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June 6, 2011
Samuel,
I am writing this as I enjoy the last of the bottle of Penderyn Welsh Whiskey that I've been saving to commemorate your birth. It's 10:30pm and Mom and Grandma Shack have both gone to bed while you do your deep sleep. You had a lot of people praying for you today and I want you to know about it, so I've written it here.
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| A Boy and His Father |
Mom's water broke around 1:00 this morning in her sleep and she had short contractions throughout the night about every half hour. We had a preexisting appointment at the Birth Center at 9:00, so we called Grandma Shack to tell her we thought it was time for her to drive down from Tallahassee and then went to the appointment. They tested Mom's fluid and found that it was amniotic, so the midwife told us that we should be seeing signs toward active labor by 1:00 pm, twelve hours after the water had broken. If we went more than 24 hours without entering active labor, we would have had to take Mom to the hospital to induce her, so we went home to take a walk and asked our friends to pray that you would come. We told Pastor Joel, who told our church family, and Meme Hill told some of her close friends at church and some of her relatives while the Shackelfords and the Hills prayed for you. When we got home from the appointment, Mom was hardly dilated at all, but by about 1:30 pm when we went back to the birth center to deliver you, she had already gone to 9 cm. When the midwife examined Mom and found she was already 9 cm, she said, "After today, I don't know anything about giving birth," patting Mom's leg with a laugh to reassure us she was exaggerating. We had already named you "Heard by God," and your delivery was another testament to God's faithfulness to you. It was unusual in how quickly Mom began active labor. When everyone prayed for you, God answered by bringing Mom's labor to the point it needed to be.
At the Birth Center, they had this New Age relaxing background music playing. I couldn't stand it, but Mom didn't mind, so we let it play. Thankfully, we couldn't really hear it when we got to the tub where Mom labored for about two hours with you. We kept giving Mom water, flavored coconut water, and fruit and nut mix between contractions. After she'd been laboring for a while with the help of a coach, she was having trouble progressing with you in the tub. The midwives decided we should move Mom to the bed where she could be on her hands and knees and push you out from a different position. Halfway to the bed, Mom had another contraction and couldn't walk, so I carried her to the bed, which the head midwife said she'd never seen before, surprisingly. The word "knight" may have been used in a postpartum description of me. The midwife said that she was hoping to get you to crown by having Mom walk to the bed, but when I carried Mom in, the midwife saw a beautiful head starting to come out already. Once we got to the bed, the labor was very advanced and painful. I could tell that Mom was running out of energy and we had to deliver you in the next few pushes because your heart rate was too low. Mom told me later that she imagined herself speaking to you then, saying, "I'm not going to hurt you, Samuel, just because I'm not giving it everything I have." We had seen your little head poking out and Mom had felt it with her hand in the tub. It was already covered with hair to ensure that you were good-looking when you came out. I didn't watch you come out because I was standing next to Mom since that's what she wanted. I'm glad that I was because after a few exceptionally painful pushes, we both saw you at the same time. Grandma Shack and all the midwives kept telling Mom what a good job she was doing and how close you were. After your head came out, I think it was extremely quick. Nothing could have prepared me for seeing you for the first time. I look at everything differently now. On our drive home, I looked at Gainesville differently, because it was not just the city where we went to school, but the city where you were born. You were a very handsome and loud baby. While all babies are at least somewhat loud, the midwives commented on your extraordinary volume levels when you were interrupted from trying to suckle. You scored a perfect 10 on your just-having-been-born test. Already a high achiever, as Grandma Shack noted.
Of course, we had Chopstix takeout as our first meal after you were born. Mom had planned to eat a vegetable stew that Grandma Shack had made this morning, but our plans changed when the scheduled home birth had to be moved to the Birth Center since another mother was laboring with only one midwife on call. Everything that happened today brought us a beautiful baby boy in just the way God wanted.
Love, Dad
