Our birth stories

I never know how to start these things and I really want to get something specific across without getting lost in details. I'm not a great writer nor am I good with grammar so please, bear with me. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

I've always wanted to be a mom. I met Jeff when he was 19 and I was 15 (almost 16). My friend at church was really interested in him and wanted to "go out" with him. They went on one date and he decided that he didn't really like her, he liked me. We dated for 2 years, we were engaged for 1 year. We got married on May 6th, 2000 in a little chapel behind the biggest baptist church in Orlando. I remember driving to Virginia, where we had our honeymoon, and having a conversation with Jeff about when we should start a family. We came to the conclusion that neither of us wanted to wait. We both loved kids and we were young and stupid so what have we got to lose.

I got pregnant about a month later. Then a week after I found out I was pregnant I began to miscarry. The doctor had endless reasons for why it happened, my job had me lifting heavy pots, Rh incompatibility, but what ever the reason it didn't change the fact that the baby was gone.

We decided to try again as soon as possible. We were successful! We got pregnant again, with a boy, and he was due a month after our first anniversary. I had a good pregnancy. I gained about 55 lbs. (which I never lost!!) probably because I craved things like hot dogs and slurpees, but things were all normal and went well until about 39 weeks. My blood pressure went really high and my doctor sent me straight to the hospital to be induced. It was a weird feeling to walk into a hospital room feeling pretty normal and know that I'm about to be in a LOT of pain. I'll never forget that feeling.

They started the pitocin drip right away and it was rough! Artificial contractions are awful, I asked for pain meds shortly there after. I don't remember much after they gave me the stadol. I also got an epidural. The nurses kept telling me,"Oh this is your first baby, you'll be in labor for 12 hours or more". I started pushing after 6 hours. Brandon Lee Milam was born about 15 minutes later. 8lbs and 4oz of cuteness. We named him after the actor Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee)who had been killed several years earlier.

About 6 weeks after Brandon's birth, we met the Cullimores. John and Yvonne Cullimore had gotten married the day before Brandon was born. John worked with Jeff at Long's Christian bookstore. We became good friends and about 5 months later we moved in together. Jeff and I had been living with my parents and the Cullimores were living in a tiny studio apartment in the back of an elderly couple's house. So, we were all anxious to do something different. I'm not sure what we were thinking, I don't think any of us could have anticipated how hard it was gonna be but we endured and made it thru 6 months of living together and then moved to Grabill IN. together. 2 months after the move we separated from the Cullimores.

During this time, Jeff and I had been trying in vain to get pregnant again. It was very frustrating to take test after test and they all turn out negative. We tried getting pregnant for about a year and then I mentioned to my doctor that we'd been having trouble getting pregnant. He suggested we try a round of fertility meds (Clomid). It worked the first month! In the midst of the coldest winter in Fort Wayne IN. since 1978, our next child entered the scene.

We moved back to Florida and back in with my parents, when I was about 6 months pregnant. I decided that with this baby I wanted to try giving birth at a birthing center instead of hospital. I felt quite dissatisfied about my hospital experience with Brandon. I hardly remember any of the details of his birth (the stadol did that) and was annoyed that my family had to leave the room when he was born. I was hoping to try a water birth.

September 15th is Jeff's birthday, I was due September 25th. I had little faith that the baby would come on his daddy's birthday, but at 4am on September 15th my water broke. I woke up basically in active labor. I got to the birthing center and tried using the tub but I couldn't handle sitting down. I stood up my entire labor, until I starting feeling like I should push. At 8am our 2nd son Noah Davis Milam came into the world. 7lbs. and 3oz. and 2 webbed toes. He was adorable! Noah means comfort or rest and Davis is a family name and it means beloved.

When Noah was around 4 months old I started looking into becoming a surrogate mother. I enjoyed being pregnant and had fast, easy labors. Not to mention, surrogate usually got about $10,000 or more for their services. I wasn't really after the money though, I really felt that I could help someone. Jeff is a good singer and songwriter, but what did I have? I knew that this was one thing that I was good at and so thought it was maybe a gift that God intended me to share. We were connected to a couple that lived about 30 mins away. They were sweet but had had some bad experiences with other surrogates so they were stand-offish. We tried in-vitro but none of the embryos took. They spent a year looking for an egg donor while I lived in limbo unable to help them and unable to have more kids of my own.

