The Birth Story of Ezra Ronen Chester

My newborn baby is resting on my lap as I write these words. It has been one week since his holy arrival into this world, and already I can feel the way the details of birth are receding into a place of softened memory. This was a different labor for me, and I want to write out the story so that I never forget what God has done. This is the birth story of my beautiful boy, Ezra Ronen Chester.

For multiple reasons (my age, a previous postpartum hemorrhage, and because I was quickly approaching the 42-week marker), my doctor recommended that we schedule an induction. I have had this conversation before many times, but have always had the baby just in time to avoid any intervention in previous pregnancies. But this time, despite my prayers that God would go ahead and start my labor, the morning of March 21 came, and I found myself walking into the hospital, not in labor, mentally preparing myself for a different kind of birth story.

I was 3 cm dilated when the doctor came in and broke my water. We were hopeful that, since my body had done this so many times, that procedure alone would do the trick to start my labor. I had heard so many horror stories about induction, pitocin, etc. and I wanted what I had had every other time—a natural labor without medical intervention. Even though birth is always hard and always feels life-and-death to me, without intervention, I knew what to expect, what it felt like, how to gauge where I was in labor, and I knew that when I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, it was almost over.

Randy and I settled into a morning at the hospital. We started a game of Scrabble. We walked the halls and talked to all the nurses. Randy made me laugh. We were happy the day had finally arrived that we would see this baby’s face.

I had to lie on the bed so they could monitor the baby and me. At one point, the nurses came in and said the baby’s heart rate was dipping after contractions and that they wanted to keep me in the bed a little while longer to keep an eye on those patterns. They said they were going to call the doctor. Lying in the bed, watching the heart rate drop, my mind began to imagine a different kind of birth than I had ever had before. Was there a problem? Were they going to have to do an emergency C-section? Was I going to have to start pitocin? Could I handle it, and if I couldn’t and had to get an epidural, would I be able to push this baby out without the mobility and intuition of my body? The nurses came back in and said they weren’t worried at this point, and that I could get off the bed. They wanted to monitor the baby every hour to keep watch on his heart rate.

Once I got up, I stopped worrying. I had wanted to celebrate through this birth, to be thankful and grateful and full of joy. I have spent many pregnancies afraid. Many births overwhelmed and scared. I wanted this baby to be born in a spirit of joy. Randy and I took another walk through the halls. We came back in the room and laughed and danced to Bob Marley. I thought how awesome would it be to dance this baby out.

Back on the bed. Heart rate still dipping. By this point, I was having some contractions but none of them strong enough to stop me from walking or talking. I was hoping that my labor was easily progressing and would pick up and be over quickly. But things were moving slowly. I started thinking about that emergency C-section again, and all of the stories of people who start by being induced and end up in trauma. I didn’t want this to be my story.

By this time it was afternoon. My doctor came by and asked if I wanted to go ahead and start some medicine to get my labor going. I asked what she would do (she was 36 weeks pregnant), and she said she recommended going ahead and starting with Cytotec if I didn’t want to start Pitocin. She said I should eat a good meal and then we could start the medicine. I agreed. They brought me dinner.

It was getting late. The night nurses came in. I was back on the bed, monitoring the heart rate, still dipping. The nurse checked me and I was still 3cm. A whole day of no change. Suddenly, I began to feel terrified. I was exhausted, afraid of starting medicines this late in the day after all my energy was depleted from trying to get labor started. I felt that there was no way I could possibly endure hours of intense labor that may go on all night long at the end of a day like this. I was scared that the baby was not safe inside of me. I began to imagine that a C-section would be inevitable, and that I wanted it sooner than later. I didn’t want a long, traumatic labor on top of having to be cut open. It is hard to express the terror that I felt. What scared me most was that I felt the way I usually felt when I was in transition—I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this anymore—but my labor had not even begun.

The nurses asked me what was wrong. I truly believe Randy has never seen me at such a low point in my life. I explained as best as I could that I was overwhelmed and exhausted and that I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to feel it. I didn’t want to go through with it. I said these words: I just want somebody to cut me open and take this baby out of me. (I was saying this as someone who knows nothing of the agonies of C-sections. I just could not fathom working a baby out of my body the way I had in the past and desperately wanted someone else to do that work for me.) The irony is that I was not in any pain or physical discomfort. I was laboring solely in my mind. And I was stricken with fear and dread of what might happen.

I could hear the nurses talking to me like I was a scared little child. With kindness and concern, trying to help me through something that I obviously was going to have to endure, giving me my options. They were no longer speaking to a woman who had had eight natural labors. A woman who had convictions about unnecessary medical intervention. A woman who writes about birth being holy and sacred. They were talking to a little girl.

They said they would call the doctor, and a few minutes later, came back in the room and said that she would be coming to talk to me. My doctor arrived around 9:45 p.m. I apologized that she had to come out. She said it was not a problem. She got to eat dinner and tuck her kids in bed. I started to cry.

“You miss your kids?” she asked.

“Yes. I want to go home.” I said.

She looked at me in the eyes and said a string of sentences that changed the whole world for me.

