The Hand of God

We had a delightful Sunday afternoon/evening with some friends of ours and were getting ready to say goodbye and wind down for the day when they had a problem with their car alarm and couldnt get their car going. While Hubby was trying to help them figure that out I was cleaning up the kitchen and headed outside with some scraps for the animals when I suddenly felt a "GUSH". ...I knew right away that my water had broke, and thus from the get-go I knew that the much repeated statment that "each pregnancy and birth is so different from the other" was once again proving itself true--with my other two my water never did break on its own. I wasn't quite sure what to think since I wasn't having regular contractions or any pain at all. Nervous to the point of shaky and almost in denial that this was really happening, I called my doctor. Since I wasn't having pain or even many contractions she took it all very calmly and gave me all the typical doctorly orders to stay relaxed, count contractions when they start, make sure the baby is still moving regularly and all that good stuff. It seemed to not be long after we got off the phone that the contractions started to pick up a little more momentum. I set about packing our bag, attending to last minute details and writing down contraction times and lenghts.
By a little after midnight most everything was ready including the borrowing of the car with the now fixed alarm problem as our vehicle doesn't circulate on Mondays. And even in the nervousness of the moment we had enough presence of mind to recognize the first in a string of timing miracles! We needed a vehicle and God had it all worked out ahead of time!
By this time I was feeling confused. I KNOW each birth is different, but all I had to draw on was past experience... my contractions were getting harder, longer and more frequent, my pain level was DEFINATLY going up, but the contractions were still far from regular and sometimes still 12 minutes or so apart. In my past labor the contractions had been super regular, about every three minutes, but with much, much less pain. Finally by about 3am I told my husband that I didn't care if they were regular or not, they HURT and I wanted to go see my doctor and find out how far along the way we really were. The prearranged agreement was that she would check me at her small office which is quite near and all of us would wait to go to the clinic together, which it not at all near, until I was at about a 6, thus avoiding an overly long and stressful time away from home. She knew that my desire was for a natural birth and understood that I would be most comfortable at home for as long as that were possible.
The car ride was aweful! All I could think about was the fact that the clinic was SO far away and I was already in so much pain I had no idea how I would ever make it to the clinic if I could barely make it here to the little office. I just kept asking God for help over and over. We got there, she checked me and I was only at 4 or 4 1/2cm. She said it would be best to wait a bit longer before heading accross town that I should just try to stay calm and as comfortable as possible at home for another hour or so.
As we were leaving I think I must have mentioned to her that I felt like pushing, because I do remember that through the haze she reminded me that if I push before its time it will just wear me and the baby out and won't help us at all. I kept that on the for front of my mind and had a very painful frusterating car ride home, I no longer had control over the push factor. Whether I wanted it to be or not every contraction was a push and I could not stop it. I was certain that if this was only "half way there", that there was no way I'd make it to the end with out a dreaded epidural. Half way home I couldnt handle sitting anymore and actually twisted around and knelt on the floor of the car and just hung on for dear life.
When we got home I knelt again as it was the only position I could handle and I frantically told my husband, "I really think this baby is going to be born now!" He said," You stay here and I will go get the doctor and bring her here to the house". I panicked and made it clear that under no uncertain terms was he to leave me. I told him that I felt like the baby's head was between my legs, at that point he looked and could see her crown. I think from that moment it was only about another minute until out little princess was born and caught safe in Daddy's hands.
From there things get pretty blurry in my memory but our doctor arrived soon and took care of all the "after" details starting with the cutting of the cord and ending with stiching me up. By the time my other children were waking up on Monday morning things were mostly cleaned up and calmed down and they were quite surprised and pleased to meet their new sister!
.....theres a boquette of emotions inside of me, to rich and mixed to be able to put properly into words. So much could have gone wrong and didn't. In fact its hard to imagine that things could have turned out any better. I will treasure forever in my heart they way the Lord turned so many things upside down and made an impossible desire of mine, possible in the most unexpected way.