I know this news doesn't come as a surprise to most of our family and friends, but Faith Briellah Goddard has arrived!
She decided to bless us with her very presence on July 30th @ 7:03am. She's been with us for nearly 7 weeks now and time has flown by. Before I get to the good stuff though I want to go back and talk about those few weeks and hours before she was born.
As we got further into the 3rd trimester it became evident that Faith was breached and it seemed things were going to be "interesting" to say the least. Heather, particularly, was not very excited about this news. A breached baby meant we might be having a C-section. And a possible C-section brought on a host of issues that Heather and I hoped to avoid.
First issue...Heather was depressed by the idea that after the surgery she wouldn't get to hold Fairh for a few hours while she was recovering. She couldn't even bare the thought of not getting to hold our miracle baby immediately upon birth. And who could blame her? She carried this beautiful baby inside of her for nearly 9 months, and the reward would be holding her for the first time.
Second issue...after a little research, we learned that mothers have a difficult time breast feeding after a c-section. I guess that natural birth sort of jump starts everything (I have no idea what I'm talking about, just assuming). Regardless, Heather knew she wanted to breast feed and knowing it might be harder after a c-section gave her even more incentive to do whatever necessary to have a natural birth.
Third issue...despite Heather being a huge "planner" she hated the idea of planning our daughter's birthday. She wanted it to be a surprise. She didn't want to miss out on the water breakage and the excitement of having a baby at any give moment. Crazy, I know, haha!
As our due date got closer, it became obvious we had a decision to make about the c-section. Either schedule the c-section, or opt to have a procedure (a painful one, apparently) to have Faith manually flipped from the outside of Heather's stomach. Lots of pushing and pulling. They gave us until July 30th to decide.
We prayed so hard that Faith would flip over on her own. Had a whole slew of friends and family praying as well. July 29 was a Sunday. I remember this specifically because we went forward to the alter at church to receive more prayer for Faith to flip. We had basically agreed that if she hadn't flipped by the next day, we would try the procedure. Anything to avoid the c-section. But what happened within the next 24 hours, once again proved that God's timing and plans for us are bigger and better than we can sometimes imagine!
After church that Sunday Heather almost begged me to go to the pool with her. "It might be my last chance to lay out and enjoy the pool before we have a baby," she said. So, we went to the pool.
The weekend prior, Heather was in super-nesting mode. She had a list of things that needed to be done and nothing was going to stop her. She had packed her hospital bags, but I was slacking. I hadn't packed or washed a stitch of clothing. That Sunday, I finally did. As of bedtime, on July 29th, we were ready for a baby. Little did we know, it was our last day as a couple...last day of just the two of us...
Monday morning, July 30th, at roughly 3am Heather woke me up with excitement, but a hint of anxiety..."baby, I think my water broke!", she said. Half asleep I think managed the word, "huh!?". She wasn't 100% sure it was her water breaking because she had woken to use the bathroom and had began feeling contractions. She had read and convinced herself that she had just passed the "mucus plug".
Once again, I was half asleep and had never heard the term "mucus plug". She sort reassured me that it was the beginning stages of birth but not necessarily her water breaking. We were "googling" all this in bed, half asleep. Somehow, we got to the point where we decided to just go back to sleep and simply tell the doctor at our 10am appointment. But Faith had a different plan that was already set into motion...
At roughly 3:30am, I was woke once more..."baby, ok, so I think my water definitely broke this time!". We popped out of bed. Heather went to the toilet to "chill"...for lack of a better term. And I called the overnight doctors line. They said a nurse would call us back shortly. Sure enough, a nurse called and gave us our instructions. "Get showered and cleaned up and bags packed, just in case. No need to rush, but go ahead and head to the hospital so they can see if you need to be admitted."
We got to the hospital at about 5am. We waited until we were almost there to call our parents and siblings. We figured, we had several hours before anything would actually happen. Once we arrived it was pretty clear that Heather's water did break and we were going to be having a baby soon, we just didn't realize how soon. We had to tell the nurses that Faith might still be breached. So they had a midwife come in to check. By 6am, parents had arrived and it was confirmed that we were having ourselves a c-section, whether we liked it or not. And not only were we having one, we were having it ASAP.
One of the 3 "issues" with having a c-section was not wanting to plan Faith's birthday. Mark that off the list. It definitely wasn't scheduled.
We basically had no time to process everything, and had no choice. Faith was breached and she had to come via c-section and it had to be done now.
After Heather's anesthesia and surgery prep, we were ready, or ready as we could be.
They called me in the OR at 6:55am...at 7:03am...I heard Faith's first cry. And my heart would be melted and changed forever.
...to be continued...
