I am officially the mother of eight beautiful children. My husband and I have 2 lovely teen-aged girls followed by six very handsome young men.  I have always wanted eight children, at least that is what everyone tells me.  Ever since I can first remember being asked the question, my response has always been eight.  I don't know why. I don't have any real reason for wanting that number of children.  The truth be told, God is the determining factor of our family size, so whatever number I gave when asked really didn't matter anyway, but I digress.

This entry is really about my experience giving birth to child number eight - Christian David King.  Don't you just love that name? I even like the way it sounds backwards - King David (a) Christian!

My pregnancy with him was pretty normal.  I made my routine appointments with my OB, ran the regular battery of tests (all of which came back normal), and gained a decent amount of weight.  Two days before delivery I was 140 lbs, not bad.  My due date was Saturday, May 30.  All that week we looked for contractions and when I started having them my eyes were glued to the clock.  After watching for about an hour, they would just stop. Now, I am not one of those women who like to run to the hospital at the first sign of pain. I have a couple of reasons for this:

1. When I make it to the hospital, I am meaning to stay.  There is something discouraging about being worked up for delivery and anticipating the arrival of a sweet little baby, only to be told to go back home.  Uuughhhh!  I have decided that this would not be for me, so I wait until I know for sure!

2.  I am determined to believe that Sue Mize, author of Supernatural Childbirth, is absolutely right that women of God can have children without pain!  Although I have not experienced this at 100%, by the end of this post you will understand why I fell the way that I do.  I don't want to relinquish control of my labor to the doctors and nurses at the hospital.  I need to remain in control for as long as I can, without putting the health of myself and the baby at risk  So, no rushing to the hospital.

This is the mentality that I and my husband had coming up to due date.  He kept his cell phone on him at all times, waiting for the 911 text message that meant "read this message as you are leaving the building".  Due date came - no baby, no significant contractions.

Okay, no problem.  Surely we will have this baby in the next day or two.  We never miss a due date.  I can set my watch by my body's biological clock.  So that Sunday and Monday we watched and watched and waited and waited.  Nothing.  Tuesday and Wednesday we watched and waited.  Again, nothing.

This is a little strange to me.  I can hear some of you saying, "due dates are not an exact science" or "babies are born when they are supposed to be hear and not a minute before", etc.  I know all of that, but still - we just don't do it like this! So I found myself returning to my OB's office on Thursday.

My obstetrician, worried that I would have the baby too fast, was pressing for me to have labor induced.  I didn't really take him seriously because we had been through all of this before.  I absolutely refuse to have my labor induced.  I have not yet heard from one woman who, compared to labor beginning and progressing naturally, had anything positive to say about the experience.  I also did not want to schedule my baby's birth around my doctor's vacation schedule.  Know what I mean?  So, I left my appointment on Thursday thinking that I just might have to show up for another appointment in a couple of days.  Not so…

 Saturday, June 6 - 3:25 am

I awaken with a strange pain near my navel.  It didn’t feel anything like a contraction so I assumed that I just needed to go to the bathroom.  It is not a strange thing for a pregnant woman to need to empty her bladder – often!  Off I go to the bathroom for just that purpose.  I figured that since I was in there, I may as well move my bowels but my body didn’t seem to want to do that at that time.

I return to my bedroom.  It’s quiet in the house, way too early for any children to be awake, so I decide to review my Supernatural Childbirth scripture list.

3:42 a.m.

Just as I am preparing to get back into bed, I feel it.  This was a real contraction, there was no mistaking it.  This wasn’t the tingly feeling sensation that I had been timing before.  My body was most assuredly making some adjustments and movements. 

Quick, look at the clock and make a mental note of the time!

Okay, let’s remember our scriptures and talk through this.

Wow, that contraction lasted a long time.  Breathe.  We made it through…

3:43 a.m.

Is this another contraction?  Oh my….  This is really hurting me.  I can’t seem to remember my scriptures.  I need to start walking, we have to walk through this.

I started walking up and down my hallway in order to gain a sense of control over my body.  I figured that two contractions that close together is okay.  I’ve had contractions close before and then they usually spread out and regulate.  By the time I made it back to my bedroom the second contraction was beginning to end.

3:44 a.m.

I look at the clock in order to get a sense of how long the contractions are lasting.  Just as I do, another contraction hits!  Okay, I think perhaps we should stop playing around and wake up the husband and call the doctor.  So, I wake up my husband, tell him I am having contractions and in a couple of seconds he is out of the bed.  Now, I am trying to figure out how to let him know that this is progressing quickly and painfully!  I don’t want to actually say the words “I am in a lot of pain” because that would defeat the purpose of me commanding my body to do this without the pain through scripture.

My husband goes off to the bathroom and I feel another contraction.  At this point, I am losing control over this quickly.  I still needed to try and walk through it.  For some reason that makes me feel better, but my legs were finding it difficult to stand, let alone take steps.

I go to the banister and call out for our children to get ready to go.  We were taking our 11yo son to the hospital with us for the first time to witness a birth.  The children had been on alert for about two weeks and didn’t think that this was really going to happen.

“Are we really going to the hospital this time or is this another fake-out?” asks my eldest daughter.

“Oh, we are really going,” I reply through the pain.  Why isn’t my family moving any faster than this?  I need to get to the hospital pronto!

