Two years ago today, I gave birth to my daughter. I decided to share the story of her birth because it was a unique scenario and I wanted to give hope to expectant mothers and women who might be scared to give birth. I was blessed with my first delivery only taking seven and half hours, which went by in a blur. Later it was called a "Hollywood" birth because the way it went down is like what you see in the movies and only 5-10% of women experience what I did, especially with the first baby.
We have to begin before she was born because the pregnancy was just as important as the birth. When life is growing inside of you, it's a magical thing. I remember Brian, my husband, said he would sometimes roll over in the middle of night and feel our daughter kicking and moving in the womb while I was asleep.
Each trimester was very different. Thank God I never actually threw up, but I had evening sickness for the first 3 months. I also had very strange vision changes throughout the first and second trimesters. I was even more sensitive to light than usual and if I looked at a blank wall I would see weird spots (at the time this really worried me, but later I learned this is normal as long as it goes away after the birth, which it did). By the third trimester I was huge and had painful varicose veins. But overall, my pregnancy went pretty well.
The due date was June 10, 2017. On Saturday, June 3, Brian and I were visiting his family and we stayed out a little later than planned. We didn't get to bed until around 11, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Just as I did, I was awoken by a waterfall. Literally, that's what it felt like when my water broke at 12:51 AM. Brian thought he had slept through the whole night when I woke him up with the news. I had no labor pains at this point but I knew she was coming, so we headed to the hospital.
By 1:45 AM we were in a prep room answering standard questions and thankfully we had done most of the paperwork during our orientation a few months back. At around 2:30 AM I was being wheeled down the hall to our room when the labor pains started. The contractions weren't too bad in the beginning but they got intense fast. They were going to give me Pitocin, but quickly realized I didn't need it because I was progressing on my own.
I wasn't against having an epidural, but I did want to try to go without one if I could. After 2 hours of intense contractions I was ready for it. Thankfully, it worked and the pain was gone for the rest of the delivery. After that, time went by in a blur. I pushed for about half an hour and at 8:32 AM, my daughter was born.
We named her Lights Emery. I already knew of "Lights" being a name because I've been a fan of the Canadian singer, Lights Bokan for years. Early in the pregnancy we didn't have a girl's name picked out and one day I was reading from Jesus Calling. One of the verses for that day was James 1:17, which reads, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow or variation due to change." That's when I talked to Brian about the name Lights. He liked it and we agreed the middle name should be Emery, which is also a band we love. I know some people don't get the name, but I think it's beautiful. I wanted something unique. Something you won't find on a key chain at a gas station.
I'm not saying being pregnant and giving birth were easy, but I will say I was extremely blessed with how smoothly everything went. I give all the credit to God for being with us through it all. I also believe my diet played a role in helping things go well. I was eating almost completely plant-based at the time. God bless all the mothers out there who have been through this incredible experience. Getting to watch my little girl grow up has been priceless and makes all that I went through worth it!
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