The Birth Story

Can't you feel it ever closer?
We breathe it in and then we exhale.
We touch both sides and now eternal
standing closer to the veil.
-All Saints' Day, by Carrie Newcomer

I've been anxious to write the birth story. Actually, I've written and rewritten it over and over again in my head and on paper these last seven weeks. In truth, I feel like I have multiple birth stories and wasn't sure which one I wanted to tell.

My water broke while I was simmering a big pot of soup and baking pumpkin rolls one Saturday afternoon when Matthias was just shy of 37 weeks gestation. Right at thirteen hours later I was holding him in my arms. I only felt contractions about six of those hours. No epidural. The world watched its first triple crown winner since Secretariat race as I lay in bed that evening waiting for real labor to start. There was an influx of laboring women and my midwife joked she was having her own Breeder's Cup that night. She said I was her American Pharaoh.

Matthias was healthy and a couple weeks later I had made a near complete recovery.

Sounds lovely (and obnoxious), doesn't it?

Told another way, I went into pre-term labor one weekend after a long, hard pregnancy that had me pretty sick and mostly in bed for 18 out of 37 weeks. I chose to take Cytotec after having no progress and no real contractions for several hours after my water broke. I can't really find words to describe the pain. I would have had an epidural if there had been more time. I required stitches and Matthias suffered a broken collar bone. While I delivered him quickly, the final stage of labor (after the baby) sort of stalled. I then received a dose of Pitocin. I continued to bleed and no one was sure why or where specifically it was coming from. My midwife had to be careful in choosing medications to help stop the bleeding because I was also at risk for blood clotting due to other complications of the pregnancy. I passed out five times in the next twelve hours. I eventually received a blood transfusion. The IV line quickly failed and leaked blood into my ever swelling arm for a little more than an hour before anyone actually thought to check it as I complained of throbbing from what I understood should have been a relatively painless process. I had three back-to-back migraines. In some ways I feel cheated of my son's first week of life.

That's really more drama than I care for.

The birth story I really want to tell (while being honest about the good, the bad and the ugly) is one of God's grace.

I was not interested in having biological children. I was actively and diligently trying to prevent them.

I felt what I would learn eight days later was my very first pregnancy pain and symptom while I was singing Turn my heart, O Lord. These waters were slow to turn. Because when I did see those two little lines I immediately began praying for it not to be so.

Even when I realized the Lord was asking me to be pregnant. Even after I had prayed for years for Him to make clear to me what He wanted me to do -- and expressed my willingness to do anything. This was an assignment I didn't want to take.

Though my heart and my attitude were ungrateful and rotten, He was sweet to me throughout. It isn't hard for me to believe that every baby ever born is appointed by God, but I felt especially aware that Matthias was so.

I received a card from a local ministry with a very specific prayer and scripture they were praying for me that spoke directly to some of my fears and anxiety. Before they even knew I was pregnant.

Once, about midway through the pregnancy, I was feeling especially burdened. I began to worry I would always think of Matthias as a burden. And I began to feel sorry for him. I worried he would always feel like a burden to me, and I didn't want him to carry that load. I wanted him to be confident that he brought joy to my life. And I prayed that one day -- even if it would take years -- I could tell him with complete honesty how joy-filled his life was to me.

While I was praying, my husband was out having lunch with a friend. Randomly and off the topic of their conversation, this friend felt moved to tell my husband he knew that Matthias would bring us so much joy in the years to come. It seemed odd to Johnie, but he came home and told me about it. It didn't seem odd to me.

Due to lupus and antiphospholipid antibodies, Matthias and I were at risk for a whole laundry list of complications and significant health issues. Miraculously, we escaped them all (save for what was technically a pre-term delivery). That didn't stop me from worrying and praying about them. As I poured out my heart to a trusted spiritual director in the early weeks of my pregnancy, she beautifully prayed for grace to surround my womb. It became a prayer I continued to offer.

How poignant, then, that some of the first words out of my midwife's mouth when she saw me in labor were, "You're going to have a baby tomorrow. I love Sunday babies. Sunday's child is full of grace."

