Reuben Yates

God has blessed us with another son! Reuben Yates Manor joined our family on September 7, 2011 at 4:34pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs 8 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. He is beautiful!

God's hand was completely in this as He is in all births and I am excited to share how God showed His glory and favor to us. Both of my other children had to be induced for different reasons and I desired so much in my heart to go into labor unassisted medically. God designed birth and I knew that He could put my body into labor without medical assistance and I prayed so hard for this. Not only were Jim and I praying for this, many of our wonderful friends were praying the same thing for us. I prayed that it would bring God glory to do this. We were narrowing in on the day that a decision had to be made and I continued to pray that God would see it bring Him glory for my body to do what He designed it to do.
I had been contracting off and on for a couple of weeks. On Tuesday I noticed that they were much more frequent around 3:00, but they were no stronger than the ones I had been having for the past couple of weeks. I debated and debated but decided it was nothing to call about and went to bed around 11:00 to get a good nights sleep in my own bed before we had to decide what we should do. Praise the Lord I slept! What a beautiful thing. And I felt mostly rested when I got up in the morning and I was still having contractions. This was great! I was so excited and hoping I would be about 3cm dilated at my appointment since I had apparently been contracting all night. Rebekah came to watch the kids for my appointment and Jim and I left. On the way there the contractions started to change a little bit. Just a little bit stronger and needing a little more concentration. We checked in and they looked at me and asked if I was in labor. I said maybe but I wasn't sure. They got me back and I had to wait a few minutes for the doctor but while I was waiting the contractions felt a little stronger. Dr. Pridham came in and listened to the baby and checked my cervix. I was 6cm dilated! I was rejoicing that the Lord had given me the desire of my heart and had put my body into labor as He had designed it to do! He told me to go to check out to get a copy of my chart and head over to labor and delivery.  I had intentionally not taken my bags because I really was not expecting to be that far along and was going to go home to labor for a bit. So I called Rebekah and her mother came to watch the kids. Rebekah got all of our stuff together and took care of things at the apartment arranging childcare for the rest of the day. (A big shout out here to Rebekah, Ruth, Greg and Dawn and Nathan and Sarah! Our church body really came through for us that day on short notice. We are so blessed to be part of such a wonderful Body of Christ.)

And so my time in the hospital began. They knew I wanted a natural delivery and they completely respected that and worked with me. I had a wonderful nurse, Debbie, who loved that I had been an L&D nurse. She put me on the monitor to check the baby and gave me a saline lock. (I swear that is the WORST part of giving birth. I am still bruised from that.) Since I was going natural they allowed me to walk and drink water. I even got to have a Popsicle! The nurses at the station heard I had been an L&D nurse and talked to me about it. It was really neat for them to be excited about that and they were super nice to me. I walked for a while, spent a little time on the monitor and walked some more. I walked until I really could not stand through my contractions any more. I went back to my room and struggled through positioning as the contractions continued to grow in strength. Transition came on strong (I will add my water was still intact). It became difficult not to push but God gave me the strength to resist and hold off until my water did break. It was perfect timing, God's timing. I had a very strong contraction that broke my water. At that moment my doctor was walking by my room from a C-section and came in. I have never screamed in labor before but that day I did. All I could say was "God help me!" My wonderful husband whispered in my ear "He will." And He did. It was time to push and about 10 minutes later Reuben was born! God gave me the strength to endure and gave us a son to care for for Him. What a wonder! What a blessing! Birth is so amazing and God is so amazing.
I will admit that this was my most challenging labor. With the inductions they were so fast it was almost as if I had no time to feel anything. This one was longer, but it was in God's timing and gradual. Reuben tolerated it so well and we both did wonderfully. I also did not feel as tired afterward. Reuben fed within an hour of birth with no problem. They did not even give me pitocin after the birth and I had no complications. God is so good!

What a blessed time this was. Thanks be to God the giver of life and all good things! Thank you to all those who prayed for us during this time and those who stepped up to help us in various ways. We have been blessed beyond measure. I still marvel at all this. Why has God chosen to bless us so? Thank You, Lord for all of these undeserved blessings!