(Short Version) A Birth Story: 23 Hours, Unmedicated, Natural, Holy
Jesus was at my labor and delivery
If you want the whole birth story with every juicy detail, click here. I understand birth stories are a bit more interesting when you’re pregnant, have been, or want to be. However, if you are interested in reading about how I annoyed hospital staff, needles popping out of my arm, whether or not I pooed, and Roz from Monsters, Inc., check out the long version! But for the rest of you curious folks, this one is for you.
I’ve debated about how or even if I should write a short version of Daisy’s birth. Which parts are most important? How do you condense one of the most majestic, challenging, sacred, holy experiences of your life into a light read? We’re about to find out.
Birthing naturally with no epidural had been a dream of mine throughout my twenties. I wanted to feel it all. Epidurals had only been around for about a hundred years. But childbirth had been around for hundreds of thousands of years. And the human race wasn’t extinct yet. For me, this was the pinnacle of womanhood. I wanted to be connected to every woman in history who endured natural labor and childbirth. If they could do it, why couldn’t I? I wanted to know the sacrifice of comfort for the sake of love. And I wanted to be in tune with my animalistic instincts like I never had before. A little hardcore perhaps, I’ll admit.
I spent half of my pregnancy studying up on different methods for a successful natural, physiological birth. Hypnobirthing being the main focus. Hypnobirthing is essentially understanding the science, anatomy, and function in a woman’s body during labor and delivery, understanding different medical interventions, when they’re necessary and when they’re not, and learning different techniques for enduring labor such as laboring and birthing positions, how to create the best environment to help labor progress, visualization exercises, breathing techniques, etc.
The morning of the day I went into labor, I painted my childhood Bible, had coffee with my husband, and spent some time with the Lord. I was 38 weeks pregnant. I read my Bible and cracked open a book that I held near and dear for the better part of my nine months of pregnancy. Courageously Expecting: 30 Days of Encouragement for Pregnancy After Loss by Jenny Albers. 30 chapters that I did in fact, not read every day for a month, but made my way through as the trimesters slowly went by. I had one chapter left.
Afterwards I talked to Jesus, painfully, as usual, asking for the same old things. That my baby would live, that tragedy would surpass us, that He would help my unbelief, my lack of faith, my fear and worry and anxiety. Miscarriage had shaken up my spirit in the worst way. I took a deep breath and before standing up to put the book back on the shelf said to the Lord, “I wouldn’t be surprised if You make me go into labor now that I finished that.”
The book (and this is important to know, I swear) was a recommendation from a girl I knew from college ministry about ten years ago. Her name is also Katie. She knew the pains of losing life in the womb, the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual toll it takes on a woman. She had lost two. In my first trimester of pregnancy before most people even knew I was pregnant, we messaged one another about meeting up even though it had been nearly a decade since we had seen one another. And though she still worked in Central Florida, her workdays were long, and she lived at least an hour away on the coast with her husband and babies. As it does, life happened, the holidays rolled around, schedules didn’t align, and the conversation fizzled out. I closed Courageously Expecting and thought of her, a small air of sadness that we never did get to meet up and share our stories, our heartache, and our hope in life after loss.
Around 11:00pm that night, in the middle of an Office episode, I blew my nose and my water broke. Within the hour the contractions were close together, four to six minutes apart, and despite my request to stay home to try to sleep and get some rest, the on-call OBGYN convinced me to go to the hospital that night. I called my friend, who had agreed to be my other birthing partner aside from my husband, and the excitement started to build.
By 2:00am we made it to triage, by 3:00am we were in the labor and delivery room, and by 7:00am, Jesus made it clear. He loves me. He was near. Nothing was a coincidence.
We set up a speaker to play my “Christian Feels” playlist. 28 hours of Christian songs and worship. The night nurse left, and the daytime nurse walked into my dimly lit room. I was sitting on a birthing ball just coming out of a contraction when she kneeled down beside me.
“Katie?” I said. By God, it was Katie. The Katie, who recommended Courageously Expecting, worked long hours, and lived over an hour away. “I’m so confused. What are you doing here?”
“I work here!” Her presence was filled with elation and nurturance. She told us that she had seen “Kathleen Donohue” on her chart for the day and realized it was me. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to be your nurse for today. I know it can be weird when it’s someone you know, so only if you’re okay with it.”
Absolutely. I introduced her to my husband and friend. “This is crazy,” I said.
“I know. And today is actually my last day. I got a new job over where I live.”
Lord Jesus. How more perfect could His timing be? What are the odds? Living in Central Florida, there are actually many hospitals you can birth at. At least ten, maybe more. But at this hospital, on this day, during Katie’s last shift, the Lord revealed His sovereignty, His love for me and my daughter, and His nearness.
She wrote “Happy Birthday Daisy!” on the whiteboard, which coincidentally, maybe not so coincidentally, had a picture of daisies in a field on it.
