Levi was due on March 9th. I had previously decided I would not just induce on my due date primarily because I felt weird about potentially picking his birth and death day, but also because I knew I had a history (Seth) of induction methods not working on me. But lo, labor did not start on it's own as we had been warned might happen. I was 42 weeks and 1 day when I went in to be induced.
With a healthy baby I would have done this as well purely because the chance of still birth increase significantly after 42 weeks. Two days and fully loaded with drugs I went home with no baby and definitely not in labor. We re-scheduled for a couple days later with the hopes that the drugs would kick start labor. No such luck. We went back in knowing that we were staying until Levi was out as I was 43 weeks at that point. Two more rounds of induction and I was 2 cm dilated. nice. We really didn't want a C-Section for the obvious reasons, but also because bonding time with a baby that may only live a couple minutes is hindered... I would be in surgery still and unable to hold him for at least 20 minutes while I am sewn back up. A serious sort of problem when that might be their entire life! None the less, our doctor offered his last idea to get me into labor and it was breaking the water. We had written in our birth plan that we did not want to break my water because it significantly reduces anencephalic babies chance of surviving childbirth. We wouldn't take that risk with our other children, and we weren't going to take the risk with Levi. We decided to do a c-section knowing it was not ideal, but neither were our other options. My husband made the final call to do it with the reasoning that this will help us heal after Levi is gone. We knew his condition and also knew that we didn't want to always look back on this time and wonder, "what if we had just done this or that?" At least now if he is still born or lives only seconds we could say we felt like we did all we could. We look back knowing that this was always God's plan for Levi, and I'm so thankful.
Levi Jachin Hicks was born March 31st 2009 at 5:30 pm and was baptized in the operating room moments later. We don't believe that baptism saves you, but we do believe that God promised us our children. We baptize in faith, putting the Lord's mark on them so that he will remember his covenant he made with us. Just as the Lord places the rainbow in the sky after it rains
so he will remember the promise he made to not flood the earth again. Levi was a baby who would never "understand" his faith. He would never be able to "discern the body" as most churches require of their communicant members. But yet the Bible states that
he too is an heir to all of God's covenants promised to his children... so now what? :)
Read these
books.
Anywho...
He weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. 18.5 inches long
He was covered in vernix, which none of my previous 3 had any of this goo, so I was confused what it was! But here is a nice gooey picture for you... very fresh out of the oven!
Proud Papa
Meeting the Fam
More to come!
