Isaiah Samuel Meadows
 

I will begin with a brief overview of my eventful pregnancy. I began my surprise pregnancy when Josiah was only 4 months old. The beginning was normal with morning sickness and a rapidly growing belly. At 26 weeks I began to have preterm labor, it was very scary for a couple of weeks, but I finally got through it and continued the pregnancy. At 35 weeks I began to have real contractions and did my best to take things easy, our goal was to make it to 36 weeks and past Josiah’s birthday. Josiah turned 1 year old on April 28th and I was 36 weeks on April 30th.

On Monday April 28th, I woke up at 3:00am with regular contractions every 5 minutes that were lasting almost a minute. We waited an hour to see what would happen. By 4:30am we called Jay’s parents to let them know. We also called mom (Kathy the midwife). Mom waited a while and decided to come over around 7am. Jay’s parents came around 9am. After the sun came up my contractions slowed down significantly. I was dilated to 4cm and 80 % effaced. I was kind of sad because it was Josiah’s birthday and I really didn’t want to have the baby that day. I wanted Josiah to have his own special day. 

I guess emotionally I was so opposed to having the baby that day; my labor petered out (mostly anyway). But not completely, I still had good contractions, but they were very sporadic. Over the course of the day I dilated to 6cm and was 90% effaced. So everyone went home, except Jay’s mom, MeeMaw. She stayed to help with Josiah since we were pretty convinced that I was still going to have a baby soon. Monday night we all went to bed and slept well. Tuesday we got up and Jay and I spent some time praying and trying to figure out what we should do. Should we wait on the baby and go back to work and just see how long it takes or just nudge things along and have a baby. After praying and talking things over with mom, we decided to try castor oil around lunch time and see what happened. It took several hours to kick in but it did help me have more consistent contractions. Mom came back in the afternoon and around dinner time I called my sister, Jill, my best friend, Heather, and my doula/birth assistant, Shannon. Shortly everyone started arriving. Even my dad came to hang out for a little while, but he soon got tired, both physically and mentally from all the girly talk. By 10pm Tuesday night I was dilated to 8cm and 95% effaced but labor still was not very intense. I was having regular contractions about 3 minutes apart and lasting a minute but over the next several hours my cervix did not change. I was getting very frustrated, I had dilated to 8 with very piddley contractions and now that I was having good strong contractions, I was not progressing. I knew that first time homebirths were always emotionally challenging especially after having a hospital birth, but as many births as I have attended I never dreamed I would have to deal with so much. Around 11pm everyone found a place to lie down and rest and I went to bed, or tried anyway. I did doze off for a few minutes here and there, but of course when I got in the bed the contractions got stronger. Around 3am I got up and walked around for a few minutes and asked mom to check me again, STILL THE SAME!!!  How frustrating! After a few more minutes I decided to try to rest some more, this time when I got in the bed, things changed significantly. My contractions changed from moderate to very intense in a matter of about 5 minutes. I got up and that is when I would consider myself in active transition labor, around 4:30am. I began to moan with my contractions a little after 5am, that’s when everyone woke up and things began to look lively again, we all knew a new baby would be here soon. I was very concerned my whole pregnancy how things would work out for my labor and where Josiah would be. Thankfully I ended up laboring and moaning in the early morning when he was sleeping. Jay’s mom was here and she kept checking on him, he never heard a thing.  He did wake up around 4am for his bottle but he went right back to sleep. I am so thankful that the Lord worked it out so he didn’t hear me making noise; I really didn’t want to scare him. 

Around 5:30 I had mom check again, I only had a small anterior lip left, Hallelujah, I had progressed! Then came the waiting game of when I would feel the urge to push. Even though I didn’t have pain medication with Josiah’s labor, I was in the hospital and I had pitocin, so things were so different this time, I didn’t know if I would know when to push. And also my water was still intact. I had prayed my whole pregnancy that my water would not break until the baby was ready to come out, and God answered my prayer. Around 6am my body began to push uncontrollably, this was a very familiar feeling once it happened… and my, oh my, what a feeling. The intensity is indescribable, just a couple of minutes later I was squatting at the end of my bed and with one good push my water broke… a huge burst of water shot out and all the way under my bed! Ha, ha, ha, so much for chucks pads and plastic! I think everyone in the room jumped a foot off the floor when it popped, it is funny to me how many times I have seen that with other people and I always jump too… but this time when it was my own body, I didn’t jump. I guess the intensity of the contraction and push had my attention enough that it didn’t register until after it happened. Immediately my response was to stand up and move to the birth stool that was sitting next to me. Mom was trying to listen to the baby’s heart rate, but then I really couldn’t stop pushing. I wanted to stop and hold back because the pressure and intensity was so much, but my body just wouldn’t stop. I told mom later, I am glad that God designed our bodies to push uncontrollably because no body in their right mind would push voluntarily when it hurts so bad. I only pushed a couple of times and then I felt the burn of the tissue stretching, ouch! I asked if the head was out, but not quite yet… one more push and the head was there. What an intense feeling, a baby in the midst of your pelvis, every fiber of your being consumed with the intensity of a new life coming into the world. What a miracle! As mom was guiding out the babies shoulders, I said the statement that most all women who experience natural childbirth say at some point as the baby is coming out….. “GET IT OUT!” I always thought it was funny when I heard other women say that, and then when I watched the video and heard myself say it, I just laughed. It is amazing to me how things unfold and progress, when I watched the video I saw things that I never knew happened during the birth. I am thankful that I have the video to look back on (thanks Shannon)! Finally at 6:10am the baby was out, I did it, I had the homebirth that I always dreamed of… surrounded by my husband, mom, sister, mother-in-law, and best friends.

After a few seconds Jay leaned around me (he was behind me supporting my back) to see what it was…. It’s a BOY, he was thrilled to announce. I think most everyone thought it was another boy.  He was just perfect, born exactly at 36 weeks on April 30th, just 2 days after Josiah’s birthday. The new task at hand was figuring out what this sweet little boys name was. But first… lets get the placenta out and clean up a little. The placenta took about 15 minutes and finally came right out with no problems, and this one was very healthy unlike Josiah’s. We got me cleaned up and in the bed and got the new little boy cleaned up and weighed and measured. Then Jay and I discussed it and found a name.

Isaiah Samuel Meadows weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 21 inches long… wow that is a big baby for 4 weeks early. I am very glad he came out when he did; he would have been over 10 pounds for sure. Isaiah latched on and nursed perfectly right away. WOW, what a blessing from God… a wonderful homebirth, a beautiful healthy baby, and a healthy mom.  hat more could anyone ask for?  I cannot express how thankful I am that everything turned out so well this time. I want to say thank you to everyone who prayed for me during my pregnancy, I know God heard and answered all of those prayers. God is so very faithful.

We did end up in Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital with Isaiah when he was 3 days old. He followed in his brothers footsteps with severe jaundice, but thankfully he pulled through quickly. We came home in 4 days when he was a week old and he has been wonderfully healthy since then. We had the same doctor that took care of Josiah exactly 1 year before, he said since both of our babies had such severe jaundice it was probably something called Lucey-Driscoll Syndrome. Apparently it is a very rare recessive syndrome and there is very little information on it since it is so rare. No one could really give us a definite answer if we had other children if they would all have the same problem. We plan to take a break from having babies for a few years, so we will see what the future holds. For now, we are richly blessed with 2 beautiful healthy boys and we are enjoying them on a daily basis.  Currently Isaiah is 6 weeks old and weighs in at just over 10 pounds and almost 23 inches long.             

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