I go to the bathroom door.  “Honey, what are you doing?” I ask.

“There’s a fly in here.  I’ll be out as soon as I kill it.”

You have got to be kidding me, I’m thinking.  I really need to relay to him that I am in a hurry. 

“Sweetie, I really need to go” I tell him.  “I am having real contractions now.”

“Well how far apart are they?” he asks through the door.

“A minute.”

“How long are they lasting?”

“About a minute!”

“OH!  We had better get moving!”

The bathroom door flies open and out comes a husband who looks as if he finally got the picture.  By this time, that need for a bowel movement had returned.  I returned to the toilet and my body was working with me this time.

I apologize for this, but I have to tell you that this is the best BM ever.  Every time I get the opportunity to go before delivering, I am convinced that my body clears out as much as possible.  This is a good thing because if you ever have to have stitches after delivering a baby, you know how difficult it can be to make a movement after that.  This is why the hospital has you take stool softeners.

I exit the bathroom, take three steps and there’s another contraction.  I barely made it into my room!  This one was going to knock me off of my feet!  My prayers suddenly changed and became most desperate!  I think it went something like “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Oh Jesus!”

I am so glad that God knows the entire prayer that is contained in His Name when you can only get that out!  What I was really praying was:

“Lord Jesus, I am such great pain right now.  This is really hurting me much more than I thought it would.  I believe that it is possible to have a child without pain and I want to experience that so much right now, but I seem to be losing this battle.  Please help me to gain control over this pain or help me to get to the hospital right away so that I can have something to manage it.  I really need you right now!”

I, obviously, couldn’t get that entire prayer out, but I am sure that I was clearly understood.

I decided to go sit down on the bed.  I couldn’t stand anymore.  I had given up trying to time contractions.  I knew all that I needed to know.  I was truly in labor and we needed to talk to my doctor.  My husband was already dressed and was trying desperately to get my doctor on the phone.  The problem was that he couldn’t remember his phone number.  Now, this is a little funny because the same phone number has been dialed for labor with all of our children.  I took the phone from him and pressed in the number, all the while thinking that sitting isn’t working any better than standing was.  I hand the phone back to my husband in order to lift my legs up onto the bed so that I could lay down on my side.

As I am lying down on the bed, I begin to feel a lot of pressure. 

“Ohhhhh! I am feeling a lot of pressure.” I say to my husband.  I hear him giving information to the operator of the answering service.

“What?!  Turn over, let me check you!” He answers.

 Now, I’m thinking this is a little funny.  I mean, what does my husband know about checking a woman in order to determine if she is ready to deliver?  I know that he has been present at the birth of every child we’ve had, but still…

I comply and let him check me.  “I can see his head, Chanin” he answers incredulously.

“You’d better dial 911,” I reply.  As the words are coming out of my mouth, my baby’s head is coming out of me.

My husband picks up a cell phone to dial 911.

I can hear my doctor on the house phone, “Hello? Hello? Hello, hello, hello?”

“Dr. XXXX – I’m delivering.”

“Right now?” he asks calmly.

“Yes.  The head is already out.”

I feel another great surge of pressure.  I suppose that I was having a contraction then, but I felt more pressure than pain.  By this time, my husband is talking to both the 911 operator and my doctor on two different phones.  I am moaning with the pressure, but didn’t push.  To tell you the truth, I was in shock at the sight of this little head (which I never get to see because of the bedding and protective coverings that the hospital personnel always drapes over my legs) and really didn’t know what to do at that point.

“Is that another contraction?” my husband asks.  I nod my head yes.  “Then push!”

That sounds like a good idea.  I push and the baby comes out.  He just sort of slid out onto my bed.  Then it hits me that I just delivered our baby – at home!  He is screaming and red, with that gray colored gunk on him.  My mommy heart kicked in and I reached for him.  My husband picked him up and laid him on my chest.  He was a little pudgier than I remember the other babies being, but I never really held them immediately after birth.  They were all whisked away to the baby warmer and cared for by a team of Neonatal professionals.  I usually get them back after they were cleaned and swaddled.

This time, however, I was the neonatal unit and I needed to get my little sweetie warmed.

“I need a towel or something, he’s cold!”  All of the blankets that I bought him were in the car along with all of our bags.  We wrapped him in a towel and my husband and children began searching for something to tie off the umbilical cord.  It was at about that time that fire department truck arrived.

Let me explain, in Chicago the fire trucks are always dispatched with a call for the paramedics.  In the event the person(s) needing to be transported are up a flight of stairs, there are strong bodies there to assist.  This happened to be my case.

The firemen are led upstairs to my room by one of our sons and quickly assess the situation.  Upon hearing that we were in need of something to tie off the cord, they announced that they had clamps on the truck.  When they returned with the clamps, instead of taking over and clamping the baby themselves, they handed them to my husband.  With my doctor still on the phone giving instructions, my husband double clamped the chord and reported our condition to my doctor.

At about this time, the paramedics arrived.  After finding out that my husband had already successfully clamped the chord, they cut the chord and prepared to transmit us to the hospital.

“What time was the baby born?” a paramedic asked while completing some paperwork.  Apparently all of this information would be important for the emergency room physicians.

“3:55 am,” came the answer from my doctor over the speakerphone.

It took only 13 minutes for Christian to make his entrance into the world!  And he decided to do it at home!