and she reminded me that her labor stayed like this the whole time. I was hoping for the same—at least that it would remain manageable.

Around 6:30, 7 AM I made Troy his requisite coffee (hey, he even got a full night’s sleep this time!) and was marveling that it looked like I was going to get one of the things I’d prayed for—a daytime labor. Still, it felt pretty weird. Over the next hour the ctx strengthened to where I needed to vocalize through them, and in between I arranged for childcare for the day (my neighbor who just "happened" to be planning to stay home and clean house <g>) and worked on getting Troy up. I think he finally got out of bed between 8 and 9. J My neighbor Cyndi had come over for a little while before taking the older children home with her, and she helped me through a couple of ctx; but I was glad of Troy’s presence and to have the house quiet.

I kept waiting for things to really take off like they had during my previous labors—they didn’t. Between 10 and 12 I did all right—the ctx were hard but still never closer than 6-8 minutes apart—the pressure during them was intense, though. I kept checking dilation and it seemed like I got to a certain point and just didn’t go farther—the upper part of my cervix felt a lot more unyielding than I remember in previous labors, too. In addition, there was a "bubble" of the amniotic sac that pressed forward of the baby’s head, through the cervix, so taut that for a little while I wondered whether this could be edge of the placenta. (The cervix dilated oh-so-neatly around that bubble and then just stayed there for a LONG time.) I made Troy check me, since I couldn’t reach far enough back to see whether it was just amniotic sac or not—that was pretty funny since he’s never done an "internal" on me during labor before. We did at least decide it was just amniotic sac and nothing to worry about.

One thing fairly clear was that the baby was in a posterior or near-posterior position, and I felt that was probably causing the intense pressure and slow dilation. After getting tired of pacing my bedroom and bathroom (and the shower/tub just wasn’t getting it this time), I moved to the kitchen and living room and did a lot of different things to encourage the baby to turn. Kneeling on the couch and leaning over the back of it felt good for a while (and it was SO cool to listen to my stereo during the whole labor, and not have to be concerned anyone would wake up), then for quite a long time I wound up standing, rocking my hips back and forth against the front of my oak sideboard with feet braced in front of me—that was GREAT for counterpressure but left me pretty sore the next day. Emotionally I was up and down—I’d already had at least one crying jag from the spiritual stuff going on—and as the morning turned to afternoon and I began to get tired of the struggle and the seeming lack of progress, I became more frantic in my crying out to the Lord. At least this time I didn’t accuse Him of abandoning me .... and there was one time where very clearly, in the middle of this massive contraction that I felt Him telling me, "It’s going to be all right ... everything is going to be all right." Still the ctx were extremely painful and unrelenting. They never got very close or regular, the ctx themselves just plain uncoordinated—Troy said they they were all lasting 2-4 minutes, and at least one was longer than 5 minutes (like, triple-peaked?? I was wailing through that one!).

Troy was incredibly sweet through it all, holding my hands as I swayed and rocked, or holding me when I decided to "hang" off of him during ctx, praying when I asked him to pray. During my labor with Cameron he had likened the whole labor process to being "stripped down" (think furniture) and then refinished. I told Troy later I had a lot to be sanded away this time. I thought that this labor was never going to end ... that I would never finish dilating ... I knew better than to be checking every other ctx or so! It was an additional struggle to just wait it out, to let my body do its work when most of these ctx were NOT very manageable. Finally in utter weariness I decided to climb back in the shower, mostly for a change of scenery. Troy stopped me before I got in, grabbed my little vial of anointing oil, and anointed and prayed over me. With that, I was able to recenter myself a bit and focus on praising the Lord again for at least a brief time instead of just wailing.

This is where things got a bit weird, however. I must have been more than just a little "out of it" ... I don’t know why, other than sheer annoyance, I reached up and broke that bubble of the amniotic sac. There were pea-green chunks of meconium in the fluid, and I asked Troy to pray. Immediately he got on his knees next to the tub and began to do so, silently. Unfortunately my breaking the water caused the cervix to close back to about quarter-size, and although there was a great feeling of relief when the sac first ruptured, the next few contractions were VERY intense (intact membranes help cushion both the mom and baby). I did dilate fairly quickly to where I was before. I kept thinking of what had happened with Cameron—there was a persistent "lip" of the cervix that I wound up holding back myself (remembering that birth attendants often do this) and pushing past—and decided in desperation to try that again. I squatted in the bottom of the tub—first time, nothing. The cervix was like a very tough rubber band. I waited through another contraction or two and tried again. Nothing. The pushing urge had been there intermittently for the past two hours so I was hoping that this would work and was pretty frustrated that it didn’t!

