To Shay

 To my forever favorite midwife. 

You have stood beside me and shared in the stories of all my babies in some way. 

I first met you the night before Jerusha was born. You came to meet her a couple days later because Daniel called and said “can I bring my girl friend, she loves babies and birth and stuff.” He might have predicted you’d be a midwife someday, I’m sure he claims he did..

You were supposed to attend Éowyn’s birth but were stuck at work that night; you came and met her the next day. 

You began your midwifery training with Emmitt and delivered him: our first baby together. 

You did prenatal care for Estel while you could before moving to Wisconsin to further your training. 

You were everything for Ramona and I. 

You cared for Ozella and I, even coming home from Colorado to be my delivering midwife. 

And never leaving so you could marry my brother. 

So you could have your own babies.

And now, you walk a path no mother ever chooses, your world was shattered, your dreams in pieces. 

Your calling as a midwife, set aside, a casualty left on the wayside as you await healing and brighter days. 

No one can know your grief. 

We may all share in it in our own way but no one truly knows yours. 

We too, carry a burden of loss, an emptiness, and a love that seems to have nowhere to land on this earth; but it’s not the same as yours. 

No, the depth of your sorrow is beyond us. 

The gravity of your path, incomprehensible. 

The pain we feel is worlds apart yet somehow shared. 

But you walk, clothed in grace. 

You show the world strength. 

Love. 

Life after death. 

Through you we see hope in tomorrow.  

We see light in the tunnel. 

We see silver lining around clouds. 

We see roses from the ashes. 

In your mourning we see overcoming. 

I wept in guilt as I felt my unborn baby’s movement, still alive. 

I wept in loneliness as I anticipated a birth without the joy of bringing cousins together. 

I wept in fear, mourning a labor without your support. 

And you, my forever midwife. 

You eased my soul. 

You joined my birth. 

You reached over your chasm of grief to give me strength. 

In my hardest moment of labor yours is the voice I heard. 

“You can do this Haley”. 

My friend. 

My sister. 

My midwife. 

Forever.

Shay didn’t attend my birth as a midwife, she attended to share in our joy; because of her love for our family; and it makes a statement about who she truly is that goes far beyond what my words can express. 

Forever, thank you Shay. 

Adoniram Willis - Birth Story

The most notable part of Adoniram’s birth story is that he’s a BOY! Throughout the entire pregnancy I believed I was carrying a girl. We, of course, knew there was a 50/50 chance but I was so sure, I have referred to him as ‘her’ or ‘she’ the entire time, Ramona was just as certain and would pray every night for ‘Margaret June’, so upon his arrival at 9:54, Wednesday June 19th, 2024 I was shocked to hear Wesley say “it’s a boy”. I’m not at all disappointed, someday, Lord willing, we can have our Margaret June, but for now we are pleased as can be to snuggle, love on, and bond with our third baby boy: Adoniram Willis. 

His birth story sort of begins on Tuesday the 18th. That would have been my preferred delivery date; 06/18/24, a cool mathy date. I woke up having several solid productive contractions. As the day went on I kept comparing them to past experiences; definitely real contractions but no feeling of progress and no consistency, eventually I noted it officially as prodromal labor and put it out of mind as much as possible and just carried on with life hoping that I would go to bed that night and wake up at some point having turned the corner to true labor. That time never came. By morning I accepted I had more time to wait and began my day. Throughout Wednesday morning I noticed if I sat I had nothing remotely reminiscent of labor, but as soon as I stood I’d have at least one contraction that made me think ‘no, I don’t want to do this again’ it felt like labor was imminent and all I wanted to do was sit down so it would stop. 

I was supposed to go into the office for a midwife appointment and ultrasound at 4 to check on the placenta and baby and make sure waiting for labor past the 42 week mark was still safe. I debated all morning and into the afternoon about what I should do: get up and move and turn these contractions into labor, or sit and ride it out, if it’s truly labor then I don’t believe I have to work for it, it’ll happen wether I try or not. 

Finally I decided to call the midwives and cancel, no matter what, I believed labor was coming, I’ve had enough babies to know that the contractions I was having were going to become labor sooner or later and a trip to the office wasn’t going to be necessary, slowly but surely this baby was beginning his exit. 

Shay checked in with me and recommended the Miles Circuit if I wanted to try to move things along. I decided to give it a go. I completed the circuit about 6PM and knew immediately that it had made a difference in the contractions productivity. 

I helped Wesley fix dinner and contemplated what to do. It still didn’t feel like labor, I had too much control over my contractions; if I were up moving around I knew it was labor, as soon as I sat they’d spread out and lose power, even stopping completely. 

After dinner, I walked in circles around the house having contractions on top of contractions. Wesley kept watching me, his eyes begging me to call the midwife. ‘But what if I sit down and it stalls? What if I go to bed and they go away completely?’

