"I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee." -2 Kings 20:5

I have been excited and intimidated to write about this experience.  As I sit here, my heart is so very full. I am in awe and overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to write about what I get to write about today.  A miraculous event took place in our lives on Friday, August 24th, 2012.  We brought another life into this world.  Rowan Asher Brooks was born.  His birth was beautiful for so many reasons.  Obviously, the act of bringing a child into this world in and of itself is incredible.  Being able to get pregnant and carry a child, complication-free, for 9 months is miraculous. I am so thankful that my body is able to do that.  This pregnancy, however, was accompanied by quite a bit of anxiety over my body's ability to bring this baby into the world the way I hoped and prayed and dreamed for.  For whatever reason, the Lord saw fit to allow my dreams to come true.  For me, the birth of Rowan was an immensely spiritual event, one that filled me with sweet healing.

My first attempt at labor with Miss Lily Jane was traumatic and left me disappointed and confused.  It left a gaping hole of uncertainty about what I felt my body was made to do and evidently couldn't.  I was told after hours of labor and no dilation and an eventual c-section that I would probably never be able to VBAC.  Honestly, when my surgeon told me that, I was angry at her more than at her words.  I felt that she was attempting to limit my potential abilities and smother my dreams and I felt she had no right to stick her nose into my future and try to dirty it. Unfortunately, she did succeed in planting some doubt in my mind. Fortunately, however, I already knew that there was no way I wouldn't be trying again for a natural vaginal delivery with our next one, regardless of what anyone said, and yes, even regardless of whether or not that someone happened to get a better look at my pelvis than I have ever had.

With Lisa's wedding coming up (scheduled for 6 days after my due date), and school starting a week after I was due, we were in a hurry to meet this little boy.  We went on nightly walks, most of the time incorporating plenty of curb-walking (one foot on the curb, one foot off...not comfortable, fyi).  I was taking evening primrose oil and red raspberry leaf tea.  We even went on some rigorous hikes up Rock Canyon. Before one such hike the day after my due date, my mucus plug fell out in the lovely public restroom at the foot of the trail.  I sure didn't care where it was at the point.  I was just excited that something was happening, even if I knew it could be days before the actual event.  Turns out, it was several days before labor started.  He came 6 days after, actually.  It was a long week of anticipation. But unlike my first pregnancy, labor did start!

And here I am VERY pregnant few days before labor with Lisa, 

my rock star niece, my wonderful mama and my Lil.

At 2 AM on Thursday, August 23rd, I woke up to a mild contraction.  This was not a big deal, seeing as how I had been experiencing irregular contractions for the previous 3 weeks.  When I woke up every 10 minutes to another, it still didn't get me excited.  This little man had been all about false starts, so I just tried to get some sleep.  I was coming up on 41 weeks, and I was fairly certain he was making camp in there. Darin joked that by the time he decided to come he would be ready for solids, or Darin would have to teach him to shave already.  We were a bit impatient. When I woke up in the morning, Darin and I decided to go take a walk with Lily and see if the contractions would get any stronger.  We walked north and took a loop around the lovely path next to the creek at the south end of campus.  It was nice to be out and distracted more than anything.  Contractions stayed 10 minutes apart, but were very mild, and I still wasn't thinking anything of them yet.  We came home and decided to go grab some lunch.  We went to Terzi's (a new pizza place close to campus).  When we walked in to order, I felt like I was peeing my pants, only I couldn't control it.  I went to the bathroom, and realized I was only slightly wet.  I didn't really think it could be my water breaking, but it became evident over the next 20 minutes that my water bag had indeed ruptured.  When I stood up after eating, I asked Darin if you could tell I was wet from behind.  He looked and said "no.....YES." As he was looking, I started leaking a goooood amount. What a weird feeling.  There was no stopping it.  When we got to the car, my pants were soaked.  All we had were a few extra diapers of Lil's in the trunk.  We opened them up and placed them in my seat and headed home.  Finally we knew labor was starting!

Darin and I put Lily down for her nap and tried to get a nap of our own.  After a little sleep, I awoke to some harder contractions.  They were getting more intense, but I could easily breath through them. Lisa was going to be getting married that weekend, and we had planned a little bachelorette party/baby shower with the girls in my family for that night.  We were going to go up to Jacqui's house in Sandy, but that plan was obviously scratched.  Since labor was still in its early stages and I could easily cope with my contractions, my lovely sisters, sisters-in-law, and mom came to us to have the baby shower :)  Love those ladies.  I opened presents and paused every now and then to breath through a contraction.  We chatted, ate creamies, and had a good time. It was quite obvious at this point that Darin and I would not get to participate in any of the wedding festivities, nor would I be able to be with Lisa when she and her now husband, Jesus, went through the temple for the first time the following day. For that reason, it meant the world that these girls went out of the way to bring the party to us.  Li and I were able to have a good heart-to-heart and share some sisterly love wishing each other luck for the major life events we were both on the verge of experiencing. It was good to have that time.The party ended, though, when contractions were getting stronger and requiring more of my focus.

