M
y first contraction woke me up at 5 a.m. I smiled and prayed it was real. I couldn’t wait to tell John so I woke him up 15 minutes later after I’d had my third. Neither of us wanted baby Graham to come on Halloween but we were both so relieved I didn’t end up having to be induced that the 31st didn’t matter so much anymore. We don’t like Halloween and Josiah had been called a Halloween baby being born on the 30th and now we literally had a kid coming on the 31st. Oh well. I told John to try and get some more sleep. I went to have my “quiet time” out in the kitchen with my coffee and the Bible.
As I made my coffee, in the still and in the quiet, I thought it felt like advent. I thought of our savior and how the world waited for His arrival. How He was born to a mother. How only she and some wise men and some shepherds knew He was coming… After making coffee, I realized I’d left my Bible in our bedroom so I grabbed Josiah’s story book Bible. I knew what page it would fall to when I picked it up. I opened. Yep. It was the page where Jesus is born.
“They had heard about this promised child and now he was here...A baby sleeping in his mother’s arms. The baby would be like that bright star shining in the star that night. A light to light up the world. Chasing away darkness. Helping people to see. And the darker the night got, the brighter the star would shine.” (Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible)
I cried. The day, this “Halloween,” redeemed for me as I awaited the birth of my son. I got out the journal I keep for Josiah and him and I wrote him a letter and I prayed that he would shine the light of Christ, that he would follow Christ as the wise men followed that star, and that he too would shine brighter as our days get darker. Unspeakable joy. He was born for such a time as this. God affirmed me so sweetly that morning.
I labored at home and, for Josiah’s sake, pretended I was just doing a weird squat dance each time I had another contraction. When the pretending got hard, we left for the hospital. I was only dilated to 3.5 when I got there which was a disappointment because I had been 6 when I arrived in labor with Josiah. But I progressed fairly quickly.
Do you guys like these details? I guess people share them in birth stories, so it must be fairly interesting to readers ...
The midwife on call that day was Jessica--John and I had prayed she would be on call when Josiah was born and she was! Again, we prayed we’d get her for Graham, and again, God answered our prayer.
I labored on the birthing ball, bouncing and swishing and swirling my hips. I did some ballet through some of the earlier contractions. I bled more than they liked so I ended up wearing a monitor around my belly for more time than was comfortable because I couldn’t bounce on the ball and hear the baby’s heartbeat at the same time. I breathed. I did my best to relax and when I felt like screaming, I told myself it would only drain my energy...that the pain would be there no matter what and that screaming wouldn’t help. So I relaxed my eyebrows and opened my palms and did my best to keep breathing. I prayed the women in the room would come to know Jesus. I listened to worship music and worshiped.
I thought so much of God.
I thought of how he “endured the cross for the joy set before him” as I endured my (much lesser pain) for the joy set before me; togetherness with my son.
I thought of how Christ loved us when all we did was give him pain! How I love Graham, enough to birth him, and he doesn’t even love me back! But just as Christ loved me and by receiving His love, I learned to love Him, so I will love Graham and he will learn to love me in return. Sometimes showing love looks like, and is, sacrifice. Death and then life; pain and then joy.
10 hours later, it came time to push. I tried not to yell, but I did. I screamed, “You created me!”It may have sounded like I was angry with God, but I was actually encouraging myself. I was reminding myself that God created me to be able to birth a baby...because I felt like I was going to die! And guess what, a nurse walked in just as I screamed that, and affirmed me by yelling back, “that’s right, honey!” Then she walked out. But I had been strengthened.
12 minutes later, he was there. 8 pounds and four ounces, Wriggling and crying and on my tummy (because just like Josiah, his cord was too short to reach my chest). “Hi baby” Because that’s all there is to say. And “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” To John and my midwife and the sweet labor and delivery nurse.
I had written birth affirmations in my prayer journal on October 1st. One of them was a verse from Psalm 138
“On the day I called, you answered me; And increased strength within me.”
When I cried out to God, “You created me!” He immediately answered me through that nurse, “that’s right, honey!” and my strength was increased. Enough. For. That. Moment. His grace was there.
The last thing I wrote that on my page of affirmations from October 1st was a prayer:
“May I yield to Your design as I give birth. May I experience every blessing along the way, know You more, and make You known even in my labor and delivery.”
How faithful is Yahweh? Ever, ever faithful.
Graham Matthew. “Gift from God.”
And I treasure these things in my heart.