“I brought some snacks. The oatmeal cream pie is mine, but you can have whatever you want. I brought a book, and I am going to sit in this room until you deliver this baby. I am not going to cut you open. You are going to have the baby, and if you will let me start Pitocin, he will be born on March 21.”

I looked up at the clock. In two hours it would be March 22.

“Okay.” I said.

And the fear lifted.

I became a woman again. My hope revived. The nurses came back in and started the Pitocin. My doctor sat in the room and talked to us. She asked us about our story, how we met. She shared details from her own life. For an hour, I forgot I was trying to have a baby. It felt like a new friend had invited me over to her house, and I was enjoying that living conversation that comes when there is really something to say and something to learn.

About 11:00, I had the first contraction that made me pause. A couple of minutes later, the next one came. I started to sing through the contractions. (I realized three births ago that singing helps me tremendously in labor. The act of singing focuses my breath and the words give my mind something to hang onto. If I had to make an estimation, I’d say that singing takes about a 20% edge off of contractions for me. It also gives me something proactive to do instead of just waiting for the pain to pass.) I told Randy to get my playlist ready. (I put his songs on Spotify to share them with the world, but my main motivation for doing it was so I could listen to the playlist of his original songs during my labor.) I sang through Wings of a Dove, Emmanuel, The Secret Place, and then Rivers. When I got to Rivers, I felt that joy that I wanted to experience bubbling up in me. I told Randy to play that one again. The second time, I stood up and started to move around while singing and laboring. I had wanted to dance through some of this labor. I was doing it. The third time through, I started to feel that it was time to push. Rivers played about 5 more times, and finally, miraculously at 12:17 a.m., he was born.

I did not have the strength to do it. I did not have the courage to do it. I did not have the will or desire to do it. But God gave it to me. My doctor stepped in for me. It was if her voice was the voice of God to me, assuring me that He would be with me, and that it wasn’t going to last long. I rose up in a strength I did not possess on my own. I have never been more sure of that. I was at the end of myself before I ever started the hard work. But by his grace alone, this baby was born in joy and celebration, rivers of living water flowing out of my heart.

Yesterday I told Randy that after it was over I was so relieved and happy, but I had feelings almost of guilt for how faithless I had been in the hours leading up to Ezra’s birth. He looked me in the eyes and reminded me that even Jesus asked that the cup pass from him. He sweated drops of blood. He agonized in the garden before the work of the cross had begun. He knew what was going to happen, and he didn’t want to go through with it. But in the end he said, “Not my will but thine be done.” And he surrendered. Randy told me that I did the same.

I think that it is beautiful and poetic that I am sending this story out on Good Friday, holding this sweet baby in my arms. His name is Ezra Ronen, meaning the Lord is my helper, my song, my joy. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives within me.

I want to end this story with some words I wrote about birth three weeks ago. In the wake of this very different labor and delivery, I would like to share them again, because they hold new meaning to me now.

Sending love and hope and strength that rises, joy and rivers of living water,

Mackenzie

Thoughts on Birth from the Due Date of my Ninth Baby:

Birth is coming to the end of yourself. Whatever illusion of control you believe you have over your life, your mind, and your body, birth will bring you right up to the mirror and shatter it. In the final moments, you realize that the mercy of God is all there is for you. And it is enough.

Birth is a kind of baptism—a death, burial, and resurrection. It can immerse you in the mercy and love of God if you will surrender to it. New life will radiate out from your mortal body like fire on water in a sunrising sky.

Birth is an undoing. From the inside out. An unraveling. A deconstruction of all your comforts. It is an acute suffering that has a finite end fast approaching, but it will take every ounce of faith you can muster to keep your mind stayed on the coming joy.

Birth is not a test to pass. It is not a marathon to run. It is not something that measures your own greatness or strength or willpower or sanity. In the end, all that is required of you is to breathe. That is your responsibility and your greatest contribution to the process. The rest is God’s work of deliverance.

Don’t tell me I’m good at this. Don’t tell me I’m an expert by now. Don’t tell me I’ve done this so many times, this birth will be a piece of cake. Tell me God is merciful, tell me things can be better than I can even hope, tell me that God will deliver this baby and all I have to do is live and breathe and have my being in Him. Tell me God is with me. Tell me it won’t last long. Tell me that the joy will be exquisite. Tell me that I am almost done with the hardest work of my life to date. Describe the face of my two-year-old when he finally meets his baby brother and understands the stories we’ve been telling him about the baby in my belly. Tell me about his smile and his fingers reaching out. Tell me about life touching life and love breaking open and spilling out over this family like a sweet perfume. Tell me about the fragrance of heaven, the pleasure of God, the moment where we see a glimpse into eternity. A baby, straight from the secret place, still whispering of God’s love and faithfulness, of the ending of all suffering and the joy and peace and new life that is to come.

Birth is about the voice of God. He is the only one who can speak the language this baby will understand to become a key that will unlock my body and make a way for his open passage into this world. The voice of God will be my lifeline—his word my strongest hope.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth… —Psalm 29:9a

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. — Joshua 1:9

Birth is hard. But the moment it is all over is pure, exquisite, complete joy. Welling up, overflowing. This labor is about to start, but it is also almost done. All that is required of me is to breathe.

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(((Images from my birth journal)))

The song that helped me rejoice through this labor: