Pregnancy.

I really didn’t enjoy being pregnant.  I respected the miracle of pregnancy, the little life being formed inside of me.  That part was amazing; it was the side effects I disliked.  I told people “Pregnancy is over-rated” and I just couldn’t understand how some women said they loved it.  Days before baby’s arrival, I even devised a top 10 list of things I wouldn’t miss about being pregnant (among them reflux, nosebleeds, not being able to sleep on my side…).  Yet, once the baby was born, I missed being pregnant.  I felt like I hadn’t enjoyed it enough.  It’s difficult to explain.  It’s looking forward to something, expecting it to happen, but not realizing how absolutely amazing it will be.  How much more amazing would it have been to go through the experience truly recognizing the outcome.  (Maybe, this is a glimpse of something we should anticipate with even more expectation.) 

We make our plans and Jesse Hunter makes his arrival (his way).

Sure, we recognized that we were not in charge.  Clayton and I disagreed with our childbirth instructor who said that we could plan most of the aspects of our baby’s birth.  We said that you really have no control.  You can make plans, but God is ultimately in control.  We were right.  Up until 38 ½ weeks, our doctor said our pregnancy was boring (normal, annoying side effects, but no complications).  We were eager to see the ultrasound, because we hadn’t seen his picture since 20 weeks.  And, when we saw the picture, the little turkey was breech (turkey = affectionate term).  I had been so convinced that he was in the right position, because I could feel his feet at the top of my belly.  What I didn’t know was that his head was apparently right next to his feet.  So, I took a 1 ½ page birth plan and tore out the paragraph that was still relevant.  I knew breech meant c-section.  Disappointed and trying to keep in the tears, I went home and researched breech births and c-sections until I was convinced that we had made the best decision for our baby (and we had).  Clayton told me that he wished I wouldn’t read about it, but I did and the tears came later.  It took me a day to soak it in and find the positives in the situation.  Hunter’s birthday was now on the calendar.  It was nice to be able to tell our friends and family when our baby would be born before it actually happened.

And apparently it was really meant to be his birthday.  The day before the c-section, I had told our doctor and his wife at church that the c-section takes the surprise element out of the whole situation.  Not quite.  My water broke at 1:45 a.m. on the day that the c-section was scheduled for 8:30 a.m.  I had 4 hours of labor and my c-section was moved up two hours.  There was my confirmation that it was meant to be Hunter’s birthday.

So, Hunter came into the world His [God’s] way and his [Hunter’s] way.