Raptor prayers- Part 2

The next prayer we had for Johnny were

Prayers especially for those helping us in delivery...

I hope this prayer helped out Matt, my mom, and my sister. All three of them got a big dose of "Ashley's transition" and had to witness things a little out of control. I still firmly believe that part of the reason things got so heated was due to a lack of understanding on my nurse's part (not my friend nurse, the other hospital assigned nurse) and because my mind was told that I wasn't experiencing what my body was actually going through, then things got wacky. All three of them were great though and it would have been funny to watch as I grilled them for answers to questions they couldn't have possibly helped me with. Among them was, "What is taking the anesthesiologist so long?" which was relatively easy to field, but more difficult were questions like, "Is she being serious?" (in relation to the nurse telling me I have three more hours to go, 15 minutes before Johnny was born) and "Where did you go?" (to my mom who I hoped was getting my doctor in the room herself). I know it was immensely hard on them to see me feeling the struggle of delivery and feeling in their hearts that we were probably a lot closer to delivery than we were being told and not having much they could do about it. I needed the three of them there, helping me laugh when I could, and trying to keep me calm as things approached the end. And super blessings to Matt for getting a full workout as he kneaded the small of my back to help me through each contraction.

I am so grateful for how our delivery experience ended up. The "plan" was for my doctor to delivery me, for there to be a neonatologist present, and for an extra baby nurse to be present. In the end, there were no doctors present and my nurses delivered Johnny with tremendous ease. Other than there being no doctor in the room, the delivery was textbook. There were no complications, no cord issues, hardly any pushing needed, and Johnny looked absolutely perfect when he came out. This blessing of help came on my nurses who came in at the right moment. While the plan was for Dr. Norton to deliver me, I am so glad that Nurse Charissa was there to bring Johnny into this world. It was second best timing and second best case scenario for me. And because Johnny had no issues at birth, we were able to take some time with him and enjoy him before getting the once over in the NICU. One thing I have struggled with is how to feel about our other nurse and how misguided I felt by her information. I am going to need to mull over that more. In regards to prayers however, I hope that my L&D experience was good for her and pray that she gleaned knowledge and experience within that time.

When thinking about this post, I thought to myself, "How is this going to reflect on prayer...so much went unanswered...", but my prayer was general enough that it wasn't unanswered at all. I asked simply for prayers for help and failed to pray for specifics that I wanted in my heart. I was so worried as I began writing a series on answered prayers, how it would be to list all the things I didn't get out of my L&D. I smiled as I read the only thing I wrote...prayers for those helping us. It left so much up in the air, but maybe it's because I trusted that God was fully sovereign over this time. I had very detailed wants for my labor and delivery experience, I had very detailed prayers for other aspects of Johnny's life, but this is a very general request. And I wanted so much for his labor and delivery. I consulted with Dr. Norton ahead of time and we discussed (with her approval) to have minimal monitoring, a hep lock instead of a constant i.v., avoiding pitocin, and being able to move around the room and the floor among other things. Instead I had constant monitoring for 24 hours including internal monitoring, an i.v. for 24 hours to push fluids to Johnny, on and off pitocin as he would allow to induce delivery, and was unable to get up because of all the complications leading up to his delivery and needing oxygen for large portions of the day. Would praying for the "ideal" birth have made it more likely to be so? Probably not. Sometimes prayers are left unanswered and sometimes prayers are fulfilled differently than we think they are. So I would hate to think less of God when our prayers were left unanswered or unfulfilled because that shouts arrogance.  And after the weeks of waiting over Johnny's diagnosis and not knowing what to pray for, knowing what my heart wanted, but being afraid to deny the child inside me, I had to make my prayers general. In the context of L&D, I was so worried to pray for things being a specific way and having them end up worse. Gratefully, I prayed for general and got a pretty good situation.  Ultimately, I think I prayed for the exact correct thing, "Prayers especially for those helping us...". The end result was what was important...a healthy baby and Mommy. And it could have been worse...there was a baby that came out in a much worse situation than Johnny just that morning, we could have been facing a cord issue, we could have had my mom and Matt deliver Johnny if the nurses hadn't come in when they did, and as I reflected on yesterday, Johnny could have been seriously hurt if we hadn't been monitored so closely before hand. 

So while I cannot exactly reflect on how "those helping us" felt and if they were bolstered by prayer support,  I felt thankful for having them in the room.