Miraculous

I was able to be apart of something absolutely miraculous today.

My girlfriend, Marlene, was pregnant with her second baby and had asked me if I would be willing to stay with her during her labor to encourage her. I said yes, and yesterday I got the call that she was on her way to the hospital because she was afraid she might be leaking amniotic fluid.

They had her in a room just to observe her and when she went for her ultrasound they thought that the baby would be nine pounds. My friend is not very tall, 5'1, 5'2, so the nurses called her doctor and her doctor was afraid she wouldn't be able to deliver naturally like she had wanted.

Marlene decided to induce so at 5:15pm on Thursday pitocin was started. We waited. And waited. And waited. It was sort of weird because Marlene, her boyfriend Thom, and I were waiting and talking and watching a movie and at one point it felt more like a sleepover than anything.

Marlene did so great. It was crazy sitting and talking to her and then having her stop mid sentence, grit her teeth, screw up her face, and then just like that, she was fine again. This happened over and over until it was about 3am. At that point Marlene wasn't worried so much about the pain but the fact that she was tired and didn't thinks he could sleep.

So, at 3am we called in the miracle worker, aka, the person that administered the epidural. At this point I was sitting on the couch in the room facing away from Marlene. I do not do needles in your spine. No thank you. And I'm really glad I didn't because Marlene was saying "ouch" more than she was when she having her contractions! The epidural started to kick in, although it only really worked on her left side.

As soon as she was comfy I laid down on my little plastic covered mat on the floor and Thom was on the couch and we all slept. The next morning the nurse laughed and told us that we were all sleeping quite soundly because she had come in to check on Marlene and changed her IV bag and stuff several times.

At around 8 in the morning Marlene started to complain about a lot of pain on the side that didn't get numbed. She called the nurse and we thought that she would just come in and up her dosage. The nurse decided to see how far dilated she was first and we were surprised to learn that she was at ten! And just as quickly as the nurse said she was at ten she told her to start pushing. So, push she did!

It took her 15.5 hours to get dilated to ten. It took her a half of an hour to actually deliver. It was truly amazing. I was standing near her head, counting to ten for her as she bared down and pushed and then all of a sudden, there he was! It was...breathtaking. Truly an indescribable feeling. It was just like, "holy cow! There's a baby that just came out of you!"

I'm so honored and thankful that Marlene allowed me to share in such an incredible moment of her life with her. It was something that I will never forget. I don't think words can accurately describe how amazing a birth is. It's amazing how God designed our bodies to work. It's breathtaking how God knits together a little person inside of his (or her) mother's womb. It's just...indescribable. I am so glad that I was able to witness little Travis' birth!