Finally I talked myself into making the call. I think the first words out of my mouth to Barb, one of my midwives, were “it’s probably too early but I know everyone is worried I won’t call in time, so I’m calling.” After I got off the phone I complained to Wesley that I hadn’t even had a contraction for at least fifteen minutes, I was probably having them come and would end up taking Tylenol PM, sleeping through the night, and just take castor oil in the morning to actually go into labor. 

8:00PM came with a strong hard contraction, I checked my watch, ‘would the midwife make it in time?’ another 15 minutes or so with no contraction, ‘ugh, I’ve called too soon’.

8:15 Barb and an assistant arrived. I recommended just setting up upstairs, I wanted a cervical check to confirm any possible progress that would help indicate labor and delivery being imminent. Barb said I was 7 but a stretchy 7, I could be complete in 2 minutes or 2 hours. Well, that was encouraging. I now knew that the slow lazy way I’d been laboring was effective and moving things forward so I had no motivation to try harder. The baby, however, was pretty posterior so I decided to take couple contractions on my knees leaning forward to the ground to help the baby move out of the pelvis and turn. I had a contraction or two leaning forward over my birth ball. Time to check the baby’s heart tones again, and just with those few contractions he had rolled forward, not perfectly lined up, but much better. 

I decided to stay upstairs and labor, continually debating if I wanted to stand and move around and progress more quickly or sit myself down and pretend I could quit. I felt this labor like none other. Usually I look forward to, love, and embrace my labors, but with every real contraction I had I just wanted to shake my head, say no, and call it quits; but, when you’re at home, 41 weeks 6 days pregnant and in active labor, there is no “calling it quits”. 

I took contraction after contraction, relax my jaw, lower my shoulders, shake my head back and forth, moan, cling to Wesley, hum - Great is Thy Faithfulness, the Doxology. 

My mom let me know she was going to tell Jennifer to come, I was glad, my mom thought the time was getting close, it was nice to not be the one making that decision. 

A break, how is this even labor? I could do this for hours. A contraction, crying out to the Lord through whispered fragmented prayers ‘oh Lord my God, be my strength, give me Your power’. 

A lull, was I even making progress? 

This went on and on, for maybe ten minutes that felt like an eternity to me. Telling myself I was never going to have the baby, telling myself it was coming too soon, wondering if it was coming at all, knowing it was right around the corner. 

I had a contraction sitting on my birth ball and felt kind of pushy but I was sure it was too soon to push. I let the midwives know. “I think I could push if I stood, but I don’t know if I want to.” They suggested the birth stool, okay, I’ll just take a contraction standing and see. I’m not sure anyone went to get the birth stool from the car. I think when I stood for that contraction everyone knew the end was coming. A few contractions standing, not feeling like pushing disappointed me. I had had the kids called upstairs and everyone was gathered in the hallway right outside my door, watching and waiting. I felt a little like a watched pot but I told myself ‘this is labor, this is what I want them to witness’ I let go of my anxiety over ‘calling too soon’ and relaxed in to the end of it. 

Pressure. 

Pushy. 

A wave of contraction “I can’t do it, I can’t, Wesley” wanting to curl up, hide, and remove myself from it all knowing completely and wholeheartedly that meant I was in transition and the baby would arrive in moments. 

Contraction. Was I pushing? It was all involuntary. I kept moving Wesley’s hands to my hips, lower, pushing them together, tilting my pelvis, reaching for my mom - hold on to me, hold my belly up. I don’t think I said words, instincts just take over. My water broke, I felt the baby descending but he felt too big, this was going to take too much effort. Relax and relief as a contraction faded, followed immediately by another one, involuntary pushing, a head, a body, gushing water, Wesley saying “it’s a boy!”. 

Adoniram Willis was earthside. 

Everything was perfect. Complete. 

“Haley, you’re bleeding pretty aggressively, can I give you a shot?” 

Wesley’s ‘yes’, my consent as I felt a wave of weakness. They wanted me to move to the bed but I couldn’t even lift my leg, exhaustion took over. I was moved to bed, the kids sent down to finish their movie, clean up and care for me and Adoniram began. 

In the end my bleeding persisted and a low dose of cytotec was the recommended treatment. I tried drinking my pregnancy tea, massaging my uterus, and had a placenta smoothie but my uterus didn’t care, it thought it should be done working so I resigned myself to what we knew would work, again. And again I hope that someday my body will keep working on its own, that someday I won’t need help to stop my bleeding; but the likelihood of that seems slim as I look around me at my 7 babies born in 9.25 years; whenever I choose bigger gaps, maybe I could have a more responsive uterus, but so far I haven’t decided the trade off would be worth it. 

