Tim had a birthday yesterday.  When I think about what makes him so amazing – even on a regular basis, but more so when life seems to be in a bit of upheaval – I most often think of his servant’s heart.  This heart that enables him to look past himself to see what someone else’s needs are and then give all of himself to meet that need.

Obviously, I see it most clearly in how he serves me and our family – sacrificing sleep, personal comfort, his own [long] project list, and so much more, so that we are taken care of.  But, I see it everywhere else, too.  With extended family, with neighbors, with coworkers, with anyone that ever asks anything of him…or, really, with anyone that he sees in need…he will lay aside his preferences and go out of his way to make life easier for them.

And it’s not out of obligation (though, he might sometimes assert that it is), but rather, any time his desire to help someone is challenged (I know from personal experience), his response never has anything to do with himself, but is always based on what is best for the other person.  Even if someone has hurt him, or been selfish, or disregarded his help in the past, his response doesn’t change.

Though he will say that he’s not a compassionate person, I can’t say that I’ve known anyone with more genuine compassion than my husband.  It is a joy, and often a source of conviction, to walk beside him and see the outworking of this in our lives.  I am so thankful for him.

The night before Isabelle was born, I had a dream.  I don’t usually apply any significance to dreams.  I don’t usually even remember any dreams to which I could apply significance even if I wanted to.  But, that night, my dream stuck with me, and seemed to have a point.

I dreamed that I was being chased by someone or something that really terrified me.  And then I got away, or thought I had.  And then I was surrounded by people pointing guns at me…caught by whatever/whoever it was that had me so scared.  And as I stood, defenseless, the only thing I knew to do – felt I had to do – was surrender…not to those that had me surrounded, but to the Lord…and trust that He was still in control.  So, I did.  In my dream, I said “not my will, Lord, but Yours be done”…resignedly, I think.  But, there was peace.  And after saying it, inexplicably, this enemy that was surrounding me lowered their weapons and walked away.

To a normal person, this might not sound like it has anything to do with birth, but my first thought upon remembering the dream when I awoke, was of the last time I really felt the Lord tell me I needed to surrender.  That time was right before I went into labor with Bethany, when I was so, so scared of having another cesarean.  And I surrendered, went into labor, and ended up with the cesarean that I feared.

So, as I went through the next day, this dream was stuck in my remembrance.  I thought about how, for the past ten years, I have been doing everything possible to avoid facing another cesarean.  I thought about how I finally felt like, maybe, cesarean was no longer anything more than a remote possibility.  Through the contractions, and the bleeding, and the hospital, and the eventual cesarean, I felt some level of certainty of how it was going to end.

But I didn’t understand why.

I don’t understand why.

While there is comfort on some level in knowing that God knew the end from the beginning of this situation, on the flip side, that knowledge has also been a sharp blow to my already weakened faith.  I acknowledge that the cesarean was the only reasonable response to the placental abruption, but why, in His omnipotence, did God think it right and good for the problem to arise in the first place?  I was desperately hoping and praying for an easy delivery.  As much as it might sound shallow and weak, I needed that prayer to be answered.  I needed a reason to believe in God’s goodness and faithfulness again.  Prior to the birth, I had already lost pretty much every bit of trust in Him.  I thought maybe some could be restored, though, by a simple reminder that this part of my life – this birth – that had caused me an inordinate amount of fear throughout the pregnancy and which represented a lot of past hurt and disappointment, mattered to Him.  But instead, I got almost the exact opposite of what I prayed for.

I’m sure many people would point out that all of this reveals some gigantic flaw in my theology…and honestly, I’m really, really trying to figure out what that might be…but I have yet to hear a legitimate correction…or, at least, one that doesn’t hinge on the presupposition that God’s ways are always good.  When that belief falters, what is there to build it back up?  Why has God been only silent during these past several months when I have wanted more than anything to see His face and hear His voice?  My faith can’t shrink much more before it disappears altogether.

There are a lot of different perspectives that I have had concerning Isabelle’s birth.  Some – like the fact that we have a beautiful, healthy, precious daughter – are pure joy to my heart.  Others, though?  Not so much.  For now, I will try to focus mostly on the former, and maybe down the road, I will be able to adequately communicate the latter.

This birth story starts out fairly innocuously.  Thursday night, May 15, I started feeling some cramping…not contractions yet, but previous pregnancies had taught me that this cramping usually meant real labor was only a day or two away.  About 4am on Friday, I felt my first “real” contraction.  It wasn’t long or painful, but I took note nonetheless.  Over the course of the next few hours, there were 7 or 8 more, so I emailed my midwife just to say that labor was likely to happen sooner rather than later, but my expectation was that I still had a while.  We went about our day as usual.  Tim’s plan was to do a shopping run to Massena that afternoon, and though we debated briefly whether or not he should go, it was fairly easily decided that nothing of any significance was going to happen that afternoon, so he went.

