The story of a long labor with a quick ascension!
For most of 2020, I remained thankful I was not pregnant with a pandemic baby after watching parents go through the hard times of birthing and parenting a newborn during this time.
As things began to go crazy in my life, I cried to my family around the table labor day weekend that I MUST be pregnant because at the beginning of each pregnancy Satan feels he must test me…
Labor Day morning I took the test… HELLO SURPRISE BABY!
As the news set in, we became more and more excited to welcome my fourth baby into this world. We simply couldn’t believe we had been blessed again. We decided we would make this baby an all around surprise.
We did not find out gender. This was hard! We had a hard time naming Sterling because I wanted to call him SOMETHING besides “baby”. So, I set out on the search for the perfect gender neutral name and fell upon Sterling and Lior. I put them together and loved it. Micah, not so much…
Later we came across the name Holland and loved it. Only to discover that was the middle name of Micah’s Grandfather. So we decided that our baby would have Holland in their name one way or another.
Fast forward to May 9, we decided to stay in La Crosse for the night in hopes baby would naturally come on his Due Date the next day. We entered labor and delivery at noon on May 10, with intense contractions but no cervical change. 5 hours later, I would be 7cm and close to delivering. These long drawn out hours felt forever to a mother who had never labored longer than 4hrs total from start of labor to baby on chest.
Finally, my water was broke and it quickly became time. I felt like I couldn’t do it again. There was so much pressure. I grasped the edge of the bed as fluid and blood poured out and the back labor intensified.
The delivering OB attempted counter pressure to relieve some of my pain and once again offered medical relief which I refused. I asked her, angerly, to please remove her hands from my back as it was not helping. Micah, on the sofa, watching the Bucks game: laughed!
Why would he laugh? Well, because he had been through this with me before and thought the nurses probably felt he was a dead beat; but he knew better than to try to touch me or help in anyway until it was time to push and catch baby.
Now at 2100, it was time to push! It felt impossible, I was tired. I had been up since 0300 with intense pressure and contractions. My body felt like I couldn’t do anymore. But I took in the deepest breath I’ve ever taken, buckled down and PUSHED with every thing I had left. Baby crowned. Next push: little did I know, baby’s head was out. I remember telling everyone in the room I was done. I had no more to give.. The OB said “I see face and head, we wanna meet the rest of this baby!”. So, ONE MORE TIME, I grabbed my calves, took a deep breath when the next contraction rolled in and pushed as blood vessels in my face and eyes broke, my body shook in defeat… Finally, Micah placed that sweet baby on my chest. My eyes were fluttering and twitching, I was bleeding more than normal. Concern filled the room but all I cared about was this sweet baby I was holding.
He was purple and staff was rushing to us, I jiggled baby just a little and he breathed in his very first breath of life. He cried, we cried. I lay there holding him for a matter of minutes as Micah watched over us in awe. We studied his face and kissed him endlessly. Then, the most miraculous thing occurred: OB says “DAD! Aren’t you going to look and see what baby is!?”
We looked at each other lovingly and glanced down between his legs. A BOY! Daddy was given another precious boy on his birthday!
This moment will forever be locked in my brain and heart. We loved this baby so much, we were so deep in awe and affection that we never even thought to inspect what gender baby we had. It didn’t matter. It never mattered. We loved “baby” so much.
He was my biggest baby so far weighing in at over 8 pounds! I was monitored closely until the bleeding stopped, luckily on it’s own without any kind of medical intervention. We were all moved to the post delivery suite where our still nameless baby let me sleep for an entire SIX HOURS. We woke up the next morning refreshed and still in awe of what we had been blessed with. We debated naming him Micah after being born on his Dad’s birthday, looking just like him, more than any of our other kids.
Ultimately, we decided on Sterling Holland Wilson. Beautiful!
Taking him home the next day and introducing him to our older babies was so refreshing, I had never been away from them for so long. I missed them terribly and was so glad to be home with them.
We have loved Sterling everyday since.
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