I love to hear labor stories. Anyone who’s been in labor knows that it’s a story you will never forget. I have documented each of my children’s labor stories because I like to remember the details, and want them to know how loved they were, right from the very start. You can read Aiden’s birth story here, and Graham’s here.
Harper Girl, your original due date was October 26th. My midwife and I knew my ovulation date and so we bumped your due date back to October 31st. Even so, Halloween came and past and we began to roll into November days. By Thursday November 4th, an induction date had been set for Tuesday the 9th, but mama was going to try to do all the things to get you to come naturally if I could. I learned about membrane sweeping and castor oil. I was religiously drinking raspberry leaf tea and eating whole dates. We would walk miles every day and I would bounce on a birth ball at night. Still, you stayed cozy with mama.
And then on Friday, November 5th, the contractions began at 3am slowly—10 minutes apart. By 4:45am I couldn’t lay in bed any longer and called your grandparents to drive up so they could watch your brothers. Contractions continued but it was early labor still. I prepped the house for us to go to the hospital, had a quiet time and took a shower. Between those things, I lost my mucus plug around 5:15am.
We got the boys up at 7am as per usual and did their morning routine. My parents arrived by 8am and we were out the door for my pre-scheduled OBGYN appointment by 8:30am.
You see we had planned to get my membranes swept at this appointment as a natural means of induction before attempting castor oil. All this to avoid an upcoming actual induction the following Tuesday. But since I was already in labor, they just did some electronic fetal monitoring to make sure you were doing well during contractions and swabbed to see whether my water had broken or was leaking.
The swabbing was inconclusive but the midwife thought I could have been leaking amniotic fluid, so they had me go right to the hospital where the midwife who delivered Graham was on call. They had said it could still be a number of hours before you were born but heading over to the hospital would better protect us from infection if my water had already broken.
We checked into the hospital around 10:30am and got situated. When we were finally all set up in our labor and delivery room—all questions answered, my labor robe on, first dose of antibiotics being received because I was strep positive—I went to stand to begin walking and laboring around the room and my water broke. Gushing, warm buckets of water all over the bed I was sitting on. This happened at 12pm and from there contractions really started to intensify, one on top of the other, longer than the next.
Your daddy is basically my doula during labor so we labor-swayed while standing through these really intense contractions. After awhile, I started to feel the need to push during contractions, so I began to do so while standing and at 12:46pm, you, sweet girl, Harper Blythe entered the world.
Out of all of my babies, you were the hardest wait and the easiest labor. I wondered if I would ever meet you, and then when you began to arrive, I felt so seen by the Lord in his timing. He gave our family extra time to rest and prepare before your arrival. He woke me up with labor in the night so your grandparents would have time to drive up to babysit. He sent us to the hospital after my OBGYN appointment (on the thought of possible amniotic fluid leaking) and yet even though that wasn’t the case, you were literally born 2 hours later.
A friend had reminded me of the verse Joshua 1:9 and it became my breath prayer during labor. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
“You don’t need to fear, be strong and courageous,” I would repeat in my head, and your daddy would say out loud. From start to end your labor was 9 hours and 45 minutes—my longest yet. But it was full of the Lord’s provision every step of the way. I’m learning in parenting that expectations are everything—do I go in expecting something to be a certain way and then come out frustrated and disappointed? Or do I cling to the belief that the Lord is good no matter what, and let him shape my attitude and expectations?
Your labor story—the wait, the hopes, the length, all of it, are a gift. And you are so so loved. This is the story of the day you were born.