We got a call from John and Yvonne one day saying that they had found this great place in Selmer, TN where people actually act like real Christians. They told us to check out the website. Rose Creek Village was the name and at first glance I had some serious opinions. They looked like any other group of boring home-schoolers that tragically make their own clothes. Floral jumpers and beards as far as the eye could see, but they were happy. Not your normal "smile for the camera" happy, but truly joyful. That's probably the only positive thing I got from my first glance at the website. The Cullimore's are our friends, probably our only friends at this point in our life, so we drove to Selmer, TN to check out their new abode.

Well, we fell in love with the people there and thankfully they had moved on to wearing more normal attire. We moved to the village in April 2006. I was still waiting for the surrogacy to get underway and things started moving shortly after we did. I started taking the meds again to ready myself for the next in-vitro attempt. It was awful! The new meds I was on were making me crazy. I started having second thoughts, and Jeff was getting baby fever. So, we decided that we should not go through with the surrogacy. I wrote the intended parents and terminated my contract. It was very hard. They were very upset, understandably so. I don't think I'll ever forget how I hurt them, I hope they got the family they were looking for.

Once again we started trying to get pregnant with our own baby and once again I couldn't. Month after disappointing month went by with no positive results. I took herbs, herbs and more herbs and they did nothing. I finally went to the doctor. She said that the meds I took while I was a surrogate could shut down my system for 2 years! I was shocked and really ticked off. It had been about a year since I had been off those meds so I still had a year to recover. My doctor had me take Clomid (like I had with Noah).

4 rounds of Clomid later and I was living with Paul and Tipharah, a young, busy couple that had no kids yet. (We'd been in the same house together for about 2 years) They called me into their room one Sunday after a gathering. They told me that they were expecting a baby and once I got past the initial shock, I had the thought that I might also be pregnant. They left the house and I went straight over to Ariel's (my midwife) house to take a test. There alone in her bathroom I found out about the existence of our next baby. It was the only time in my life I ever sobbed for joy.

So in the village at this time, there were a lot of pregnant ladies! 8 total I believe. 4 of us were due in January within the same 2 weeks. All of us "January moms" wanted to have water births. Keep in mind that there is only one birthing tub in the village and only 2 midwives on the land. It was a great time to be pregnant though. To get to share the experience with so many of my friends, it was my favorite pregnancy thus far. Then I found out that I was finally having a girl!! I had always wanted a girl, even my boys were praying for a sister.

I was due January 19th but I thought for sure that the baby would come sooner since both of the boys were early. Well, she turned out to be very punctual. I went to bed late on the 18th and was woke up regularly with contractions, but since that had been happening for weeks, it took me a few hours to really believe it. I got up and called Ariel around 4am, I was in active labor. She came over and started setting up the tub. Now let me just interject something here, being a plumbers daughter. Our plumbing was in need of help. Our water heater was ridiculous and our septic was in desperate need of servicing. That being said, you can imagine the difficulty we had trying to quickly fill up a huge birthing tub with warm water.

My doula was Ashima, she was my biggest help with pain management. I highly recommend the use of a doula either during labor or during recovery. I had a ton of back labor, not that the baby was turned wrong necessarily, just that my back was where I felt my contractions the worse. 2 hours after my call to Ariel and I was wanting to push. The tub was ready so I got in and I personally delivered our first daughter, Karissa Malina Ariel Milam. She was very peaceful and sweet weighing in at 8lbs. 9oz. We were going to name her Isabella Ariel but that name just didn't fit her. Karissa means Long-Suffering, Malina means Peace and Ariel means Lioness of God. We suffered 2 years of waiting for her then God was faithful and brought us peace.

Karissa was born on a Monday, the next January baby was Aliyah, born on Saturday. Then Corbin on Sunday and finally Vesper on Monday. All 4 born in 8 days. Oh and just a little side note, they ended up digging up and pumping our septic tank, (which was right outside our bedroom window) the day she was born. Oh well, I had a healthy, perfect little girl so all was well.