At the impromptu baby shower and in labor!

Darin's mom arrived not long after.  Since my whole family would be wrapped up in wedding stuff, Lynn was able to come and stay with Lily.  I am so thankful she was there and Lily was able to spend time with someone she loves so much. As we packed up our things for the hospital, I started to have to stop everything I was doing for each contraction.  I typically fell to my knees on the floor, leaned over the couch or buried my face in our bed as I tried to relax until they passed.  They were about 4 minutes apart. And even though they were getting stronger and more painful, I was still so excited that labor started in the first place and was actually happening!  I never really had that with Lily.  I never really went through the whole laboring process with her.  In a lot of ways, this felt like my first baby.  I had never experienced all of these things.  I never had to handle contractions like these. With Lily, I had really bad back labor, which was not the case for Rowan, so that too, was very different.  So when I was trying to figure out when to go to the hospital, I had a hard time judging when to go in.  Our friend and neighbor, Dallan came over to help Darin give me a priesthood blessing.  It was a very sweet blessing that calmed me and gave me needed confidence. Darin blessed me that I would have the strength and peace that I needed and that I would be able to have the natural, vaginal delivery that I had prayed for. I felt strong and very excited to bring our little boy into the world. At about 10 PM, we got in the car and headed to the hospital.

The car ride was very uncomfortable.  The drive was about 25 minutes up to American Fork Hospital.  Contractions had been 4 minutes apart at home.  In the car they began to be 3 minutes and then 2 minutes apart.  I was shaking like crazy.  Darin thought this was a sign of transition and started to get nervous that I was going to have the baby in the car.  I knew that there was no way I was in transition.  It couldn't be that easy.  And it wasn't.  We realized pulling in to the hospital that we had no idea where labor and delivery was.  It also was not marked on any of the signs we saw.  Haha.  We were super prepared.  It's a good thing I wasn't in transition, because after circling the parking lot several times and being completely lost, we sure could have had a car delivery had that been the case. Finally, someone in scrubs came out of the emergency entrance and asked what we needed.  I was breathing through a contraction.  She was at my window.  Darin said labor and delivery and she went running for a wheel chair like my life depended on it.  I told her that there was no rush, I was not having this baby in the car.  A security guard must have felt left out, as he moseyed over to see what all the hullabaloo was about. He wisely explained that they like babies born in the hospital better than in the parking lot.  So I let the frantic employee in scrubs wheel me in in a very dramatic rush. She got me in the elevator and seemed to be nervously asking me questions to check that I was still conscious or something.  I found out that she was a house keeper.  I had to smile and let her revel in the drama of rushing a laboring woman in a wheel chair up to labor and delivery.  It had to have been exciting for her.

Of course, once I got to triage, my contractions started to slow and space out again.  Darin came up from parking the car, and our friend and Bradley birth instructor, Katie Aston, arrived a few minutes later.  She offered to attend our birth as a doula.  I cannot express how thankful I was to have her there for the entire labor and delivery of Rowan.  I just fell in love with her!  She was an absolute angel.  She stayed up all night and didn't rest for a moment.  She was entirely devoted to making me comfortable and helping me relax and she worked hard the entire time I worked hard.  The first thing I would suggest for those wanting a natural birth is to educate yourself as much as possible (Know your options.  Understand common procedures.  READ.  Do your research.  Do practices.  Be prepared).  The second thing I would recommend is hiring a doula.  Darin and I had planned to have it be just the two of us.  We felt prepared and we wanted an intimate experience.  But I had read too much on doulas and the positive outcomes as far as fewer c-sections and  fewer interventions, in general.  So when Katie offered, we whole-heartedly agreed it was what we wanted. How very, very grateful I am that we had her.

I worked through a few contractions kneeling on the hospital bed and leaning over the back of it in the upright position.  It was a good position for me.  I was checked and was super bummed to hear I was only at 3 1/2 centimeters.  I totally jumped the gun, especially since contractions had spaced out since the car ride. They were now about 4-5 minutes apart.

When we got to our room and immediately I was hooked up in all sorts of ways.  When trying for a VBAC, the hospital requires you to have continuous fetal monitoring as well as an IV port in and ready for any fluids they think you'll need.  My contractions were measured by a probe they stuck up my vagina.  And not long after getting settled, they gave me an IV with some sweet stuff to get more of a response from Rowan.  Being hooked up to all sorts of wires and tubes was SO uncomfortable.  It really made me wish I had not come in to the hospital so soon.  As labor progressed, I just tried to forget about it and focus on what my body was doing.

