Avalyn... Strength greater than my own

The next part of Avalyn's story is so hard to write about.  It is hard to know what details to tell and what to leave out.  It is hard to tell because as hard as it was to tell about hearing that Avalyn was no longer with us, I still had to go through the process of delivering her.  How do you go through a delivery when you know you are not going to get to see her living.  When you know that it is going to be silence in the room instead of the little cry of new life.  

After we cried for a bit we knew we needed to make the dreaded phone calls.   We needed to let our parents know and find support from those who were around to help us.  We called.  I tried to tell my mom but couldn't speak when it came time to actually say it and Shaun had to take over the phone call.  Then he made all the other calls.

He called our pastor Ron.  We later found out that Ron normally doesn't have his phone on at that time of night and that it was by God's grace that he even answered his phone.  Then Shaun called  my friend Becky.  Within 20 mins we had both pastor Ron and pastor Tim and Delrae.  As well as my friends Becky, Sarah and Jess.  You have no idea how much support it was to have them there.  

We cried together.  They prayed for us.  We had a bonding fellowship that can only come through going through the tough hard life situations together.  I am so thankful that they were there to call on and to drop everything to come support us!  I have this group of friends that I have had for pretty much the whole three years I have lived here in North Dakota.  We always say that God put our group together for a reason.   This is not the first tough life situation that we have been in together and probably will not be our last but God has done some great things through this group and I am happy to have them doing life beside me!

What can I say about the rest of the evening the doctor didn't want me to leave she wanted me to stay until I delivered Avalyn.  So they started a slow process to get my labor going and to get me to dialate quicker.  My friends took shifts staying with me and Shaun so that we had someone to support us at all times.  There was no way that I could sleep!  I sat and talked and talked through the night and at points tried to let Shaun sleep but the silence was so defening!! I tried to walk in the hall to get things progressing but the sounds of babies and pictures of happy families was too much for me to handle so I barricaded myself in my room.

I stayed awake the whole night and really didn't progress much.  In the morning my friends switched shifts and we continued to wait.  I can't say that the whole time was bad.  To be honest there were times of great laughter and light heartedness.  I look at it as God giving me strength through other belivers.  I hadn't come down to fully understanding because I had not seen her yet but if I would have melted down the whole time I was waiting to deliver I would not have had the physical or emotional strength to get through it. 

People have said through this that I am so strong.  I really don't agree with that, I am so weak and if this were fully on me I would not have made it.  I know that God has been the strong one through it all. He is the one who has lifted me when I trruely didn't think I could go on.  He is the one who gave me exactly what I needed through everything and allowed a peace that passes all my understanding to get through it.  I can remember through the whole night and next day I would just say over and over in my head and some times out loud, "The Lord is my stregth".  

I would like to stop at this point and tell you the frame of mind that I was in when I went into the hospital to deliver Avalyn.  I had a horrible delivery with Ian.  I was induced with pit and had them give me stadol and an epidural.  When they gave me the stadol I couldn't move and was hallucinating.  I was seeing pink elephants and every contraction I thought logs were hitting me in the stomach.  The epidural didn't work they had to poke into my spine up to the full legal limit.  Then he ended up poking through to far and giving me a spinal headache afterward. Then I went through a whole other ordeal of getting an infection a few days later and almost died. (that would be a whole other blog post)

Because of  all went through with that delivery I had come to some pretty strong opinions about giving birth naturally.  I did not want to go through any of that ever agian.  When Eli was born it was all natural and it was perfect.  No complications and my healing went so much faster.  I knew that was how I wanted to do this delivery as well.  Being that it had been 5 years since I last went through a delivery I was nervous that I would cave into having drugs.  For several weeks before that night I had been mentally trying to pump myself up that I could do it again and praying God would give me the strength.  When I went in that night I was prepared to push through the pain and come out on the other side with a drug free delivery.

So that brings us to the early afternoon on Tuesday September 23rd.  They put me on pit to get the delivery going faster.  That was a hard pill for me to swallow because I had said before that I would not be induced ever again.  But that is also a lesson that The Lord was teaching me through it all and continues to teach me.  My plans do not always go with His plans and I need to trust in Him and His plan.  

I will never forget one of the light hearted moments, it was lunch time and they were not allowing me to eat anything.  I will never understand why they know that you have to have strength and energy to get through pushing in labor but make you go hours and hours and not allow you to eat anything.  But anyway as I said it was lunch time and our friend Matt went and bought lunch and brought it to the hospital for everyone to eat.  To be nice to me they were eating outside of the room so I would not go crazy.  They went in shifts the guys ate first and the girls stayed in the room with me.

Then it was the girls time to go eat.  I had Shaun and Matt in the room to entertain me.  They were keeping it light and telling jokes and repeating lines from comidians.  At one point I was in the middle of a STRONG contraction and could not stop laughing.  Never in my life did I ever think that I could be going through that much pain and laughing at the same time.  

This was the point that my labor really started to get going strong.  The doctor came in a little bit later and was trying to push me to have drugs to ease the pain.  It was so HARD to process at that time!  I seriously have strong convictions on the subject and went in with a strong mind set I would not take any drugs!  

How do I go against my convictions but how do you have the strength to do it on your own when you are already so emotionally drained?  I didn't take the drugs.  I stayed to my convitions but I regret it now.  Maybe I would have regretted the descision if I had gone with the drugs as well, I will never know.  I suppose it was just a hard situation no matter what and it is what it is.  But I think if I would have taken the drugs it would have maybe taken the edge off the brutalness of the situation.

Because I was on the pit and they increased the doseage I went into labor very quick.  I went to the bath to try to help me relax and that is when I lost all control.  I was in this tiny little bathroom that barely one person can fit it.  I had Shaun next to me trying to help me control my breathing.  My friend Becky at the door shouting to help me keep control.  I am so thankful she did that for me!  The nurse was in and out and I started pushing. 

I delivered my sweet Avalyn in what felt like a gross old bathroom tub that I could barely fit in.  Shaun almost caught her because there was really not room for the nurse to get in there.  I remember looking down and seeing as they were unwrapping the cord from her neck.  They placed her on my chest and  I just cried and cried.  It was really true, she was not living.  It was true, I wasn't going to get to bring my little gril home.

It all was real at that moment and all the emotion came at that point.  Shaun and I were heartbroken.  But even though we were heartbroken Shaun said pretty much right after she was born we need to be thankful for all that God has given us.  We are thankful we know that the first time she opened her eyes she was in the safe and loving arms of God.  And we went from that moment saying we are going to be thankful.  That doesn't mean we are not mourning not having her.  

But when we can look to God and say, thank you for sending your Son Jesus to die for us and saving us from our depravity!  This gives me a greater understanding into what God must have felt to willingly giving of His Son to die a tortuous death on a cross.  How much He loves us to be willing to do that for us.  In a million years I can't imagine giving my child willingly and for other peoples sin.  How greatful I am for the salvation He gives me.  I am so thankful for a real relationship with him and that He gave us His word to guide us along the way. Never on this earth will I fully understand the price that He paid. But I am thankful.