Beyond that, I had prayed and prayed for an early November birth. My due date was smack dab in the middle of the eight day span between the anniversaries of my grandparents' deaths. I didn't want to have a baby during that time and wasn't sure I could bear my child being born on the same date I lost my precious grandmother. The Lord answered those prayers beautifully.

Just for fun and to show just how well He knows me and loves me, the Lord more specifically timed Matthias' birth at precisely one minute prior to the end of Daylight Savings Time. My good friends know the day we get our hour back from the government is my all-time favorite day of the year. The first hour I spent with Matthias was that redeemed hour. Plus, we think it's pretty cool that his medical record says he was born at 1:59 a.m. but received his first shots, his first diaper and began nursing in the minutes leading up to that.

In the weeks following, as I prayed about a positive screen for a possible genetic defect, I would realize his birthday is also All Saints' Day.

I felt like God was telling me during those weeks of not knowing about my son's health that Matthias belonged to Him and I could trust Him. I know well that God doesn't protect us from all infirmities, but was relieved to learn the Lord spared him and the positive screen was the result of a (relatively minor) deficiency in my own body.

While I initially had some complications after his birth, a couple weeks later I recovered almost completely. Seemingly overnight. I and many others had prayed for my health throughout the pregnancy and the days following the delivery. It was like a miracle. I feel like the Lord healed me. My midwife admitted at my follow-up appointment that there was no medical explanation for me to be doing as well as I was so quickly.

I trusted that the Lord would answer my prayer for joy in time, but I was surprised with how quickly it came. Newborn babies are my absolute favorite people. But I was quite ill on Matthias' first day. I was passing out and struggling through a migraine. Our sweet friends were visiting throughout the day (I welcomed them), but each time Matthias would be wheeled into our room to meet people I would tense up at having to manage this squirmy little stranger.

Johnie was instantly enamored. I wasn't. When he asked me if I thought Matthias was cute I said, "I don't know." (That was also the moment -- I kid you not -- Matthias chose to give me the stink eye for the very first time. I still wasn't sure how I felt about his looks, but that at least made me chuckle.)

It was in the early minutes of November 2nd when I fell in love. A nurse brought him into the room so I could feed him. But he was sleeping so soundly and I didn't feel like wrestling to get him to nurse. So I just laid his little body against mine and felt the rise and fall of his breaths. I rubbed my hand up and down the little back I had felt inside me just days before. I looked up at the clock and realized Matthias had one more hour left of his very first day of life. And he and I spent it alone in the dark and quiet. I wept and thanked God for the miracle of his life. And the joy I have felt has only increased from there.

I have always defended motherhood as a high calling. But I didn't think it was for me (and still know it isn't for everyone). I didn't realize how much fulfillment one can find in changing diapers and cleaning spit up. The joy in fighting through bleary-eyed exhaustion to hold a sleeping baby and drink in that precious peaceful face for just a few more minutes. Sure, it has its hard moments. I have times of anxiety and frustration and sadness and every other emotion conceivable. But some cliches have merit. The rewards truly are immeasurable for me.

Boy, how those rivers turned. And they flow with joy and contentment I have never felt before.

Yet still, as warm and fuzzy as that sounds, my very first words to my newborn son will forever and forever be: Oh baby... You almost killed your mama. And if I had to sum the whole thing up in one sentence, that'd probably be it. I would only add but for the grace of God.

An attitude adjustment

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30 

I've kind of made it a point to emphasize just how unplanned this pregnancy was. Just how not on board and unexcited I have felt about it. I realize I crossed a line somewhere from honesty to rottenness.

I wholeheartedly believe it is completely okay for women (and men) to react with shock, anger, frustration and a whole plethora of emotions on the opposite end of the spectrum from joy and elation upon learning of a pregnancy. One of the things that has helped me the most pre and during pregnancy are those friends who were open and honest about their less than happy pregnancy and parenthood feelings and experiences. In a world where we all try to paint on smiles and present perfect, polished selves, I think we need more people willing to be raw and authentic.

