Joely Fair Kittle

 Where to start?  There is so much I want to say.  I think the very beginning of this story starts well before Joely was even conceived.  Gaelen was about 3 months old and I was attending a friend’s church.  This church was so small at the time that we were meeting in the cafeteria of Donelson Christian Academy.  This particular Saturday night was the day before Pentecost and when I went up for prayer I had what I’ll call a Holy Spirit encounter.  I was holding Gaelen in my arms and involuntarily started breathing and moaning as if I was in labor (strange I know, but this is the best description of it that I can give and it really was similar to being in labor – the details of which were still fresh in my mind while holding my 3 month old!)  I felt my knees going weak and a friend took the baby before I went down.  I was on the floor for a while.  I tried to get up and open my eyes but was unable to, although I was perfectly aware of everything going on around me.  It was like being washed with love.  When I was finally able to get back on my shaky feet, I went to sit down with a friend and when I told her about feeling like I was in “labor” she wondered aloud what had been “birthed” that night.  Well, little did I know that one year later I would physically birth another baby on Pentecost Sunday!

Gaelen had started sleeping through the night and I was able to take the love I had felt that night in church and pour it into my relationship with my husband (it was a healing of sorts that I needed, I have a lot of baggage that I won’t go into here, suffice it to say that it had affected my marriage).  And to my great surprise when Gaelen was 7 months old I started gagging when I brushed my teeth.  The only time I ever do this is when I’m pregnant but I ignored the signs until I had a couple of nauseous days and when I took a test, of course it was positive.  I had charted just one period (or so I thought, more on that later) so I knew how far along I was and was quite dismayed that I was experiencing morning sickness so early on, it was only later at an ultrasound that I discovered I was actually 3 weeks further along than I had reckoned, making Gaelen just 6 months old when I conceived her sister.  To say I was in shock is an understatement.  Up to this point all my girls had been three and a half to four years apart, it took me a while to get used to the idea that I would have 2 under 2 while homeschooling two older daughters and helping my husband run his business and no family that was able to help on a regular basis.  But God is so good, he worked out everything so that my mother who was living in Canada at the time could come and stay with us for 3 months!  And thanks to Joely’s entrance into the world a week past my due date, she was even here to see her birth.

It was a hard pregnancy.  Just a couple of weeks after finding out I was expecting again I was at the playground with my girls when I started feeling lightheaded and prepared to leave.  When I went to sit down in the driver’s seat I started feeling cramps and an awful pain in my back prevented me from sitting down.  It felt like a miscarriage was starting (I’ve had one before) and it was a very uncomfortable ride home.  Sure enough, once home I discovered that I had started bleeding.  Immediately I called my friend Laura from Eastgate and we prayed.  After a nerve wracking few days watching my temperature drop every morning, everything stabilized, but I continued to have bleeding episodes.  We went for an ultrasound to check things out and everything was well, I also found out I was nearly at the end of my first trimester (the baby was measuring 3 weeks further along than I thought) and soon my nauseous days would be over – this was good news indeed!  What was troubling was that the “period” I thought I had charted was actually bleeding while I was already pregnant…  I was looking forward to having my energy back in my second trimester, but it never happened.  Perhaps having two babies back to back made me more tired?  I taught dance classes with Gaelen almost until I gave birth, I had one week “off” and then she was born and felt wonderful throughout that pregnancy, but this time I barely made it into my fifth month before I took my leave at the Arts Academy.  It was all I could do that last class to squeeze my right foot into my tap shoe!  From the minute I found out I was pregnant with Joely I started praying that she would not be posterior like my last two babies, I wanted an easier time pushing but I just assumed I’d have an uneventful pregnancy and it was anything but!  Along with the increased nausea in the first part and the bleeding and constant tiredness, I dealt with a superficial blood clot, swelling in my right leg, painful varicose veins, Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction, and toward the end I also experienced carpal tunnel type symptoms in my hands so painful that it would wake me up at night.  Oh, and I also had to endure a family member’s dismay that I was having another baby at home after the blood clot diagnosis.  I have to admit, I was hoping for another early delivery like Gaelen’s but I actually made it to my due date and then a week beyond it.  The funny part is that the last week I had the most energy I’d had all pregnancy, I had a really great week, despite my physical discomfort!  And I was blessed with a really great and dare I say “easy” labor? 

Okay, so now for the actual birth part: Joely was not posterior – hallelujah!  This made labor so much easier to bear, as I had no back pain to deal with.  The morning of her birth I thought I might possibly be in labor but proceeded to get ready for church anyway.  I thought if the contractions continued despite taking a shower, then I would know if I needed to call Kathy to give her a heads up.  Doug came in to talk to me and I admitted that they weren’t going away but told him I was up for attending church still, as they felt really mild.  If you’ve read Gaelen’s birth story you’ll understand why he immediately dismissed my casualness and told me that the baby was going to be born soon.  I called Laura and left a message on her cell phone so that everyone at church would know to pray.  I made arrangements for a friend to pick up my two older girls for the day and Doug and I walked outside for a while, well, Doug walked, I waddled – ha ha!  We called Kathy and let her know what was going on.  I hated to call her knowing she’d either be going to, or in church that morning. 