My body was working.  I am so glad it was!  It felt so different from Lily's labor.  Just getting to this point in labor eliminated some anxiety.  I was able to focus and relax and not think about the possibility of a repeat C-section because this was REAL LABOR!  So I was a little confused when my midwife suggested giving me pitocin.  She was the one who, during our prenatal checkup,  told me that they would do everything to avoid intervention.  She tried to explain, using charts that I didn't know how to read and didn't know the meaning of, that my contractions needed to be at a certain line or level and Rowan needed to be exhibiting this pattern in his heart rate, and here is the doctor who is on site in case you need to have a C-section, and we don't want that so we need to be at this point just so later on we don't have to intervene more.  I asked to try other methods first.  We did some nipple stimulation, rocking back and forth in semi-squats, using essential oils, just letting some time pass. I felt like I was laboring just fine and it is a little hazy now when I try to think of why that apparently wasn't enough. I was given the lowest dosage of pitocin.  If there is ever a situation where a woman is most vulnerable it is when she is in labor. I felt scared by the possibility of another C-section, so I ultimately agreed to an intervention I was totally opposed to.  It is the only regret I have.  And I honestly couldn't tell the difference with pitocin and without.  Contractions are intense and powerful.  It took a lot of work either way to relax through them.  After a while, we ended up unplugging the pit and not turning it back on.  My body knew what to do anyway.

The rest of the night was very hazy to me. I started to make a little noise during contractions. When I felt one coming on, I made a low moaning sound.  Eventually it became what I naturally did every time and it became my method of coping.  When I started moaning ( or "singing", as Katie called it :), I thought of nothing else.  I went to this place where I saw nothing and felt nothing and the only thing I was experiencing was the sound of my voice which really didn't sound like my voice at all, but more like something coming from outside of me.  It was really trippy.  I have heard that the body comes up with its own drugs during labor, and now I can see where they get that.  It was so bizarre.  I was very unaware of things that were happening around me.  I kept my eyes closed most of the time.  I lost myself in each contraction and came back when it was over.  I had Katie and Darin reminding me to keep my voice low, to release the tension in my hands, forehead, shoulders, etc.  They massaged me and gave counter pressure.  They wiped me with cool wash cloths and fanned me.  They gave me something to drink as often as I requested it (I was parched the entire time).  They were at the ready with barf bags which I used several times. (Thankfully, I have managed to still enjoy my favorite oatmeal cookies I happened to throw up the whole time.  So glad I didn't get turned off to those; it would have been a real shame).  I changed positions several times. I tried sitting on the birthing ball, but didn't hang out there for long, as it felt unstable. I knelt on my bed, sat in the rocking chair, but did not enjoy rocking, worked through some contractions in the bathroom.  One of my favorite places was surprisingly leading over the bathroom sink.  Letting the water run over my hands was very relaxing to me. It makes me think that  I would really love a waterbirth.

The night was long.  I welcomed the work, even though it was so taxing.  I knew I could do hard things. I knew I could do this hard thing even though contractions were startlingly more powerful than I had ever imagined. At one point in the evening, though, I felt exhausted and drained.  I felt I had lost some of my focus from why I was doing this work and instead was simply focusing on doing the work. When I stopped thinking about meeting Rowan and doing this so that he and I could be safe together and feel the power of the most beautiful and natural process in the world, I faltered. I uttered one of a thousands prayers and begged for strength.  I was feeling discouraged that I had plateaued (totally normal) and it was taking so long to dilate a single centimeter (going from a 5 to a 6 was excruciatingly long). In the middle of feeling tired and distracted, and discouraged, a song came on pandora that seemed to stop time. After being home from the hospital, I religiously listed to the same station that I birthed to just to be able to find it again. It's called "In Reverence" by David Tolk, a very fitting name for what happened to me when it played in my dimmed hospital room in the middle of a sorrowfully sweet night. (For your listening pleasure, here it is, with some lovely scenery to boot.)

