A story of surrender

I have mentioned before that God has been bringing me on a journey over past 3 years. God has been faithful in allowing me to struggle with the truth, that there is very little in this life I am in control of. My journey has been one of surrender. Surrendering to the unexpected good and bad of life. Surrendering my expectations both lofty and reachable. Living with open hands and a calmer heart.

Surrender.

Miss Abigail Hope Miller finally made her grand and dramatic entrance into the world

Monday, January 16th at 5:47 am.

Being 16 days past her estimated due date,

she weighed a lovely 8 pounds 6 ounces and measured at 21 3/4 inches long.

The Journey

First I should begin by expounding upon our birth choice. After several miscarriages and a lot of research, we felt God encouraging us to give birth with the assistance of Sarah Jones, a midwife who works with Gentle Beginnings Birth Center in Hurst, Texas. And, let's be honest, I am terrified of needles and the thought of giving birth naturally is less terrifying to me than getting an epidural. We read countless books, practiced the Bradley birthing and hypno birthing methods . . . we were as studied and practiced as you could possibly be. Ultimately we felt God had led us down this path and now, nearly a month later, I have no doubt our journey was led, blessed and aided by God's powerful and gracious hand.

Saturday, January 14th I woke up at 2am with back and lower abdominal discomfort. By mid morning that discomfort had become very short and sporadic contractions. Since I was pretty convinced (by this point) Abigail was never coming, Ray got on the road and headed back to Oklahoma in order to be at church Sunday morning. I spent the day walking and doing acupressure, and as contractions slowly became longer we started to wonder if this was early labor. Contractions along with several other signs caused Ray to get back in the car (after only being home an hour or so) and drive back to Texas.

Sunday morning at 2:30 am I woke up with contractions strong enough to encourage me onto my hands and knees. At 3:30 I decided to get out of bed so I would not keep waking up Ray and moved to the living room to time them. At this point I found they were lasting 50-110 seconds but had no rhythm or pattern, so I still thought real labor wasn't happening! I spent several hours working my way through contractions on a birthing ball, dancing around and on my hands and knees. A rhythm finally arrived at 5:30 with contractions coming every 7 minutes. An hour later I contacted my AMAZING doula, Lesley, who instructed me to take a hot shower and see if the contractions would slow down, speed up or stay the same. The shower launched the contractions

to 4 minutes apart.

Not long after that Ray, my father and I decided it was time to get in the car a head the 45 minutes to Hurst. Sarah, Lesley and I were thinking I was still in early labor, so we decided to head to a good friends house (and fellow Gentle Beginnings Mommy), to labor there a bit while she and her family were at church. We arrived, after 45 pretty uncomfortable minutes in the car, at about 9:45. At this point I could not talk through contractions and was in quite a bit of pain. Honestly I was concerned that this was early labor pain and began wondering if I would make it. Our doula arrived at our friend's home near 10 am and one contraction later called Sarah and we headed to the birth center.

Another car ride (much shorter, thankfully) later we arrived at the birth center and Sarah checked my progress. We were all happily surprised to find I was at a 7! Abigail would be here in no time. I labored for a while in the birth pool and on the bed. It did not take long to move into transition and was quickly at 9 1/2 cm. That's when we hit a glitch. Abigail's sweet little head was acynclitic, which in her case meant that her chin was up rather than tucked to her chest. In some cases, this can cause the cervix to stop dilating and in my case it stopped it at 9 1/2 cm.

We spent 5 1/2 hours in transition attempting everything possible to move her head and push the rest of the cervix out of the way. At about 3:30 a chiropractor came in to adjust me, which usually moves the baby's head no problem, but for me it just made the contractions stronger, longer and closer together. From that point labor became pretty rough. It was like being in the ocean and being pounded by waves, none of which I could seem to get on top of. I can remember thinking that if I could just get on top of one contraction I could ride them out.

An hour later the situation had not changed and it was clear my body was beginning to ware down (as I had been in labor for well over 24 hours and had only eaten a piece of toast that day). We decided to move to the toilet to labor some more, which I cannot begin to describe that pain, and Sarah put an IV in me hoping that fluids would give me some energy. It was during the third contraction in the bathroom that I asked Ray to please take me to a hospital. My strong and precious husband knew how committed I was to giving birth naturally, so he a Sarah went into the hall to discuss the options. Sarah decided to check my progress and try a few more laboring positions before transferring. When she checked, she discovered my cervix had swollen back to 7 cm; a massive sign that my body simply needed rest. Thankfully our midwife is incredible and listens for the leading of the spirit. She knew that if we did not get to a hospital soon and get me rest we would end up having a c-section.

By 5 pm we had all piled into cars, me, ray and my dad into the SUV and began traveling 20 minutes to Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth. Normally, this is not the place GBBC transfers to, but a lady on my birth team is good friends with the nurse midwife who happened to be on call that day and believed I would have the best opportunity to deliver vaginally there.

I am continually amazed at how God designed the mind and body to work. One of the more gracious things our mind can do is forget pain. Though the details get fuzzy, the 20 minute ride with contractions coming strong and fast, on my knees in an SUV and an IV in my arm was without contest the worst and most painful 20 minutes of my life.

Once we got to Harris Methodist and were admitted, I was given demerol (best drug ever) while blood work was processed to OK the epidural. Ray says the only humorous part for the entire birthing event was my reaction to the epidural. Being rather drunk from the demerol I kept slurring "I'm afraid of needles. I'm afraid of needles." To which our fantastic nurse replied "Really? Because I've stuck you with about 15 needles already." By the grace of God and demerol the epidural was painless and soon I was able to sleep. I rested from 6:30 to midnight. It took that long for my body to get enough energy and rest to fully dilate. Our nurse midwife Lindsey (who was an angel) and I decided to start a tiny bit of pitocin in order to help Abigail move down a bit more. Abby as amazing. Her heart rate never changed; she was relaxed and calm the entire time.

At 2:30 am (now Monday morning) our nurse Violate side it was time to begin pushing. So there we were, days later, two birth teams surrounding me and I finally began to push! The epidural turned out to be better than I expected, because it was enough to take the edge off, yet at the same time I knew when a contraction was coming and could be actively involved. Because Abigail never changed the position of her head it took over three hours to push her out.

She arrived, alert as can be, at 5:47 am.

Over the past several weeks I've had to process through the birth and grieve it not being everything I imagined. Nevertheless, we know we were in the perfect place. Had I decided to give birth in a hospital, there is no way I would have been allowed to go 16 days past my due date, would have been induced and would have more than likely ended up with a c-section.

Abigail is healthy, perfect and beautiful!

We are thankful she finally arrived and arrived safely.

We love you Abigail Hope Miller and could not imagine life without you.