Birth Story

You may remember a couple weeks back when we asked you to pray for a very pregnant Karalee Reinke and the safe delivery of her little one. Soon after our post we heard from Karalee's husband, Tony - baby had arrived but in a rather unexpected fashion! The story was too good to pass up, so we asked Tony and Karalee if we could share it with you here. They kindly agreed. Tony and Karalee, thank you for telling us your story and congratulations on the birth of your sweet son!

Hello GirlTalk readers! By the kindness of God, we were blessed with our third child, Bunyan, born on July 16th. He is a precious little guy. I wanted to take a moment to share the circumstances of his birth and how important your prayers proved to be.

For this third delivery we decided on a home birth. Our first child was the traditional doctor/hospital delivery, our second was a midwife/hospital delivery and so I guess the natural option for the third delivery was a midwife/home delivery. As long as my wife was comfortable with the arrangements, I’d be there to fetch ice chips, encourage, photograph and announce.

Our first two children arrived late and Bunyan was no different. Almost a week after the due date, we were still waiting. On Sunday the 15th, my wife stood up from the dinner table into a puddle – the water broke! Our midwife arrived on Sunday night at about 11:00 PM to set up a few things. She stayed the night but any minor contractions tapered off and ended at 2 AM. The midwife, seeing nothing progressing and with a little one of her own, returned home Monday morning and resumed her office appointments.

At about 1:30 Monday afternoon, contractions began again and the midwife was notified. She would be soon making her way back to our house. About 2:10 the contractions became intense. Stuck in Twin City traffic, the midwife was 30 minutes away. The contractions increased in intensity and by 2:20 my wife was really working through the contractions. I got back on the phone with the midwife and said things were becoming very intense. The midwife calmly suggested we consider calling 911 and that she was on her way. After waiting so long, it is somewhat shocking to discover time has expired.

After walking down the hall from the bathtub, my wife sat down in bed and that’s when I noticed baby was about to arrive. Seeing the top of our son's head motivated me to call the midwife back ASAP, but she was still 15 minutes out. She calmly asked if I was ready to deliver my own baby? I don’t remember what I said, but my decision was irrelevant. She calmly reassured me that babies birth themselves. So with the phone held to my ear with my shoulder she walked me through what to expect. Step one was to wait until baby's head was out and make sure the cord was not around the neck. The cord was around baby’s neck and, like removing a thick necklace, I pulled it over his head. Awaiting one final contraction I looked behind me to all the oxygen equipment the midwife arranged the night before. I asked the midwife what complex surgical procedure I should prepare for next. The next and last step was simply to keep baby warm. On the next contraction, our baby was born. We covered him up and kept him warm. There was little crying, but we could tell our newborn was breathing and his color began changing from purple to red. Five minutes later the midwife arrived and took over.

As these events unfolded, our oldest son was at the neighbors and our daughter was in the next room deep in her afternoon nap. Bunyan himself slept right through his own birth. The whole experience was curiously tranquil.

Karalee and Bunyan are progressing well and we praise God for His sustaining power over the situation. And that, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story.

Ironically, two weeks earlier the midwife asked if I wanted to catch the baby. “No way,” I said. “I draw the line at cord-cutting.” Our kind God does not promise life will go as we plan, but He does promise the grace to endure. In this case you played a role in sustaining us in our husband/home delivery. Thank you, GirlTalk readers, for your prayers! They were appreciated and more necessary than we could have predicted.

Abiding in Christ’s love,

Tony
honorary midwife