I have wavered back and forth whether or not to share Zelie’s birth story. Partially because I’ve never been one to gush over birth stories, but mostly, if I’m totally honest with myself, it is because her birth ended up not going as I had hoped it would.

But the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that doesn’t matter. So much of what I share on the blog is about how things turn out differently than as I hoped they would. I’m not sure why I thought her birth story would be any different. Perhaps I was too caught up in how blissfully wonderful being pregnant with her was that I assumed her birth would follow suit. Silly me.

So, here’s the short version:

After 30 hours of active labor, including 5 total hours of pushing, Zelie was born via cesaren delivery.

Before I go into the long version, know it has been a process to come to terms with having a c-section delivery. I grieved not having an unmedicated labor and delivery experience. I had to bury all the “what ifs” and know that I did everything I could.

For a good while after her birth I felt like, yet again, my body had failed me. Through prayer and reflection, God has shown me that is such a lie. My body didn’t fail. On the contrary, for 40 weeks my body did exactly what it was made to do: nurture and grow a human. My body labored and prepared for birth, but unforeseen circumstances led to a caesarean delivery.

I also feared what others might think. As much as I try to not let that get to me, it does. I feared judgement. I feared being seen as weak. I feared this may be my only full-term delivery experience. Then again, through prayer and reflection, I recognized the lies from the evil one. Lies fueling fear. Lies telling me to not share. Lies saying it doesn’t matter.

However once I peeled away the emotional disappointment, I recognized that it was overall a good and positive experience. We were still able to delay cutting the umbilical cord and immediately do skin-to-skin. Z latched soon after birth and I have been able to breastfeed. And despite having had major abdominal surgery and stitches for the first time ever, my recovery was fairly quick with no complications. (I’ll share more in my fourth trimester post.)

Yet still, I’ve been dreading making this post – so much so that I’ve had it sitting in the drafts folder since December. I was so close to hitting publish toward the end of March but for some reason still felt unsettled. So I decided to put it off a few more weeks and post in April since Zelie will be six months old.

Then low and behold at the beginning of April, I see on my IG feed that April is Cesarean Awareness Month. Who knew that even existed? I sure didn’t. As soon as I saw that, I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off and I had to hit publish for sure this month.

Granted the origin of Cesarean Awareness is more about prevention, which is great and important. However, C-section Strong empowers women to own their experience and share their story, which you know I’m a big fan of.

As the month went on, I made up more excuses to not post. I can be really stubborn sometimes. Then I saw that it is also National Infertility Awareness Week.

Okay, God. I hear you. It’s clear.

One more thing before I share the long version. You may recall that during our second trimester we began the 12-week class to learn the Bradley Method. As tempting as it was to think we wasted our time and money on that class only to end up with a cesarean delivery, it was that class and the support of our dear friend/doula, Marisa, that gave us the confidence to make every decision along the way.

It was an extremely difficult and heartbreaking decision to make. But in the end, both baby and myself are healthy & alive – for that I am eternally grateful for modern medicine.

Onto the long version:

-at about 1:30am on October 23 (my due date), I woke up to my first real contraction. I had been feeling Braxton Hicks all throughout my third trimester and was feeling them more regularly the last couple of weeks of pregnancy.

-I continued to labor at home for the next 12 hours. Contractions were pretty consistent but not quite 5 minutes apart or lasting for a minute. The first six hours at home, I tried to get some sleep/rest in between contractions but was not very successful – go figure. Around 5am, we got out of bed and tried to keep busy at home. During each contraction, Rex gracefully led prayers to offer up for family and friends. Between contractions I attempted to watch a show, we went on the s-l-o-w-e-s-t walk around the block, and we packed a few last minute items for the hospital.

-at about 1:30pm, I had called my doctor’s office to see if he wanted me to come in or just head straight to the hospital. Since it was my due date, I already had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon. They told me to just come in. Rex packed the car and we made the 45 minute drive to my doctor’s office. My contractions slowed down a bit while we were in the car, but man, those few I had in the car were extremely uncomfortable. Turns out I was 6cm with a bulging bag of waters, so off to the hospital we went.

-by 4:30pm we were settled in our room. Shortly thereafter my water broke and our friend/doula, Marisa, arrived. I’m thankful it broke at the hospital and not in the car or somewhere else. Contractions started back up again and were more intense. We continued to offer up prayers. Rex would say a name or family and we’d pray an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for them. Sometimes at the peak of a contraction I’d stop mid-prayer and pray the Fatima Prayer – O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

-around 9:30pm I got the okay to start pushing, so I did for about 2ish hours. Unfortunately, after all that hard work, Z hadn’t moved much. She was posterior and my cervix began to swell so my doctor suggested I get an epidural so I could rest and hope the swelling would go down. I was still hopeful for a vaginal delivery.

-about 12:30am I got an epidural and we all rested for a couple of hours.

-around 2:30am my all-star nurse brought in another nurse who is familiar with Spinning Babies. Although I couldn’t feel my legs, surprisingly I still had pretty good control of them. So for the next couple of hours, we tried various techniques/positions to turn baby. Then my epidural began to wear off so I began to feel my contractions again but couldn’t push, which was extremely difficult and frustrating. I also began to feel nauseous and threw up for the first time during the entire pregnancy!

-by 5:30am I got the okay to start pushing again. I pushed for another 2ish hours and baby made little to no progress down the birth canal. So discouraging. At some point, the “Spinning Babies nurse” said my pelvis was perfect so it wasn’t adding up that baby wasn’t moving. She suspected that baby’s hand might be in the way and asked if that was the case in any ultra sound photos. It totally was, so it was all starting to make sense.

-around 7:30am I was exhausted and feeling defeated that baby hadn’t made any progress after hours of pushing. I knew I had reached my limit so with tears filling in my eyes I told Rex that I couldn’t keep pushing and I think we needed to have a c-section.

-for the next 20 minutes while we waited for my doctor to arrive, I just wept. I was already disappointed that I ended up getting an epidural and here I was asking for major surgery. I cannot fully express how much of a blessing and how grateful I was to have Marisa present the whole time, but especially in this moment. She loved on me. She affirmed the sadness and disappointment I was feeling, but then so lovingly reminded me that it was also time to get excited because baby would be born soon.

-what a whirlwind – it was the nurses shift change so a new nurse prepped me for the O.R. She told me the anesthesiologist that was on shift sometimes will let two people in the O.R. so thankfully, both Rex and Marisa were able to be there.

-at 8:38am our baby girl was born. Praise the Lord!

I am incredibly thankful for my birth team – Rex, Marisa, my doctor and nurses. So supportive and encouraging the whole time. My doctor has been my OBGYN since I was pregnant with our first. It was special to be under his care during this pregnancy and delivery. At almost every prenatal visit, he showed genuine excitement that things were finally looking good. Such a blessing.

We chose the name Zelie (pronounced Zell-ee) after St. Zélie Martin, St. Therese of Lisieux’s mother. For a long time her quote, “We shall find our little ones again up above,” has been a part of our home altar. It has brought a lot of healing and peace through the years of grief. Fun fact: Zelie is also a combination of our mom’s names: Zeny and Ellie.

It wasn’t until a few hours after she was born that we decided on Rose for her middle name. In preparation for her birth, we prayed the 54-day rosary novena. We offered Mother Mary a beautiful rose as we prayed every Hail Mary while asking for her intercession. Her birth month (October) is also the month of the rosary. It was all too perfectly ordained by God. On top of all that, it’s also another “R” name.

Zelie Rose, what a gift you are! You are so loved. God has incredible plans for you.

Praying for you,

Rachel

• 

• 

• 

• 

•