 When I heard it, it is hard to explain the beauty that unfolded.  I opened my eyes and looked out the window at the deep blue of the night sky with its stars and moon and magical summer warmth. My hospital room became a sanctuary.  No one knew what was happening but me, and I hoped, Rowan. I closed my eyes again and I felt so close to heaven.  I felt that the only division between me and Heaven was merely my inability to see it.  I could almost feel my sweet baby boy in my arms.  In my mind, I saw him being placed on my chest.  I felt his weight and his warmth and I felt my sweet tears of joy at his arrival.  It was a sacred moment. I believe it was an answer to my prayers for strength.  I was given that little glimpse as a heavenly gift.  From that moment on, I felt empowered. I felt like I could and that I had to get him here.  I have never fought so hard for another's life.  I suddenly felt the depth of my understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ expand.  He sweat and he bled and he struggled for our lives on a scale much much much greater than what I was experiencing, and I was experiencing the most intense and most painful sensations of my life.  With every contraction, I wondered if I could do another. I have never been pushed to my limit like that. It made me feel so much closer to my Savior, and so much more confident to call on Him for help. This was the hardest work I had ever done.  Beyond a doubt, I was made more than I am to be able to accomplish it.

 After mis pilas se cargaron, I felt I had reached a state of deep relaxation.  I didn't open my eyes for hours, and was completely still between contractions, only escaping into the sound of my moaning when another one came. I remember opening my eyes once and noticing a pale light in the room.  The next time I opened my eyes it was morning.  Katie smiled and told me I had made it through the night.  I had labored all night long. Something about being in the light of day seemed to make things speed up.  I couldn't actually say when I hit transition.  It just happened without my noticing and I had to change positions and moan deeper and louder than I had before and fight against everything in me just to relax through the crashing waves of my hard-working uterus. Another midwife, Erica came as the shift ended and was fabulous at observing how I was handling things and letting me continue doing what I was doing.  At one point I was feeling pushy, which I eloquently expressed as feeling like I needed to poop.  I was checked on my knees, leaning over the back of up-right hospital bed by a nurse who said I was at a 7 1/2.  What?!  I wanted to push, but knew I didn't want my cervix to swell, so I just took out all that pent up pushing urge through moans that made me sound more like an orc than a human.  Truly, it was a little scary. I made it through those last few centimeters somehow and was surprised when I was told I could push.

I finally had the go-ahead. I was suddenly very alert, but also very tired and once I tired pushing, I wasn't sure I really knew how to do it. I kept asking Katie and Erica if I was doing it right. I pushed on my knees leaning over the bed for a while. Then I pushed on my hands and knees for a while. Feeling that baby descend was bizarre and amazing, and very slow. But the pressure I felt before I reached a 10 was alleviated and replaced by an entirely different pressure much lower. Contractions were welcomed at this point.  It felt good to push through them, and after 33 hours of labor, I was excited to be doing something other than relaxing. I eventually moved into a side-lying position. When I felt like my pushes were ineffective, I asked the midwife if maybe I could push in a squatting position and let gravity help out a little more.  She suggested I was too tired and should continue with the side-lying.  She was probably right about me being too tired, which is why I didn't push for it (ha....pun intended), but I had really wanted to try squatting, so I was a little bummed I didn't just do it.

That little guy was crowning for.ev.er. Boy howdy, did I feel that ring of fire, so aptly named.  I was feeling like a whole lot of pushing (1 hr. 45 min, nothing out of the norm) was getting me a whole lot of nowhere.  And then Darin told me to reach down and touch his head.  He was right there, so close! And he had hair.  It was as good an energy boost as any.  I just wanted him here.  I had made it so far and it was almost over.  I was suddenly very impatient, which I'm sure caused my three tears.  I heard Erica say "I love her determination".  I was feeling like this had to end, and with one screaming push, I felt his head come out.  A few pushes later, his body slipped out fairly easily. And suddenly he was on my chest and he was breathing and he was warm and he was mine.  I was overwhelmed and great sobs of relief and incandescent joy escaped me.

Do not be deceived.  This was after a shower. 

 Let's just say I am not one of those mamas who looks 

Like she went for a light jog and ended up with a baby.

The flood of emotions and love (and yes, hormones) was incredible!  I felt so thankful for Erica and her quiet encouragement, for Katie and her selfless, sleepless, peaceful presence. Most of all, I was so thankful for Darin and the ability he has always had to make me feel safe and beautiful when I am most vulnerable and discouraged.  A number of times during the labor he looked into my eyes and told me that I was made to do this, something that penetrated so deeply and gave me courage, especially when I had battled doubts about that very thing since Lily's birth.  He has always made me feel strong, especially when I feel so small.

Rowan was weighed and measured: 8 pounds, 10 ounces, and 20 inches long. I looked over at him and it hit me, and the tears started again as I exclaimed, "I had a VBAC!"  Erica and Katie laughed and said, "yes, you did".   I felt incredible.  The difference between me being left to shiver alone and shift in and our of consciousness after Lily's birth as compared to the love, support, and unexpected vitality I felt after Rowan was staggering. What an incredible experience!

And now that I know I can do it, our next one will be born at home. Call me crazy, but I can't wait.