Adoniram Willis Smith was born at 9:54 PM, on Wednesday June 19th, 2024; he weighed exactly 9 pounds, is 20.5 inches long, with a head circumference of 14.5. 

Baby Bump the Seventh’s Painting

Most readers of my extremely inactive blog know: I paint each of my babies their own painting. I usually am inspired during the pregnancy to paint a scene relevant to something I did, or enjoyed (or didn’t: Estel’s) while pregnant. 

This baby’s, baby #7’s became the hardest. 

This is long winded, heartfelt, and most likely poorly constructed as I feel this more than I have words to speak it. 

For the first time ever, I was sharing the time of pregnancy with two local sister’s (in law) on the Huffman side. I don’t know how many times I told people there would be three Huffman grand babies crawling then toddling around my mom’s for Sunday dinners, the Holidays, summer parties; there wouldn’t be fighting over holding a baby because this year we were going to have three to go around!

Were. 

I had known early on in my pregnancy that somehow I was going to figure out how to include those feelings of excitement, joy, the sharing of parenthood and childhood, into my baby’s painting: the three ‘Huffman’ cousins that were going to grow up partaking in all the same local memories and experiences.

Were. 

Shay is one of my closest people, our babies were definitely going to grow up together; swim in the pond, adventure, play backyard sports, enjoy holidays and family gatherings - Amara and my little one were going to live life side by side. 

Were. 

So when Shay, the first of my sister in law’s was due, and had little Amara, it was supposed to be the beginning of the Huffman grand babies of 2024. 

But instead Amara Kay Huffman came into this world on March 11th, at 11:14AM and left it six hours and twenty minutes later.

Wave after wave of heartbreak and mourning have crashed over me since.

In the world she left behind, the most insignificant version of change, is knowing Amara’s absence forever altered the childhood of my baby. My baby will never know what s/he has missed out on without our keeping Amara’s memory alive. And so, truly, the least of all ways her absence changed the world, is that my vision for my baby painting shifted. Now I had to embody the spirit of what I had looked forward to, along with the absence I will always feel while my baby only ever hears of it; I wanted to depict the feelings of emptiness and loneliness I carry, but also the hope and joy of our future. 

Amara’s life was not lived in vain, she may only have been here a short time, but we loved her for the 9 months Shay carried her, and for the few hours she lived, and we love her still; we remember her, we look forward to heaven where we’ll finally meet her. 

Somehow my painting had to show the life that was lived and lost, so that my baby can look at it and in some way share in the missing of Amara. 

During the first few weeks after Amara went to heaven as I drove back and forth to my mom’s, or talked on the phone, asking if anyone had heard from Daniel and Shay, ‘how are they?’ ‘did they need anything?’, in my minds eye I was always following the route to and from these places. And this painting began emerging. 

The road probably has an official name, but growing up we always called it the Bainbridge Roachdale Road, it connected our town to the next. Siblings starting going to North Put, situated on the road, sometimes we now refer to it as the School Road. Now that we live in Ladoga, still connected by the same road, you might hear me refer to it as the Road to Roachdale and I’ll likely follow it up with ”you know, the Roachdale Bainbridge road?”, never sure who refers to it as what. 

Whatever you choose to call it, in so many ways, this road is a thread that connects our lives to everywhere and everyone we love the most. 

From our house we can see it, we hop on to drive south, there’s a little old church currently being restored to be our home church building someday; we pass Mark and Josie’s; take a left and you’re at my childhood home, now Daniel and Shay’s, where we spend countless summer hours at the pond, where Amara’s grave will be; take a right and you get to my family’s 6 year old ‘new place’; keep on and you pass our very first home, now Lemuel and Mariza’s; and on past Bainbridge is Wesley’s parent’s farm. 

This road connects us all. 

In my painting it’s this road that signifies the intertwining of our families lives, of our connections, and of all the shared memories made over the years, and shared memories yet to come. Amara won’t be here to make these new memories with my baby, but my baby will always know who she is. 

And so, in many ways this painting isn’t just a painting for my baby; I painted this for Amara also. It holds love and lost memories of her, all the ways I wanted to share her life, how I dreamed of walking side by side with Shay in motherhood, all the ways I’d thought of, and many ways I’m sure I hadn’t, that I’d get to be in, witness, and share life with Amara. 

When I see this painting, I won’t only think of our baby, but I’ll also, always remember Amara, and not with only the sadness that often encompasses me when I think of her; I’ll remember her and how knitted together her family is. She may be absent from us, but her short life drew us together in joy and excitement and the memories we’re making in her absence will still include her.

My baby will know and remember Amara. 

The complete collection, so far:

Jerusha’s

Éowyn’s

Emmitt and Estel’s

Ramona’s

Ozella’s