Some of you don't know the story of Nolen's birth. When he was born my Mom kept telling me..."write it down because if you don't you will forget the details". Well, she was right. I am so glad that I listened to her because when I read through it yesterday--all the fear and excitement of that day came flooding back. It is a little long....but worth the read. My little miracle baby is 2 already.....
I knew that labor was coming soon. The last Doctor’s appointment that I had, I was told I was 3 centimeters dilated, 50% effaced and “she could feel his head”. My Mom had come up knowing that it would happen sometime soon. I woke up with contractions early Saturday morning. Eric and I timed them for over an hour and then decided to head to the emergency room. So, I called my Dad, him and my sister Krista decided to go ahead and leave from Florida. When I got to the hospital I was 4 centimeters dilated, 75% effaced but my contractions were no longer consistent, so they sent me home. We were very frustrated at this point, knowing that my Dad and Sister were traveling seven hours expecting a baby on the other end.
Another day went by and then on Sunday night we went to bed; I had been having a contraction here and there but definitely not a pattern of anything significant. Suddenly, I woke up about 3:00 in the morning and it was almost like I felt something pop. I thought my water had broken. I stood up and felt a big gush; I told Eric that my water had broken. When I got to the bathroom and turned on the light, I realized that it wasn’t water….it was blood, more blood than I have ever seen and there was a very large clot. Eric went and got my Mom, she came in and told Eric to call the Doctor. The on call Doctor called back and told him to get me to the hospital immediately. I was the most scared I had ever been. We got in the car and Eric literally drove 100mph the whole way to the hospital. It was one of the most spiritual moments I have ever experienced in my life. My Mom, who is a “Prayer Warrior”, prayed the entire way there. There were a few moments in which she prayed in tongues. It was so powerful.
We finally got to the hospital and Eric put me in a wheelchair and rushed me up to labor and delivery. I was still bleeding at the time, but not as bad as I was at home. They hooked me up to the monitors and immediately found the baby’s heartbeat which was a huge relief. We immediately gave God all the glory. It wouldn’t be until later, where we saw the real glory God had intended. The nurses were downplaying the situation and acting like it wasn’t a big deal. They told me that Dr. Walker should be in around 8:00. Finally they moved me from triage to a room, where I had another gush of blood along with another clot. The nurse took the clot and put it in a bag and placed it on the counter. At this moment, contractions were getting pretty consistent and intense. The nurse came in about 5:30 and said that Dr. Walker had called and would be in shortly.
At about 5:45 Dr. Walker came rushing into the room. Imagine your doctor with wrinkled scrubs on, bed head, and her eyes barely opened. She literally had jumped out of bed. She said that she had called in and they told her I was there. She seemed very upset and had tears in her eyes. She immediately did an ultrasound to check my placenta and could not see anything that looked unusual. She checked me and I was 7 centimeters. She said that she was going to let me labor but if I started to bleed again then she would immediately perform a c-section. I had Gavin naturally and I really did not want a c-section. I told her that I understood and that I had passed a few large clots and that one of them was in a bag on the counter. She walked over to the counter, opened the bag and immediately turned around and said that we were going to do a c-section. She said that she was simply not “comfortable” with this amount of blood. I agreed but was very upset. Eric and I shared some tears at this moment and we were so scared for our baby, but we knew that he was in the hands of our Lord. Things progressed very quickly from there. I got the epidural and was in the operating room within half an hour. Within a few minutes we were under way. As Dr. Walker pulled him out she said “Allison, it was meant to be, the cord is wrapped tightly around his neck twice, he wouldn’t have made it”. We rejoiced, knowing that our son was O.K. He was perfect. But still, God had not revealed his perfect plan just yet. Nolen weighed 7lbs. 9oz., was 20” long and was born on January 8, 2007 at 7:26 am (2 weeks and 4 days early).
One week later Eric and I went back to see Dr. Walker to have my staples removed. She asked me how I was doing. I told her “Honestly, I am traumatized.” She asked me why. I said “I have never seen so much blood and I don’t know why I was bleeding like that. (I later found out that it was my placenta that had caused all of the bleeding. I had placenta previa at the beginning of my pregnancy...it had moved but was still considered "low lying".) I felt a lot of pain during the c-section and I am scared to ever get pregnant again or have another c-section.” She said “Allison, don’t be scared. It was God. God sent the blood and blood clots to make me feel uncomfortable, so that I would do a c-section. The cord was wrapped so tightly around his neck, that if you would have started pushing then your baby would have went into distress and then we would have had a real emergency. She went on to add “God woke me up out of a dead sleep and told me to call the hospital.” So, she did, and the rest is history. She then reassured me that next time would be much different.
It was just so amazing to me and Eric the way God worked through this whole situation. I was so upset about having to have a c-section and God revealed to us exactly why it needed to be that way. He was actually protecting me and our baby. His perfect will was finally revealed to us. We lift our hands in praise and give him absolutely all the glory.
So....there you go.
