Hannah Katherine

The birth story of our sweet Hannah Kate would not be complete if I did not go back to the beginning of the year and explain the miracle of her creation. To be honest, we truly believe all of our children are divinely created miracles, partly due to the fact that from a physical, scientific standpoint, I ought to have extreme difficulty with conception. I have severe thyroid disease, hashimotos thyroiditis, and polycystic ovarian syndrome that was diagnosed my freshman year of college. My thyroid disease has only been under control for a couple of years, and my PCOS has proved to be an ever-present hindrance to my overall well being. I had a doctors appointment back in January, that was the third of a series of three in which we were trying to figure out why I was having some pretty severe health problems - uterine swelling, more ovarian cysts and extremely heavy bleeding that had gone on for quite some time. On this particular day in January, we were doing another ultrasound to follow up on an ovarian cyst that had been causing problems, and it was also the time in which I should have been ovulating. The doctor I saw that day told me that she was able to see the existing eggs, but that they were not healthy and not the type that could lead to conception. Considering this, and the pre-existing hormonal problems paired with the ongoing issues I'd been having, I was informed that it was highly unlikely for me to be able to have any more biological children. We discussed the possibility of secondary infertility, and even though she said she "never says never," I felt as if this was confirmation that I was done having babies. My heart broke, because I love being pregnant, and I had always dreamed of having more children. Regardless of how our children came to us, I knew that our family was not complete quite yet, and I grieved what appeared to be the death of a dream. In the midst of what had already been a very difficult start to the year, I felt my faith being challenged and tested, and I resolved to trust that God would complete our family one way or another. I spoke to a friend from church that week, and remember concluding that God was bigger than medicine or even science. I told her, if He wants us to have more children, medicine can't stop it, and if He wants us to be done, medical science couldn't make it happen. He will do what He has planned to do all along. My prayer was that He would eventually bless us with another baby. I found peace in the truth that even if He didn't bless us in that way, He was still good.

Well, imagine my surprise when about six weeks later, I found out I was about six weeks pregnant. Yes, God used the "not viable, unhealthy" eggs my doctor wrote off and used them to create our baby. I was using an ovulation app at the time to keep track of my periods and one morning on my way into the gym it popped up with a notification asking me if I'd started my period the prior day. When I said no, it said to take a pregnancy test. I kind of rolled my eyes, feeling like it was just an annoying jab in regard to a topic I was currently sensitive about, but since there was a dollar tree right next to my gym I reluctantly decided to go ahead and go grab one and take it before my workout. Having taken lots of pregnancy tests in the past, due to my extremely inconsistent periods, I was fully counting on a "negative" result. I went to the gym locker room, took the test and washed my hands. I was so uninterested in the test that I almost forgot to glance back at it before leaving the bathroom, and when I did, I gasped out loud when I saw two pink lines. Sure that I was hallucinating, I pulled the paper pamphlet out from the box and made sure that two lines meant positive. I nearly screamed. Having experienced the cardiac equivalent to a full workout by now, I decided to scrap the workout, go get two more tests, and go home to talk to Ben. Him and I spent the rest of the day in random outbursts of laughter as I continued to take "just to be sure" tests (in case the dollar store tests were inexplicably defective) and every single one of them came back with a strong positive symbol. God is good. And funny.

We mulled over different boy names for several weeks, as we were just *sure* this baby would be a boy. At 15 weeks, I pleaded with the ultrasound tech to check baby's gender, and confirm that "he" was a boy, so I could start shopping for baby clothes. Imagine my surprise when we discovered that this baby was a sweet little girl.

Three weeks later, I experienced one of the biggest scares of my life when I started bleeding unexpectedly. I was terrified that this dearly wanted baby had something terribly wrong with her, and we were going to get terrible news. My next door neighbor drove me to the hospital, as Ben wasn't home, due to it being his one day at the office in St. Pete. He met me there and we waited for what felt like forever, even though in reality it was only about twenty minutes. The nurse asked me about when the last time I'd felt baby move was, and my fear intensified when I realized I hadn't felt her flutter all day. The nurse left and went to schedule a sonogram, and I laid still and cried. All of the sudden, that sweet baby, as if in answer, started fluttering like crazy, and it was the most active she had ever been. It was truly as if she was trying to reassure me that she was OK, and I felt as if I was connected to her in a very special way. We had gone back and forth on different girl names since we'd found out she was a "she," but hadn't yet decided on something. When we prayed in the hospital as we waited, and dedicated her to the Lord, I was reminded of Hannah's prayer in the bible, and I knew I wanted her name to be Hannah.

We later found out that the bleeding had been caused by a case of full placenta previa and that she would be absolutely fine. I was sent home, put on modified bed rest, and the rest of the pregnancy carried on normally. Every step of the way, we felt as if we were being divinely provided and cared for. When the ultrasound tech noticed an abnormality in baby Hannah's bowel around 32 weeks, I made the mistake of googling the possibilities and sending myself into a full blown panic. We had been referred to a obstetrical specialist to do a more thorough ultrasound, and she was happy to inform us that there was nothing interesting or abnormal to report about our growing baby, other than the fact that she was a big baby. :)

The next few weeks passed fairly quickly, as we prepared for her arrival and tried to be patient. At 36 weeks, due to her large size and my history of premature fluid loss, my doctor decided it would be best to plan for an induction at 39 weeks. We went in to the hospital to be induced on the evening of Halloween, and started pitocin at about 4 AM. After four hours of labor, I decided to switch from my back to my side and try the "peanut ball" I'd seen on several birthing blogs. If you haven't seen this thing, just imagine a large, peanut-shaped yoga ball that goes between your knees. This serves as a catalyst for opening up the hips and allowing baby to descend. Well, apparently it worked because I went from being five centimeters dilated, to ten, in about fifteen minutes. I called the nurse and it was time to push. Six minutes later, I was holding our sweet Hannah Kate. All along, judging by the profile of her face we'd seen in ultrasounds, I imagined she would look a lot like big brother Lucas. I was surprised to discover that she had her own unique appearance, and resembled me more than my first two had. She was beautiful. As soon as they handed her to me, I did not want to put her down or even give her back to be weighed. The big difference about Hannah was that I felt I'd known her all along, not as if I was meeting her for the first time, and I'd missed her something awful.

About twenty minutes or so after she was born, I heard the nurse remark about the amount of blood that had been lost and that we needed to call the doctor back in. It was at this point that a nurse took Hannah for weight and measurements and the nurses started to look concerned about my blood loss. It took me a few minutes to realize how concerned they all were, and I don't think I fully grasped it until the doctor had come back in the room and also started to appear concerned. They began to take measures to stop the bleeding, but since I'd asked for my epidural to be turned off before I transitioned  (it was so strong I couldn't feel anything), I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt as they made several attempts to stop it. Not only did a piece of the placenta "break off" inside my uterus (one possible cause of hemorrhage), my cervix had torn at some point in the rapid dilation and pushing. I lost three times the (maximum) amount of blood typically experienced during childbirth and had to be taken to the OR to stitch my cervix and stop the bleeding. I was not sedated during surgery and experienced a massive panic attack in the operating room. The panic attack, mixed with my extremely uncomfortable reaction to the epidural (I experience tremors and negative side effects when coming out from under anesthesia) led to a heavy cocktail of drugs that eventually allowed me to relax and sleep in recovery. Hannah was taken to the nursery and I did not get to hold her again until several hours later.

Later, after what felt like a miserable eternity, I was put in a room and they brought Hannah Kate to see me. I cried sincere tears of joy and said "I have missed you so much." The nurse probably thought that I meant I'd missed her while in surgery/recovery. However, I truly felt like I'd been reunited with someone I'd loved dearly for a long time, and had been missing her my entire life. The flood of joy and thankfulness that I experienced made up for the fact that the next 24 hours of surgical recovery were the hardest and most painful 24 hours of my life. I didn't truly understand the meaning of the word "bittersweet" until I'd lived through the week she was born. I said multiple times in the hospital that it had been the best, and also one of the worst, days of my life so far.

We've been home with our sweet Hannah Kate for almost four weeks now, and every day I feel the same feelings of joy and gratitude. The story of her pregnancy and of her birth is a story of divine provision and of God's grace on every area of my life.

"I have not only been blessed, I have been divinely favored."