A long time coming

Well I managed to endure yet another trip lost in the abyss of time. I don't imagine I'll ever get use to traveling that distance. The traveling itself was not of any particular interest, but I did find myself remembering how the Lord has moved in the past couple years. Which of course reminded me that I need to share the birth story of the handsome Hudd Hanson.

Saturday the 26th of September all was seemingly normal minus the fact that Laurel was 6 days past due. Around noon La appeared to be somewhat restless and prelabor was definitely underway. So she went about as normal as she could. Thankfully, my mom and sisters happened to be in town that weekend and if I'm remembering correctly La ran some mid afternoon errands with them and upon her return not a lot had changed. But by 430 it was clear she had to give more attention to the prelabor. So La attempted to get some rest in our room and I checked on her occasionally. An hour or so passed and things were definitely progressing. It was difficult to keep accurate time of how far apart she was.

Its worth noting that 6 months ago or so we got a hold of a book "Supernatural Childbirth." The book spoke mainly about the new covenant we are under with Christ and what that meant specifically for childbirth. It truthfully opened up my own perspective of using scripture in prayer in a way I hadn't experienced before.

I can't tell you how thankful I am that my family was there to watch Jack, it really freed me up to focus on La. And because of that we were able to have some real sweet time with Lord during labor. For a while we interceded over La, the birth process, and Hudd and really just kept asking for the presence of the Lord to be present. I can't really communicate what that was like but we were both weeping and for a time there was no pain for La. It was overwhelmingly cool just to see the faithfulness of the holy spirit simply showing up. For some reason the thing I think we prayed the most over the course of the whole pregnancy and definitely during labor was about how fast the hebrew women had babies. See Exodus 1:17 and vv. Although those two midwives lied to pharaoh it was actually known that the hebrew women did have much faster births. So we claimed that for La as heirs.

As things progressed we realized the time came to make a decision to head to the hospital. So we asked the Lord for some sort of confirmation to happen twice so we would really know it was time to go. So I quietly timed La's next 3 contractions and she happened to be 3 minutes apart. Earlier I had asked her at what point did we go to the hospital with Jack. I thought it was 5 min. apart but she said 3. So we felt like we got that confirmation from the # 3. Which is cool because I feel like every time we ask something of the Lord He goes well beyond what we ask. Looking back it kind of felt like an episode of sesame street, the number of the day was definitely 3. So we head to the hospital.

It was seemingly difficult for me to wrap my mind around this whole idea of supernatural childbirth. Especially when I kept recalling Jack's birth and comparing it to that. I realized quickly that previous experience was of no value and I should not expect things to be similar when we clearly asked for them to be different. I say that because as we drove to the hospital I kept trying to time La's contractions in my head and about 10 minutes into the trip it was impossible and I asked/stated you aren't feeling those contractions are you? And she replied no I can't...and actually had to put her hand on her stomach to make sure she was contracting. It was so cool and we really were able to worship the Lord on the drive. We arrive at the hospital and had to park in the parking garage (it was 19:55, I remeber from my ticket) a good distance from where we wanted to be and my hardcore wife managed to get up 3 flights of stairs and walk to where we needed to be. When we finally arrived at our destination we got all checked in and by this time she was definitely feeling the contractions.

So La gets checked and come to find out shes merely at a 3 and by now its 830. So the nurse goes to call the midwife on duty who La has briefly met and who's name I can't remember. I confess that at that point fear began to creep in. I knew that you had to be a 4 to be admitted. So we kept praying and eventually I began to feel like 3 was just another confirmation that we were suppose to be there. Some time passes and the nurse comes in and says were going to take you on up to the birthing suite and Anne is on her way. Both of those things were surprising, my wifes a 3 they don't admit unless your a 4 and then our midwife, who Laurel absolutely loves, happens to be on her way to deliver our baby when she wasn't suppose to be on call that night.

Laurel immediately hopes in to the tub and go to work hosing her down best as I can. Anne shows up at 915 and checks La again and turns out shes at a 5. I think great she's progressing nicely. Anne was so awesome in giving La some instruction as to how to better deal with the onset of increasingly intense contractions. So upon Anne's instruction we "slow danced" a bit. It helped quite a bit and it was fun for me because I then began to feel I was actually doing something as we swayed and prayed.

So more time goes by and La opts to get in the tub again and asks me to get Anne because she has the urge to push. As soon as I leave the bathroom Anne's on her way in and checks La and she's at a 9 and in walks our friend Abby Billingsly. At this point Anne asks La if she wants to deliver in the tub and she decides she wants to get out. So as she gets out me, the nurse, Anne, and Abby all are in the bathroom as well and toweling her off when she keeps insisting on pushing. This all happened like lightening fast and I hear Anne say oh the baby's head is crowning. So I'm thinking I'm going to have to pick up my wife and carry her to this bed...but no she just waddles over and lays down and proceeds to push. Anne did a great job of getting her to focus and actually got her to stop pushing mid push which allowed just enough time for everything to get into place. I think it only took about 3 or 4 pushes and Hudd was free at last. Watching Hudd make his exit I noticed he was awfully blue and I mean blue as in his whole body looked like an actual blueberry. Instantly I thought he wasn't breathing, thats all I thought that meant, and then he cried and I knew the only way he could cry is by drawing breath. And thats when Anne told us he was so blue from being shot down the birth canal so fast (insert analogy here). Hudd actually still has some broken blood vessels remaining in his eyes today because of it.

I can't really say anything other than our God is good. Its so fun to be in His presence. The whole thing was just fun and exciting. And it was awesome afterwards being able to hang out with our friends and family that were able to make it up to see little Hudd. I'll let La edit or talk about any particular thing before I move on to a different topic.