I realize I wasn't always being true to myself so much as I was wallowing in muddy self-pity. Constructing a pitiful sword to fall on. And God got the brunt of it. I'm ashamed of how I've acted toward Him these past couple of months. He can handle my anger and He can handle my frustration. I don't even think He's upset about my questions. But He sure doesn't deserve the ugly spirit I have had toward Him.

I'm finding it hard to put into words.

In the midst of my frustration and incomprehension I (somewhat unknowingly) withdrew a part of myself from God. As quickly (within 24 hours of learning of the pregnancy) as people began talking about the possibility of future pregnancies, Johnie and I had already beat them in discussing how we planned to prevent any other pregnancies. I was still mostly rational at that point. After learning about the antiphospholipid antibodies, logic went out the window. And so did some of my trust in God.

To His credit, He never stopped being so incredibly sweet to me. (Which I may forever be in awe of. Such gentle, loving responses to my brash pigheadedness.) But while I trusted Him a little bit, I didn't trust Him fully. And while I submitted to Him a little bit, I didn't submit my will fully. I went from "we can still trust God after this baby is born" to "how can we get my uterus taken out after this one."

Johnie made the clever joke that we're like Coach Calipari's players: One and done. (I really hope you laugh at that because it was a proud wife moment for me.) But I went further than that. I felt so done I wasn't open at all to any possibility of anything beyond this one. My heart was calloused and I basically told God, "I'll carry this one for you, but never again. Never. I don't care. P.S. I don't even know what you were thinking with this one in the first place. But, I'll do it. Just for you. I hope you're working on some kind of medal for me for it. Because, if you remember, I didn't actually want to do this. But I am. Since I love you. Seriously, though, I really don't think this was your smartest move."

I told myself He was trustworthy and out for my good and all-knowing. But my heart wasn't listening. Aches or pains that couldn't be soothed the way I normally find relief, plans that couldn't be made or followed through because of this pregnancy I would hold up to God. "Do You see now why I didn't want to do this? If this is supposed to be teaching me something, I'm not getting it. What could this possibly be accomplishing?!"

As I finally just poured out all my ugly feelings to a trusted Spiritual Director, she asked me simply, "Do you believe you've sinned?"

It took a couple minutes for me to fully process my immediate "probably" into a completely sure "definitely." Not to be overdramatic, but it was like the scales fell off my eyes. I had been a stinky brat to a sweet, loving God. I mean, like, majorly stinky.

But I confessed and we prayed and slowly my burden seemed lighter.

This pregnancy has felt like such a heavy burden. Shoulders drooped over, unable to take deep breaths, not knowing if I'd collapse with the next step heavy. Why couldn't I just mother children who are already here? I actually want to do that, and that's something I thought You wanted me to do. If You want to introduce a new life into this world, why -- of all places -- would You put it in my broken body which, You must know, is set on destroying healthy things? It felt like I was being set up for failure.

Again, words are still failing me.

I realized my perspective had been wrong and my heart had been wrong. I had listened to untruths. And I chose then to turn back to God. To accept His trustworthiness and His Sovereignty and, thank Him for it, His grace. Though it was spiritual chains being unbound, I felt physically freer. Like I could finally move and breath and unhunch my shoulders.

And the verse came to mind: "My burden is light."

How had I not recognized that such a heavy burden was not from God?

This is where I want to conclude with something profound or thought-provoking. Make some sort of renewed commitment or dream of a perfectly healthy pregnancy from here on out. I don't have any of that. I'm simply trying to take each day, each thing, as it comes. Sometimes I do that well, other times I do not. If you've read any of my previous posts you know this is a continual work for me.

P.S. You will probably be relieved to know that my plans to allow someone in a back alley of a foreign country to cut me open and rip out my uterus for a nominal fee have been canceled.

Note: I also feel like I need to add another post script for those who may be reading this and may be struggling through incredibly difficult trials. I, in no way, was trying to make some kind of doctrinal or theological statement, or say that just because something feels heavy or hard doesn't mean God isn't with you, or isn't present, or that you're doing something wrong. This is just my experience from one day of going through a surprise pregnancy I feel especially unequipped for. Please don't take it as anything more than that. From my experience, God gives special mercies through the especially dark times.

