Today my youngest son turns six. For six years now, this day has overflowed with graces for my family. During my pregnancy with Luke, I said countless times how perfect it would be to go into labor on my due date -- on a Thursday, when my husband only worked in the morning, when he (who is self-employed) would be able to stay with us through the weekend without missing too much work. Perhaps that was a silly thing to worry about, but with our second child (also a son), my husband had gone back to work pretty much the day after we came home from the hospital, and I didn't want to repeat that exhausting experience. I just wanted some time to be together as a family.
So, when I went into labor the morning of my due date (did I mention the part of my fantasy that included getting a good night's sleep and then waking up and starting labor?), I couldn't believe God was granting my wish to the letter! Nearly every woman wishes for a perfectly timed, natural labor, but who actually gets it?
The day proceeded with my husband going into work for a while, then taking me to see my midwife, who instructed us to find a mall near the hospital (which was about an hour from our home), and to spend the day walking, and encouraging labor to progress some more. She suspected she would meet us at the birth center that evening , perhaps break my water, and we would have a new baby!
Once again, things went pretty much according to plan. We had even been able to wait for my two sisters-in-law to arrive, one from work and one from the other side of our state. Oh, I did have an onset of nearly paralysing fear when it came time for her to break my water. I remembered how impossibly painful everything had become at that point with my other deliveries, and I wasn't sure I wanted to voluntarily put myself in that position again. But eventually, I did. And around 9 o'clock that evening, we delivered a baby. A son.
But that was where having everything match up to my perfect plan (which, honestly, I never expected to actually happen!) stopped.
Our son was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate.
I can tell you what that means now -- special feeding, surgeries, speech therapy, physical therapy, and an amazingly wonderful, sweet-hearted boy who makes you forget there was ever anything considered "wrong" with him. At the time, I had no idea what this meant for my son's future. When I tell people about Luke's cleft now, they tend to say, "Oh, well, at least that's fixable." (Which is and isn't true.) At the time, I had no idea whether it was, or how other parts of his body or mind may have been affected. I knew nothing about what I was seeing and what it meant for our future -- for his future. Suddenly a huge question mark loomed ahead of us.
All of this filled my head in the instant I first caught sight of my son through my legs in the moment after I delivered him. At that exact same instant, something also flooded my heart.
Love.
After I saw my son, I noticed the delivery room became quiet. We'd had no idea about Luke's cleft ahead of time, so everyone, our moms, my husband's sisters, the nurses, my midwife, they all took a collective breath. With the next breath, my midwife leaned up to me and said, in such a compassionate voice, "Heather, your son has a cleft."
And my voice broke out in a sob that broke the silence, so unnatural in a delivery room, "I know! I don't care! I love him! I just want to hold my baby!"
And with a smile, she handed him to me, and that's just what I did.
I held that baby, and I smiled at that baby, and I cooed at that baby, and I loved that baby.
I will always count those moments among God's greatest gifts to me. I could have been filled with fear. I could have been filled with uncertainty. I could have been filled with anger. Surely any of these emotions could have filled our delivery room that evening. But instead, God's grace showered upon us and flooded us in its warmth and peace and love. The uncertainty that was there -- for we still had no idea what this meant for our son, practically speaking -- was kept in check by the peace of knowing God was walking, and would continue to walk, with us through our son's journey. That peace was a gift that continues to overwhelm me whenever I remember it.
There was additional heartbreak with Luke's birth. I was not allowed to even attempt to nurse him (as it turned out, he was incapable of nursing). One difficulty with him being born in the evening is that the doctors who perhaps would have told everyone it was OK to go ahead and feed this poor child, because he wouldn't need any immediate surgery, had already gone home. So after we'd held him, not nearly as long as we wanted to, they took our new son to the NICU and gave him fluids through an IV while he wailed and wailed at his empty tummy, his inability to suckle, and his not being held -- along with filling diapers, the only things a new baby really wants or needs.
Back in our room, my husband and I passed our mostly sleepless night thinking of names for our new son. It's funny, the two things that happened, I think to both of us, as we first looked at our son and fell head-over-heels in love.
One, we remembered an experience I'd had in adoration just a week or so before. I had been so afraid of how I would handle life with three children. I grew up with one younger brother and, although I'd always had an affinity for babies and children, I'd had no real experience with them. That afternoon, though, I felt like God spoke to me: "Thank you for being open to this life. Everything is going to be OK."
I felt humbled and amazed by the experience, and a peace filled me. When I got home I told my husband about it, and then I added a sidenote -- which turned out to be much more than a mere sidenote -- "But of course, God's OK can be quite different from our OK."
When we saw Luke, my husband and I both knew this was the reason God had granted us that reassurance. He wanted us to know He would be with us, through whatever the future held for our son.
There was grace. There was peace.
Although less profound, the other thing we knew was that neither of the boys' names we had picked out were quite right for this son. I think there actually was a moment where we both looked at each other and said, "We need a new name!"
So that's what we did as we woke up repeatedly from our fitful sleep that night. We thought of names. And when we finally came upon Luke Patrick, we just knew it was right.
Patrick, to honor my husband's grandfather and to invoke St. Patrick.
And Luke, because St. Luke was a doctor, and it seemed our dear son could benefit from an intercessor with experience in that area! In reading the baby name book, we also saw Luke's Latin origins mean "Light."
And we knew, even then, that this precious, new child would bring much light to our lives. He already had begun to fill our hearts with so much light!
And, in the six years since, he has continued to do so, every day!
I love you, Luke Patrick! Happy birthday!
Today we will head off to a nearby Lego store, since Luke is fascinated with all things Lego and Star Wars. Then, to Red Robin for dinner, where I'm certain he will order "a hamburger with salad (really just a piece of lettuce) and a pickle!" And I will delight in watching his joy!
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