It was a great labor.  The contractions were a little uncomfortable and required some breathing through but I felt fine.  I ate lunch sitting on my exercise ball, and afterwards we took photos of my belly.  I especially like the one where I’m holding Gaelen on top of it!  Then it was time for my little angel to take a nap.  And as soon as I put her in her crib and closed the door, it was baby time!  The contractions immediately started picking up in intensity.  I went to the bedroom and stripped off from the waist down, yep, definitely time to have a baby.  I was no longer comfortable standing up.  I wanted to lie down on my side and just close my eyes and breathe with each contraction.  I needed Doug to sit beside me so I could squeeze his hands.  Kathy and Jennifer arrived soon after I had gotten on the bed.  I was so happy to see Jennifer again!  Kathy asked if she could check me and that was fine with me, I was curious to know how much progress I had made.   But I was shocked when she said I was complete and could start pushing!  I remember thinking; this is too easy!  So I started pushing gently on my side and after a few pushes I felt her suddenly slip down, I didn’t get a chance to say anything though because at the same time my water broke and there was some meconium.  Kathy let me know about that, but I wasn’t particularly worried.  I think on the next push is when everything went crazy for me.  Up to this point it had been a breeze, no transitional stuff like last time at all.  Now I felt like I was going through transition.  I completely lost all calm and serenity!  I wanted to bite Doug’s shoulder so badly, and I think I did a little.  All of a sudden it was just so intense and I started feeling her crown, and I was really pushing now, still on my side.  I remember saying; “It hurts!”  And Kathy was so sympathetic and encouraging.  I didn’t need anybody to do anything about it; I just needed to complain!  Right at the end I kind of rolled over and half sat up with help and that’s when her head came out, quickly followed by her body.  I felt all of her bony parts as she made her way out!  The crazy part only lasted about 20 to 30 minutes and I was absolutely fine once she was out.  I remember how odd it felt having the placenta still inside me and it was good to push that out. 

Joely wasn’t pinking up as quickly as Kathy liked so she got some oxygen and we prayed over her.  I called Laura and had her pray for Joely’s breathing to be a little more aggressive and I think that’s when she reminded me that it was Pentecost Sunday and we should have known that it would be her birth day!  Kathy left the room for a minute and distinctly heard the Lord tell her to pray for “the breath of life” to enter Joely’s body, so she did that upon her return.  Joely started pinking up nicely and everything was fine.  I had some bleeding again, felt fine though!  I think I had two shots to stop it this time.  (If there’s a next time, I’m starting the Polly Jean’s formula in plenty of time to help with this, guess I’m just a bleeder.)  The other big shock of the day for me was after Kathy and Jennifer weighed her and she was… drum roll please… 10 lbs 5 oz!  And I didn’t tear at all!!  Kathy told me I had “room” to birth an 11 pounder.  Little me!  I’m only 5’ 3” and wear a size 2 petite in pants.  I thank God that I found Kathy and had these last two babies at home.  The OB that delivered my first two girls would have induced for sure.  He induced my second before her due date because my first was 8lbs 1oz only for me to deliver a 7lb 9oz baby, which isn’t really big at all.  With Gaelen being posterior, it would have meant another vacuum extraction like I had with Seneca, or worse, a C-section.  And with Joely I would have faced a lot of pressure to induce because I was overdue instead of letting my body and my baby (and ultimately the Lord) decide when her birth day was to be.  What a shame that would have been, to have missed out on such a fabulous birth.  Even the most difficult parts of my natural births were easy compared to the contractions I experienced while on pitocin in the hospital.  I hope I never have to birth in a hospital ever again.  I pray my daughters will never have to!  Not that my experiences in the hospital were so bad, in fact I think they were pretty good all things considered, and especially knowing now everything that could have gone wrong because of the interventions I allowed them to do.  Instead of being taken from me and pricked with needles to determine if their blood sugar was low (which would have been the likely outcome had they been born in the hospital at their size) both Gaelen and Joely spent their first nights (and many more besides) right where they needed to be, snuggled up next to me at my breast, nursing frequently!  I can’t tell you how empowered I feel having birthed at home these two times.  My OB didn’t believe in anyone having to be a “martyr” while giving birth, but I traded a great gift for the “safety” of the hospital in my first two births.  His words comforted me at the time because I was nervous as any first time mother is.  And I didn’t have any one to tell me that the pain in a natural birth is so fleeting, the reward so wonderful!  I read this quote on line recently: The memory of pain always recedes. The memory of triumph does not. 

Once all the excitement was over we heard Gaelen wake up and Doug brought her into our bedroom.  The look on her face was priceless as she looked at everyone and then saw the baby.  It was a lot to take in for a 15 month old!

One more tie in with Pentecost.  We had chosen the name Joely for this fourth daughter of ours.  Joely is the feminine form of Joel, which means The Lord is God.  Two days after her birth Doug was reading the account in Acts about Pentecost and came across the part where Peter addresses the crowd and quotes from the prophet Joel.  We had no idea she would be born on Pentecost Sunday, but we think her name is apt!

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