I wound up on my knees in the bottom of the tub, leaning on the side, exhausted. My perceptions were getting very fuzzy. Troy slipped a towel under me at the corner edge of the tub so I could lay my head down—that was really nice—and the hot shower spray was falling on my tailbone—which also felt good, and I decided to stay right there. I actually fell asleep for at least a couple of minutes. I woke up when the next contraction hit, and must have kept my fingers on the cervix (I told you it was a bit weird, LOL), because I awoke to the feeling the cervix going back and the baby’s head coming down as I pushed, completely instinctively. Clued in by my sudden silence, Troy looked up and saw that I was pushing, and moved into position. "You’ve got a head down there, don’t you?" he asked—my hand was obstructing his view—and I nodded. The head crowned at the end of the contraction and I blew for a minute or two trying to ease the burning of the head coming down so fast. (I don’t remember that it worked very well.) I did try to stand up—the last three were "standing" births and I guess it’s gotten to be habit—but Troy was protesting ("what are you doing????" LOL), so I went back down to my knees. At some point he turned off the shower and I was faintly regretful that the spray was no longer there. Then the next contraction hit and I pushed again—and to my dim shock, her head and shoulders all came in the same push, and I felt her body slide from me as Troy caught her. While I gasped with relief, he gently urged me to turn around, that he needed my help. Slowly, like coming out of a fog, I somehow got myself situated and took the baby from him. After joyfully announcing that she was, indeed, a girl, Troy hopped up to get something—probably the phone, since our neighbor Cyndi showed up in very short order. Sobbing with relief, I cuddled Corrie close to me and watched her quietly pink up (she never really cried till much later) while Troy whooped and "Hallelujah!"’ed as he went in and out of the bathroom. (He’s never this effusive except just after births!) Corrie squeaked a little and I told Troy to keep it down, he was scaring her. What was I thinking, shushing my husband as he was caught up in praising the Lord, LOL! But the echoes in that tiny bathroom were pretty loud.

Cyndi came then and helped Troy get everything done afterwards. Troy did his usual round of calls even before the placenta delivered, which led to his famous line to Sandy of, "This is Troy, Shannon’s wife..." Everything else was pretty much anticlimactic ... the placenta delivered quickly, I had far less bleeding this time than usual (smaller baby), and although I got a bit dizzy getting out of the tub, that was more from exhaustion than blood loss, I think. It was awesome to be able to just climb back in bed and snuggle my newest sweetie! Corrie is inexpressibly precious.

So ... she was 10 lbs. when Troy first set her on the scale, but that was with a couple of receiving blankets wrapped around her. Later, after she’d passed quite a bit of meconium, we weighed her again and she was exactly 9 ½, so we figure without the blankets, before the BM, she was about 9 lbs. 12 oz. Troy said she was 20" long although that seemed a bit short ... she has a very long body, shorter legs, and very long, slender feet. Her hair is soft, fine, and golden—short but fairly abundant. (At three weeks it looks like it may turn as red as Cameron’s, although it’s too early to tell for sure.)

I was pretty wiped out the rest of that day and made one very unkind comment to Troy about having more babies. I had never been that negative before! By the next day, however, I was actually feeling stronger for the whole ordeal, but Troy was the one shaking his head and saying, "I just don’t know if I can watch you go through that again ... they just keep getting harder!" I told him that for all the difficulty, I’m still glad we do things the way we do, as long as it’s the Lord’s leading. I had said so during labor, too. In retrospect, after discussing the labor itself with Cyndi and Nicole (the midwife who did my prenatal care and was my backup in case Troy deployed again), we think the irregularity of the contractions was due greatly to Corrie’s position. Red raspberry leaf tea or capsules taken daily might also have helped tremendously, which I didn’t do. (Yes, I know better!) It was just strange, after having the active part of my last four labors only be 4-6 hours, for this one to last a good 10 hours. She was born at 3:15 in the afternoon.

She has nursed absolutely wonderfully, but without the "piranha" quality her larger siblings had. I was extremely sore across my back, hips, and down my legs the next day—another consequence of not being more physically active during pregnancy, I think—why do I always forget that labor is a lot like running a marathon that one should "train" for? Afterpains weren’t as bad this time, though.

Ok, if you’ve gotten this far and aren’t bored, I’m amazed. <G> I don’t remember the other births being as tedious to recount. (For those who don’t remember, this was my eighth, and the second after a loss. Praise the Lord for His wonderful gifts!!!)

Alistair's Story | Ian's Story | Erin's Story | Ross' Story | Breanna's Story
Duncan's Story | Cameron's Story | Corrie's Story | Meeghan's Story