At 2:30, though, as I was baking cookies for the kids’ Academy Night, I felt something leaking.  I thought maybe it was a small leak of amniotic fluid, but when I got to the bathroom, I discovered that it was blood, and not a small amount.  I panicked, a little.  I called Tim, he didn’t answer.  I called my midwife, she said she would call back in 15 minutes to see if the bleeding had continued.  I struggled to discern whether the blood was “bright red” or “dark red”.  I bled some more.  I called Tim, he answered, and I told him to leave his almost completely full shopping cart and come home now.  The midwife called and told me to head to the hospital, and said she would be on her way shortly.  It was 3pm.  Tim got home in about 20 minutes, I think.  He was (understandably) frazzled.  After making sure his mom had whatever info she needed to run the household for the evening/night, we left for the hospital.

By this point, I didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.  We got checked in at the hospital and taken to labor and delivery.  While I had waited for Tim to get home, I  had tried to figure out what might be causing the bleeding…the most likely options being placenta previa (where the placenta covers the cervix) and placental abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall)…so I was trying to prepare myself for the advice I felt sure was inevitable, but I was also praying desperately for wisdom and clarity.  I absolutely did not want to get stuck on a slippery slope that led to another c-section without good reason.  The first couple hours were spent getting an ultrasound and a non-stress test.  The baby’s heart rate seemed fine (or so we were told at this point), and the ultrasound showed low amniotic fluid, but the placenta was high, which ruled out previa…however, it was mostly behind the baby, so it wasn’t possible to tell if there was an abruption.  We hadn’t yet seen the doctor, but he went ahead and order some bloodwork (which was supposed to help determine if there was internal bleeding happening) and a test to determine if there was any amniotic fluid present near the cervix.  Eventually, (before any test results were back) the doctor came by and said his working diagnosis was an abruption and that his recommendation was cesarean.  Since his diagnosis was, at this point, based on next to nothing, we insisted that we wanted something more concrete to base our decision on.  He then told us that he wasn’t happy with the variability in the baby’s heart rate (never mind that the nurse had previously said it looked great), but when pressed, couldn’t/wouldn’t tell us exactly why.  It was at this time that the results came back which indicated that my water had broken (I think probably just a slow leak), which explained the low fluid on the ultrasound.  The doctor decided to order a biophysical profile (BPP), which would apparently give a better idea of how the baby was tolerating life inside the womb.  The BPP was a timed ultrasound where the tech measured movement, muscle tone, fluid levels and breathing “movements”.  Movement and muscle tone were fine, fluid was low – but for an obvious reason, however, there apparently weren’t enough breathing movements (when the baby mimics the breathing action, though it actually serves no useful purpose in the womb), so the overall score for the BPP was low.  Once again, explanations were not given that could explain why it mattered if the baby was mimicking breathing, we were just told that it wasn’t good.  During the ultrasound for the BPP, another attempt was made to view the placenta.  This time, it was more visible, and it was determined that there was a clot on the placenta, which apparently equated to a partial abruption.  After learning this, the OB was pretty set on doing a cesarean.  If the BPP had not been low, there may have been the chance that he would have approved a transfer to another hospital…if there were one willing to let me labor.  But, as it was, he would not approve a transfer.  My midwife (who arrived around 9pm) at this point was convinced the birth needed to happen in a hospital, so we were left with the option of having a cesarean, or – in the unlikely event that there were any hospitals within a few hours that would have even considered a trial of labor – leaving the hospital against medical advice, while in labor (contractions were pretty consistently about 10 minutes apart at this point), and risk the possibility of a full abruption while making the hours long trip to another hospital.  In other words, there really was no option.  And as much as I did not want another cesarean, I was thankful that the choice was made clear for us.  We agreed to the cesarean.

There was a lot more in the way of thoughts and feelings that came up before, during, and after the cesarean, but of greatest importance was that at 11:41pm, Isabelle Sophia arrived (though nameless for more than 24 hours).  She was our smallest baby yet, at a slight 7lbs, 10.6oz, and 20.5 inches long.  She was healthy and strong.  While I couldn’t hold her until an hour or so after her birth, when finally given the chance, she nursed easily and often.  I am thankful for that.  I am thankful for her.  I am thankful that she’s here and doing wonderfully well.  She is a priceless gift and whatever the “cost” to ensure her safe arrival was more than worth it.

Fourteen years of sharing life with my best friend

Fourteen years of falling asleep beside him, every night.

Fourteen years of learning, and then being reminded over and over again, just how much strength and love and grace there is in my husband.

Fourteen years of long conversations about everything and nothing and lots of things in between.

Fourteen years of work and babies and sleepless nights and hard decisions.

Fourteen years of house projects and learning to cook and learning to garden and figuring out what we can live with and what we should live without.

Fourteen years of never going to bed angry.

Fourteen years of growing a family and everything that comes with it.

Fourteen years of coming to grips with imperfection, in myself and in him, and realizing that imperfection in loving doesn’t mean absence of love.

Fourteen years of leaning heavily on him and becoming increasingly aware of how much of a “weaker vessel” I am.

Fourteen years of, almost daily, wondering how in the world I could be so blessed that he thinks I’m someone worth loving.

Fourteen years with a husband who I am thankful for beyond words.