Our Birth Story | John Carson
Covid.
A word loathsome to most these days and the thing that drastically changed our birth plans. First there were no visitors at the Hospital, then one, but don’t count on it. Then we couldn’t leave, then we had to leave quickly. So many plans unfolding right before our eyes. All I wanted was my baby and I wanted him safe.
As heavy as it all felt there were other things that I found surfacing to the top of my mind. I wanted to know what color his eyes were. What shape his nose would be. Would I finally have a baby with my thick curly hair? The answer is no, by the way. Four out of four with hair straight as a stick, just like their daddy.
I had prayed for a quick labor but didn’t realize just how quick it would be. I can still hear the beeping machines and the feeling of ice crunching beneath my teeth. Weeks of anxiety over this moment. But just like Jesus promised, there was peace.
After a few hours of pitocin and not as dilated as I had hoped, the nurse walked in and told me I should try to sleep while I could. Sixty minutes later I woke up to a puddle of drool on my pillow and pain like a knife in my side. I hit the call button.
Lisa, my nurse who could also be described as a guardian angel, looked me in the eyes and said “We’re going to have a baby.”
The next 3 minutes were a blur as nurses, doctors, and machines rushed in and out of our room. Breathlessly I whispered “Thank you, God.”
Two pushes was all it took for me to have you in my arms. You looked at me with those smokey gray eyes and head full of fuzzy brown hair and I knew we were both home.