After that, I knew there was nothing to fear. This baby was coming. She was going to be okay. I was going to be okay. Don’t ask me how I knew. But the peace from the Holy Spirit washed over me.
So, this is where she works, I thought. No wonder she works long hours. She’s a nurse!
I looked at Ryan and said, “I think that’s a God wink.” Ryan knew how pivotal that book had been in my pregnancy, how I underlined and cried and prayed my way through every page, how much I wanted to meet up with Katie and the disappointment I had that we never got around to it.
“I think so too,” he said, smiling.
The next 14 hours were some of the most gripping, beautiful, difficult, lovely, agonizing hours of my life. Contractions went from being just uncomfortable to completely unbearable. I went from cracking jokes at my husband and friend and falling asleep in between surges to being on the floor groaning in pain.
In those last couple hours of labor, the pain was unlike anything I had ever known. Perhaps if my water hadn’t broken it would’ve hurt less, since the amniotic sac acts as a cushion for the laboring woman. Or maybe if I hadn’t been awake for almost two days, was more well rested, and therefore had more strength, it would’ve only been intense and not painful. Or maybe if I hadn’t been so exhausted from being in labor for over 20 hours, I could’ve endured it better but that’s not how this story goes.
When it came time to push, I pushed with everything I had left in me.
First push. Nothing.
Second push. Nothing.
The midwife and nurses were yelling at me to start pushing again so fast I didn’t even have enough time to catch my breath.
“She’s got a nosebleed!” The new night nurse said, wiping my face with a tissue.
My spirit reached for the Lord. Mind, body, and soul, I had never been so completely and utterly desperate for Him. I was at the end of myself. This, though wordless, was prayer. To translate, my spirit was saying Jesus, I can’t do this. I have no strength left. The pain is too great. I can’t imagine pushing this baby out on my own. I’m desperate for you. God, You have to do it.
9:46 PM. Last push.
“Oh, oh!” The midwife said. A poor crying Daisy came out in one go and landed on the bed. They handed her to me through my legs and I turned over to lay down and put her on my chest. In my arms she instantly stopped crying. Before we ever laid eyes on one another, she knew me, and I knew her.
She looked up at me, blinking her big almond eyes, like mama, her pink skin, like daddy, and moved her mouth revealing the sweetest dimples, like both of us, her big cheeks resting on her chest, taking me in as I took her in. She was so quiet, so calm. Clean, somehow, not bloody, only a little vernix. Just beautiful. I kissed her forehead over and over, moaning softly now as the pain in my body carried on. The concept of time left. This moment was sacred. The Spirit was with us. We were on holy ground. All the while worship music continued to fill the air. Ryan always says he loves that part. “It’s like the whole labor and delivery was one big worship set,” he says.
Hundreds of red dots appeared all over my face and neck, broken blood vessels from the pushing. I didn’t know it yet, but I wouldn’t be able to sit up by myself in bed for at least a week. And I wouldn’t be able to stand on my feet for more than a few seconds or a few minutes for another two to three weeks. I had a second-degree tear in my nether regions and my labia was torn in half (Did you just grimace? Me too). There was a world of physical healing in postpartum that would last for months that I was uninformed of. And yet how strange, that I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all again for the love of my daughter, that I’m still so nostalgic for this day.
I think back on that moment before the last push. That moment of complete desperation for our Lord. The excruciating physical pain for the love of a child. The agony endured to give life. It almost feels too sacred to speak of. In deep reverence, I fell into prayer.
Jesus, I am unworthy. I prayed, trying to find the words. It’s too holy, Lord. May I even speak of this? How blessed are women. To experience even a fraction of what you endured on the cross. To bear even a small image of Your greatest act of love. Pain and sacrifice for life. I am not worthy, Lord, to understand so intimately even a taste of what you suffered.
It was a gift to receive that knowledge. That He would allow me to have a greater understanding of His love. If I would so willingly walk into a fleeting moment of suffering for the sake of my child whom I so love that she might live, how much more willing was Jesus to go to the cross for me, for you, whom He so loves, that we might live?
I write this now, Daisy girl asleep in a carrier snugged into my chest. Little whistles of her breathing reaching my ears, the sweetest sound. Surrounded by all of daddy’s plants in our quiet little home, in the very nook where I cried and prayed relentlessly for her, a propagation in an old Bertolli sauce jar with the label still on it, the cat asleep on the couch. The iced coffee saved from yesterday, still barely touched, and a Christian podcast paused on the television.
Our ministry has begun. A new stewardship has started. We have received a joy, been entered into a love, unlike anything we have known. I am a mom. She is here. The love and friendship between my husband and I are even greater than they were before. Jesus has only brought us closer. Entering into motherhood has felt like the most natural thing, like something I was always made for in my bones has finally arrived.
Thank you, Jesus.
Katie Donohue Tona
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