God's Gracious Gift of Sophia Joelle

   It is hard to believe that 4 years (and about 5 hours) ago today I looked upon the face of my Pretty Girl for the first time!

My first real glimpse of our Pretty Girl

Oh my that face!

   Some of you may have read my son's birth story on his birthday two months ago, and today I want to share my sweet girl's birth story. Those of you who have read Eli's birth story know that it was a very difficult and traumatic experience for all of us. Aaron and I believed that we were done having children after Eli and that we would simply adopt from that point on. However, God, as he always does, knew better.

    In August of 2009 we  moved to Louisville, KY so my husband could begin seminary. It was a difficult transition, I did not get a job until February of 2010 and we were without health insurance for much of this time. While my husband and I took precautions, in January of 2010 we found out that I was pregnant for the second time.

    I wish I could say that I was filled with joy the day I took the pregnancy test, but I am sad to say I was not. We were struggling financially and I was terrified that Aaron would be mad. I was scared that we would not be able to provide for this new life. And mostly I was scared that I would experience another traumatic birth.

    My pregnancy with Sophia was anything but easy. Within just a few weeks of finding out I was pregnant, I began to have some spotting and was afraid I was having a miscarriage. I felt so guilty because I felt like I was being punished for not being happy about my pregnancy. 

    I am Rh-negative, which means my blood does not have the Rh antigen. My husband's blood does possess the Rh antigen so our children also have the Rh antigen. Since I am Rh-negative, there is a risk that when the baby's blood and my blood mix together, which often happens, my body will treat the baby as if I am allergic to the baby and create antibodies. In subsequent pregnancies, those antibodies can actually cross the placenta and attack the baby. To help keep this from happening I have to have a Rhogam shot halfway through each pregnancy and again after each baby is born. It also means that I have to have a Rhogam shot after any miscarriages.

    Because of my blood type, I had to go to the emergency room when I began spotting so they could give me the Rhogam shot in case I was miscarrying. That was a very long and lonely day. There was not much that could be done, so they gave me a shot, told me to follow up with a OB-GYN in a week, and sent me home. We spent the next week in limbo waiting to see if we were going to actually have another baby.

     However, God showed us tremendous grace and a week later I got to see my baby's heartbeat for the first time. I wish I could say that it was all smooth sailing from there, but it was not. I found out during labor that I had a lot of amniotic fluid, more than normal, and which had caused my belly to grow very quickly and to be quite large during my pregnancy. My stomach was so big that it was painful to walk around and I felt like my skin was tearing for many weeks. During my pregnancy I also had to be hospitalized because I caught a stomach bug and became severely dehydrated. 

    This pregnancy took quite a toll on my body and Aaron and I made the decision that I would have my tubes tied once Sophia was born. It was not a decision we came to lightly, and it was one that some may judge, but we knew it was the right decision for our family.

    The day Sophia was born was quite an eventful day. I started having contractions on Thursday night, but by Friday morning they had basically stopped. Friday morning Aaron and I went to run some errands because we were moving into our new house the next day, Saturday September 11th. I had a total of two contractions all morning Friday, so Aaron went to work as normal that afternoon. Not long after Aaron left for work I started having regular contractions and after an hour I called Aaron at work and told him he needed to come home.

     Around 7 pm Aaron and I headed to the hospital after I had a contraction that lasted over 2 minutes. We were admitted, I was given a wonderful epidural, and then we began the waiting game. At 2:30 a.m. I was told that it was time to push. However, I was only able to push one time before the doctor said "Stop!" We had lost Sophia's heartbeat because of the stress, so I had to sit up and wait. Thirty minutes later I attempted to push again, but the same thing happened. Over the next two hours, I would push once every 30 minutes and be told to stop. Finally, at 4:30 am I was able to push and twenty minutes later, at 4:51 am, our daughter was out in the world.

     While I held my daughter, the doctors struggled to remove my placenta. It was a very long and difficult process and I was told AFTER the fact that everyone was worried that I would have to be taken into the OR to have it removed. Aaron and I knew something was wrong throughout the entire delivery process, you could feel the tension among the medical staff, but no one really communicated anything to us.

    Finally, labor was completely done and all the doctors and nurses left the room. Aaron and my dad left around 6 am to go get a little sleep before friends would be at our apartment to help us move. It would be 8 pm, almost 16 hours later, before Aaron would actually get to hold his daughter for the first time. (The hospital where Sophia was born does Kangaroo Care, which means I held Sophia skin to skin for the first few hours after she was born. That meant Aaron was not allowed to hold her before he had to leave.)

    A few days later we brought home our beautiful baby girl and now here we are 4 years later.

4 years of Princess Sophia!

    It is hard to imagine our family without Sophia in it. I thought that our family was complete when our son was born, but God knew that we needed Sophia. Sophia is spunky and sassy and highly emotional. You never have to guess what Sophia is feeling because she will show you. Sophia is imaginative and creative and really intelligent. She balances out our family. She is our Pretty Girl and I would not trade her for anything in the world.

     As she gets older, she will want to know the story of her birth, and for a long time I struggled with what I would say to her. Would I tell her that she was unplanned or that I wasn't always happy about being pregnant? Over the years I realized that Sophia's birth story is not about me and it's not even about her, it is about a gracious and sovereign God who saw fit to make us the parents of such a precious girl. When she wants to know the story of her birth, I will tell her about how God is so good and how undeserving I was to be her mom, but God gave her to me as a gift anyway. I will tell her of how God protected her from her earliest moments and he is still protecting her today. I will tell her of how she makes our family whole and without her, parts of all of us would still be missing. I will tell her that she is loved, not only by us, but by her perfect Heavenly Father.

Happy Birthday to our Pretty Girl, our Sweet, Sassy, Crazy Princess Sophia!