It was a Friday morning around 8 o’clock. I had just arrived at the hospital for another routine NST (non-stress test) where they were going to monitor the baby’s heart rate and my contractions. I would walk in, sit in the recliner, have the two monitors put on my belly, and they would hand me the clicker to press every time the baby moved. She would roll over. Click. Kick to the ribs. Click. Etc. Twenty minutes of monitoring and I would be all done. By this time in the pregnancy I had been coming in twice a week for a month and they all knew my name. I had gotten used to the routine and had come to expect to get in and get out.
However, things did not go as planned. Fifteen minutes into the test, I had a huge contraction. “No big deal,” I thought. I had been having them for weeks, and the nurses knew that because they often showed up on the test. However, this time was different. It seemed to take forever to ease up. One minute passed, then two minutes. Still I thought, “Oh well, I just must be dehydrated or something, no biggie.” Finally it started to subside. During the contraction I noticed that the nurse who usually monitors from her computer on the other side of the room had come to stand next to me and was intently staring at my monitor. “ Wow! Did you feel that?” she said. I replied with a simple, “Yep” all the while I’m thinking “Doi! Do you not see the peaks on that thing???”
I had handled it pretty well I thought, but it wasn’t me that she was worried about in that moment. The baby did not handle it well. Her heart rate that had held steady in the 150s had dropped down to 60 and then dropped off completely. Everything changed in a second. They laid me back, put me on oxygen and kept moving the monitor around to find the baby’s heartbeat. Welp, I was staying. After being admitted and constantly monitored over the next several hours, the baby’s heart rate kept dropping with contractions, and I was taken back for an emergency C-section. