Jack's Birth Story

      On Tuesday, June 26th (4 days after my due date), I went to the hospital to be "induced" (cervidil). The doctor thought that Jack was anywhere from 8lbs-10lbs and he was ready to come into the world to join us. At this point I had been in labor on and off since Sunday, but nothing that was steady enough to be admitted into the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 7:00pm and the medication was placed, I was unable to walk for 12 hours due to the placement. My body responded to the cervidil, which doesn't always happen for some, and I started regular contracts that were anywhere from 2-3 minutes apart. Around 4pm on Wednesday, my water broke and it had meconium (Jack had a bowel movement in utero) in it. Because of this, the NICU team would be in the room when he was delivered so they could clean out his lungs and make sure he didn't swallow the meconium. I believe my water breaking was premature because Jack was still "floating" and not quite engaged, which allowed for his umbilical cord to become wrapped around his neck. Due to the fact that my water broke this gave baby Jack anywhere from 12-24 hours to make his appearance into the world on his own. The doctor's were more fond of 12 hours than the 24 due to the bowel movement.
   
     The  contractions went on for approximately 10 hours (2-3 min) and then my body started to slow down and they became 3-5 minutes apart at approximately 8 pm on Wednesday night. At this point I was beyond the point of exhaustion and just wanted to go home, but unfortunately you can't throw in the towel in the middle of labor. This led to the painful decision of starting pitocin, which I worked so hard to avoid. The pitocin pushed my contractions back to 2-3 minutes apart, and then anywhere from 1-2 minutes apart. At this point I was still only dilated to a 4, and knew that I had a long way to go. After many rounds of tears and struggle I gave into the pain medication that I vigorously denied for the last 29 hours of my labor. The anesthesiologist came in a placed the epidural around 12:00am on Thursday morning. At 1:00am the whole team of nurses were in my room telling me to turn off my right side, Jack's heart rate had dipped to 40, because his cord was pulled tightly around his neck. For the remainder of labor, I layed on the left side of my body, this was where Jack's heart rate was steady, which cause my epidural to pool in the left side.

     At approximately 7:00 am, 35 hours into labor, I started pushing. This took about 1 hour and 45 minutes, and at 8:15 on Thursday morning I got to meet my little boy. He came out with the cord tightly around his neck, the doctor had to cut it off of his neck, because it was too tight for her to unwrap. Because his umbilical cord was wrapped so tightly he wasn't able to breathe full breaths and had to be pumped with oxygen by the NICU team that was present in the room. The good news was that he didn't swallow any of the bowel movement, but the bad news was that he wasn't quite breathing on his own. The team rushed my little boy to the NICU and gave me just a glance of his handsome face before they swept him away. This was extremely gut wrenching and confusing for me, all I wanted to do was hold my little baby, touch him, kiss him, and love him, and his was gone in a flash.

    During the next 2 hours, I couldn't walk because of the epidural, I was flooded with emotions, and wanted to know what was going on with my baby, but no one knew yet. Then the NICU doctor finally came back and said that Jack was doing great, but he had a pneumothorax, which is a pocket of air in the chest that prevents the lung from being able to rise. Jack was in the NICU for the entire 3 days that we were in the hospital. On the last day of our stay a nurse came into our room at about 4:30am and told me the Jack's XRAY did not look good and she didn't think that he would be able to come home with us that day. This was devastating, I did not want to leave the hospital without my boy, this was an awful feeling. I went to the NICU as soon as the doctor was in that morning so I could get the final word on if my baby would be coming home with us, in a moment of joy we found out that our beautiful baby was strong enough to join us! This was one of the best feelings in the world!

my first time holding jack.

 
 

Law of Love

It is easy as New Covenant, Grace believing, Christians to get swept up in the "Gospel of Grace" and lose track of some instructions Jesus gave us to make our lives better and more valuable in reaching the world with the Gospel.

Some Grace believers have translated popular teaching topics on rest and freedom to; no more need to reach God's people and show them who you are through your actions.  Paul knew this when he instructed some of his disciples to live the kind of life that would not paint them as hypocrites or harm the powerful Gospel through misconceptions of their actions.  Today, we can know that we are free in Christ but also choose to limit ourselves so our choices aren't a distraction to those that may want to know about the beautiful Gospel of Grace.

Jesus was all about making things simple through examples and stories.  I appreciate it because I have a very simplistic mindset when it comes to the Gospel.  I don't think Jesus was big on titling things but I call what he commanded us to do the "Law of Love."  Jesus made it very simple in John 15:12 when he said "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."  We also can acknowledge that our love for His people will never meet His Love for His people. However, we know that the main focus of Jesus' ministry, and Paul's ministry was to simply follow Jesus.   We can see this in Matthew 11:30 when Jesus says "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  A yoke was used to guide an animal but Jesus makes it clear that He is pulling the load, when he says "for your burden is light"!  Loving people is not a burden, for Jesus does not instruct you to do things that will burden you. 

When Jesus says "Love each other as I have loved you" He isn't telling us to carry the load, he is simply asking us to return to our true nature, in other words, the way it should be.  When God (Love) made us, He made us in His image.  The core of His image is Love.  We must understand as New Creation Christians that it is more natural for us to love each other than any other emotion.  When I am angry at someone I can feel it sit on my heart, this is because my heart was never made to hold this anger.  My heart was crafted to love! 

Our Christian walk is very simple.  When Jesus said "repent for the kingdom of God is near" He is literally begging you to rethink who you are.  Rethink your position with God as a believer.  Rethink what it means to be a "new creation."  Everything that we are to do is simply going back to the way it should have always been.  

Today, remember that loving your family, friends, co-workers, and the slow driver in front of you is your true nature.  Jesus told us to return to this person because it is who we naturally are.  When you get to the person you were intended to be you are going to see your life change and the people around you change.  People are going to wonder why you are always happy, and it going to open up doors to share the wonderful Gospel.  Jesus loves you!