The Story

This was me on November 24, Thanksgiving Day. Two days before we had Isaac. I think I changed 3 times before deciding on sweatpants and a shirt for the holiday apparel, ha!
Now I look at the picture and it makes me smile, I was so big! I was carrying a 7 pound baby and was feeling pretty good other than the typical aches and pains and swelling.
Thanksgiving Day was great! We had wonderful food, great company and a nice relaxing day. It's a good thing because Friday morning I was up and out of the house by 5am to get my Christmas shopping done! I knew that I would for sure have the baby before Christmas and my goal was to complete my shopping before he came. I was on a mission, had my list and was ready to shop!
My mom and I shopped ALL DAY! We didn't get home until almost dinnertime! All & all I felt great that day, had some contractions but maybe one every once in a while, and certainly none that seemed to be labor. I did however notice that when I was contracting there was a burning sensation where my previous c section scar is. I decided that when we got home I would call the doc and see what she thinks.  The doc wanted to monitor me for a while and was at the hospital so Craig and I headed up to WakeMed for what we thought would be a quick check and maybe an hour of monitoring...
When I was checked around 8pm I was 3cm and not contracting, so the plan was to stay at the hospital overnight and go home in the morning if the burning went away. Sure enough, the burning went away so I sent Craig home to get some things so he could stay with me until morning. While he was gone, I started to contract pretty regularly. First they were every 7 minutes, so I sent him a text with my contractions timed out. Then they quickly went to every 5 minutes and suddenly became VERY painful!! The doc came in and checked me and said I was 5cm so I would not be going home, I would be staying and having a baby! Craig was back at the hospital by now and we were so excited! The excited quickly turned into tears from the pain. I couldn't tell if it was the burning sensation back again or if labor was really this painful. I requested an epidural and it worked for 10 minutes before falling out, so sad! My contractions were now every 2 minutes for over 2 hours and the worst pain I have every felt so the doc thought for sure I was complete and ready to push only to find out that I was still at 5cm... This was around 4am, I think. I wasn't really watching the time so much by now. She really stressed the importance of considering a c section again. The fact that I was in so much pain and contracting so close together for such a long period of time may be an indication of many things, one thing being a uterine rupture which would be very bad but unable to detect unless we did a c section. Craig was not comfortable at all waiting to see and really felt more comfortable going in for a repeat c section knowing that it would be safe, and the baby would be safe. So, off we went for a c section. At first I was a little nervous, actually a lot nervous! I have only had 1 other c section and it was an emergency and was very emotional and sad. This time was to be happy and peaceful, but I would not know that until I experienced it myself.
I was given a spinal and as I lay there waiting for Craig to join me I prayed for peace and then felt like I needed Craig to be there, praying for me so as soon as I saw him walk in the room and sit with me I asked him to pray over us before they got started. I cannot explain the peace that came over all of us. Now we were ready to have a baby!
The room was quiet, peaceful and everyone was very calm. No team of 20 NICU nurses and doctors waiting to run the baby off immediately, no emergency team on hand. We were having a full term healthy baby! In fact, Adele was playing in the backgroud and we were all VERY excited to hear the sweet sounds of a crying baby.
Then it came, Isaac was here, crying, BIG!! We were able to see him immediately, hold him, and KEEP him! I was out of it for a while after because of all the drugs that were pumped into my system prior to surgery but to know he was fine and in the room with me and Craig was just priceless.
Did I ever even think that I would have to have a repeat c-section? No, not at all. Izzie was breach and an emergency situation. All my other labors were very fast and there was never a problem dilating or delivering so the thought never even crossed my mind. Isaac was head down and ready to roll but the Lord had something else in mind. He took away my fear and anxiety over another c-section and replaced it with his peace. I knew that the Lord had this and was taking care of us no matter how Isaac entered the world and I have no regrets about our decision to have a repeat c-section.

I have had a tough time writing all of this out because its been such a long journey and I am still completely overwhelmed with the reality that we have home with us a healthy full term baby after 4 previous preterm labors and births. I won't go over the past 9 months because I have been blogging, but the Lord has really shown himself faithful to us. All we prayed for over and over was a full term healthy boy and the Lord graciously gave us our hearts desire. Yes, all other times we have prayed the same thing, but I cannot say honestly that it has been our hearts cry like it was this time. I have felt the Lord carry me through this pregnancy and the evidence is this little miracle at the end. Isaac Sullivan is a complete gift, a full miracle.