Happy 17th Birthday to my beautiful, cute, adorable, thoughtful, kind, amazing, creative daughter - Sara! I miss her! She is in Arizona with Gabriel and Kira for the rest of the summer. She left on June 30th and will be back just a couple days before school starts August 20th for her Senior year at Lehi High. I guess she really needed a change of her environment and a place to "reset." Life has been tough for her the last couple of school years dealing with school and friends and being a teenager with a tremendous amount of empathy for the people around her. I wonder if I'm the best mom for her sometimes, but she picked me, so I'll just keep doing my best. Some young adults just seem to have a harder time passing through these years than others I guess. I'm just excited to see her emerge as the beautiful butterfly that she is, even though she's bound up in a chrystalist right now much of the time. At least that's how I see it. Although Sara is my 5th and last child, She has been one of my greatest teachers. I've learned a lot from each of my children. Sara has helped me fight for needed changes in my life starting with the day she was born. This is a harder story for me to tell, because I love her dearly and can't imaging life without her. It didn't start out that way in the beginning. Sara came into our live's during the beginnings of a great transistion in our family. My family has never been the same since. But we are all better for it. So on to her birth story as best I can remember it now.
When we found out we were pregnant with Sara it was a suprise to us. We really thought that our family was somehow complete with 3 girls and 1 boy. I had nursed Lucas exclusively for the first year of his life and he had just been starting on some solid foods eating from the table with us at his liking for about 6 months. My periods had not returned consistently and were a bit unpredictable. This was a rocky time in Jim & my life. Despite the bonding experiences we had had with each of our children, Jim seemed to need more space to himself. He had fun playing with the 4 kids, but then would withdraw into his own room. We lived in a two bedroom apartment. One bedroom was his exclusively and the other slept the 6 of us with a set of bunk beds, a crib and our full size bed. He seemed to be fine with this arrangement because it gave him his "sacred space." Although we had been married in the temple and he attended church with us each Sunday - he was not really involved in the LDS faith and found his spiritual enlightenment in other "New Age" pursuits. I felt particularly alone in raising the kids and being the responsible one in the relationship. So I was really struggling with this pregnancy and accepting the fact that I would have another child come to our family to take care of when we were already struggling.
The pregnancy went well none the less without any unusual problems and as the due date approached I felt prepared to have this blessing of another baby in our family although a little grudgingly.
I started labor late in the evening about 9 or 10 pm on Saturday July 13, 1996. We figured that since I started late in the evening, the other 4 kids would probably just sleep through most of it until the baby was born, so I didn't call anyone to attend to them. Labor was steady and lasted through the night and was strong enough to keep me awake, but I tried to just rest through them. Abby Odam, who had attended the other 4 births wasn't available this time so we had chosen a NP Midwife, Bonnie to assist us. About 7 am, we decided to call her, although we weren't sure how far things had progressed and the other kids started waking up. Jim got them breakfast and they quietly played, coming to me frequently wondering when the baby would get here. I finally had Bonnie check my cervix and at 8: 00 that morning was 8 cm dilated after almost 12 hours of labor. This was very slow progress for me in comparison to the other births, especially being a 5th. Worse for me was that it seemed like all contractions had stopped and nothing was happening. We called Susan Taylor, our friend in the ward and had the kids get dressed for church, since it was Sunday morning and church started at 9am.
In my mind I thought, "This baby has to get here before they return! Come on, baby you can't quit now. We've got to get you out here!" I also began to worry that all my negative feelings about not wanting her were beginning to effect my body and it's ability to birth. Perhaps she didn't want to even be born and was resistant? I needed Jim's help but at the same time didn't want it because I had a lot of resentment built up towards him too. After the kids left with Susan, I was able to talk with Jim frankly and let off some of my angry feelings. Apologies were spoken and it helped clear the air a little bit. Bonnie gave me a homeopathic remedy that was supposed to help the contractions and they did return more steady and strong again. I sat squatting against the couch and Jim supporting me behind me for almost an hour hoping to get things to open up completely. I began to get anxious again about wanting this baby here before the kids returned in a couple hours and had Bonnie check me again. I was at 9 cm dilated with a "lip" on one side as she described it. I wanted to push, but Bonnie wanted me to wait. We waited another 1/2 hour without any change in my cervix. Inside I was apologizing for my angry feelings towards this baby and telling her that I really did want her and that I loved her so much and just wanted to see her now. This dialog continued in my head as I asked for her forgiveness and prayed to God for forgiveness as well for being so resentful. Not only was I getting tired physically, but I was exhausted emotionally with all the negative feelings I was carrying. At the end of every contraction I was imagining all the negativity leave my body with each long breath out. Thoughts of having to go the hospital and have a C-Section to deliver this baby started crossing my mind. I asked if I could try pushing now anyway to see if we could make any more progress. As Jim held me behind, I squatted and pushed while Bonnie kept massaging and stretching me. With every contraction I pushed down as hard as I could. We did this for about 45 minutes until her head crowned. Seeing a little curl of red hair was motivation enough for me to push again a few more times until she was born. An overwhelming feeling of relief, release and joy overcame me as we saw that I had another beautiful daughter. I don't know why I did not remember sooner than this, but suddenly to my mind came an earlier dream I had had while I was pregnant with Lucas. A beautiful red-headed girl came to me and told me that her name was Sara and that I would be her mother. As I looked down at this new little baby girl I suddenly realized that this was her! (I had thought that Lucas was this girl during the last trimester of my pregnancy with him. When he was born and was a little boy after having 3 girls, we were so excited! I had completely forgotten about this dream. Perhaps my anger kept me from hearing this spirit again?!) Regardless, here she was! As intense as the anger, resentfulness and distress I had felt before, here I was totally overcome with peace, joy and forgiveness. When Susan called to check on us, I was so happy to report that the kids could come home and meet their new little sister. As we talked about names for her together as a family, it was easy for us to settle on Sara Louise. And thus she was named.
Now, there are many more stories to be told after this one, that I have alluded to above about change in our family. In hind site I can see how this transistion began with Sara's birth, but in reality it took several more years before those changes happened. I hope to get those thoughts on paper (or blog) before I forget them completely. In the meantime, I am left expressing gratitude to you Sara! Gratitude for helping to teach me about forgiveness and unconditional love through your birth. I feel that you demonstrated a tremendous amount of courage and faith in me to be your mother. I'm so grateful for that privilege! I love you so much! Thank you for your amazing patience with me! Happy Birthday Sara!