On feeling accepted

So... what was your high school superlative?
-Grad school friend

We were sitting around a table at a restaurant just off campus.  Somehow the conversation turned to high school superlatives.  One friend had been voted Most Likely to Succeed, another Most Popular.  I laughed at jokes and stayed quiet until they asked me and I couldn't think of anything but the truth.  The gig was up.  They would know I'm a loser.


I wasn't voted anything.
Shocked faces.  And one friend said, "Not even class clown?"  I appreciated the sentiment, but no.


I never really had very many friends in school.  I never had to use more than three fingers to count them all, actually.  Everyone else was either mostly indifferent toward me or showed an open disdain.  They made fun of my glasses and made fun of my asthma and made fun of my clothes and made fun of my grades.  To the point that I didn't want to go to school anymore.  To the point that sometimes I didn't even want to live anymore.  To the point that I appreciated the people who just ignored me and I tried to stay ignored by as many people as I could as much as possible.  Things like high school superlatives were just another reminder that I was not in.


I thought the problem was me.  That I was unlikeable.  A loser.  It was a truth I accepted.  Until my sophomore year of college, when I made it to a departmental assembly early, signed in and retreated to a corner.  And a popular and beautiful classmate came over and began chatting.  Genuinely chatting.  My eyes darted around the room and I figured maybe I was better than no one to talk to.  But as the room filled up, and her friends filled out a circle that included me, she -- and the others -- were still acting friendly toward me.  Genuinely engaging me in conversation.  Genuinely including me.  And that was the beginning.  It was in the Department of Communication at Eastern Kentucky University that I felt accepted by my peers for the first time in my life.


I never let them in on the secret that I was an imposter -- that an uncool kid had infiltrated their fraternity and sorority and athletic ranks.


In grad school, I was afraid my loser status would be more obvious.  But for all their smarts, my classmates never picked up on it.  Until that fateful day when I had to confess: My school days had been completely different than theirs.  But they liked me anyway.  It was like a whole new world -- people knowing I'm not cool -- never had been even close -- and being friends with me anyway!


Out of school, I approached each new group of people with that same timidity I had as a child.  Expecting rejection, being surprised by acceptance.  Work friends, church friends.  I even scored an extremely hot husband, against all odds.


I didn't realize until well into my adulthood that I wasn't a loser.  I was just bullied by a few misguided classmates.  The problem wasn't me, it was them.  And while I still carry around some scars from those days, I'm getting more and more comfortable -- less shocked and surprised -- by the blessing of acceptance among friends.


Since moving back to Kentucky God has bonded me with a precious and beautiful group of women who have transcended friendship into sisterhood.  Last summer half of us were pregnant and those without a baby bump got an aunt-to-be shirt as a consolation prize.  Well, everyone but me.  Mine said, "I'm the cool aunt."  And it wasn't even a cruel joke.  If the eight-year-old Amy who sat crying at her birthday party because no one showed up could have only known this would happen.  That she'd have more friends and relationships than she felt like she could maintain.  That those friends would bestow on her such a coveted adjective.  That she really wasn't a loser after all.  I think it would have made those hard years easier.


And so, to all the other girls out there who sit alone and cry alone -- who don't have the right clothes or the right looks or the right social status.  To the girls (and boys) who have been made to believe you are not good enough: I can tell you that they're wrong about you.  You actually are the cool kid yourself.  And someday you'll feel loved and you'll feel accepted and you'll even have the t-shirt to prove it.

I choose authenticity.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.  Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly




I feel like I need to come clean.  I haven't been completely open with this blog.  I've been holding back.  I've been too scared to say what I really wanted to say because I was (and am) afraid.  Even more afraid than I initially realized when I told all my friends how reluctant I was to start this kind of blog.  Of people reading.  Of people not reading.  What they may think or not think.  Do or not do.

And there's more: Right now I don't know when -- or even if -- I'll find the courage to say what I really think and feel.  I'm not even sure if blogging is even right for me.

I've been struggling with being more open, more real, more vulnerable in my personal life and in that process I've realized that I haven't been truly authentic in this blog either.  I think I'm going to try to do better here, but it's still much too early to know whether or not I'll chicken out.

But at least being open about not being open is more open than I have been. If only barely.

Because of my private nature, many of my friends and family members throughout the weeks and months and years have encouraged me in their own various ways to be more open, more authentic.  A few weeks ago, when discussing this blog with a friend, she mentioned the work of Brene Brown. 

It was a hectic time for me, but I mentally filed the name away, deciding to google her TED talk later.  Later never came.  The following week I was doing a completely unrelated internet search on a topic for my husband, clicked on a blog related to that search and saw in the sidebar the picture above.  I choose authenticity.  Intrigued, I clicked.  It was Brene Brown's website.  I decided I should probably listen up.

In one of her TED talks (which you can find on her blog), Brene asks her audience if they feel like admitting their struggles and failures is weakness.  Hands go up all around.  (Mine would have too.)  Then she asks if they viewed the others on the stage before her during that event who admitted their failures and vulnerabilities as courageous.  More hands in the air.  (Mine would have gone up higher.)

But still, recognizing the connection between vulnerability and courage doesn't necessarily make it easier in practice.  I thought back to times in my own life when I've taken leaps of vulnerability and what Brene calls "the vulnerability hangover."

Some of my more open friends talk about the relief that comes from talking and sharing.  The feeling of a burden being lifted.  For me, after I let someone in  -- no matter how much or how little -- it's brutal.  I contemplate running away.  Physically running away, cutting all my ties, changing my name and starting a new life.  Seriously.  And I never want to see that person who now "knows" ever again.  Ever.  It takes weeks and months for me to feel comfortable again.  The vulnerability hangover.

But I can say that there is healing in being open, even if it takes years. 

When I thought back over blog-related vulnerability, I couldn't help but recall writing my marriage proposal story.  It took me four years to work up the courage to tell any other living person the details of Johnie's proposal(s) to me.  Whenever people would ask, I would say, "Oh, it was low-key."  If they pressed, I would say, "It was private and we decided not to talk about it."  If they were too close for me to keep things private from them, I would say, "It was a little disappointing and so I just don't want to talk about it." 

In truth, it was very disappointing and embarrassing to me.  And I was afraid that if people knew all the lackluster details they would think I had failed somehow in my husband-picking efforts.  That they would judge me, my husband and our marriage as somehow less than.  And during those four years, any time marriage proposals would come up in conversation, my heart would sputter and my mind would race for what I could say when eyes turned to me.  During those four years, thoughts of my proposal would regularly bring me to tears.

I began writing the story of our relationship still deciding how I would handle the proposal story.  I didn't think I would have a big audience, but when the day came I had an uncomfortable number of eyes on the story.  I knew I couldn't just skip the proposal and I didn't want to lie.  I thought about making the proposal a couple sentences at the end or beginning of an unrelated post:  After a low-key, private proposal, wedding plans began in earnest...

But that was cheating the story.  So I took the plunge and told it.  And then fought waves of nausea.  Hovered my mouse over "delete" and resisted the urge to click. 

I received more feedback from that blog post than any other I have ever written.  Private messages from girls also embarrassed and disappointed by their proposal.  I had unknowingly created a secret sisterhood without even trying.

It didn't happen overnight, but several years after being open about my painful proposal  I've healed from it.  I laugh at it.  It really doesn't bother me anymore.  I think it is a beautiful, quirky part of our story.  I went back and re-read the account I had written a few years ago and realized I add in even more details when I re-tell the story these days.  I have some trouble remembering why I thought it was that bad for so long.

So even though I fully recognize the pay-offs of vulnerability, I still can't find the strength to make the jump yet.  But maybe tiny steps of boldness are better than being fearfully frozen still.

And maybe you can join me in the scary, daunting, but very-much-worth-it quest toward living openly, wholeheartedly.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.  -Theodore Roosevelt

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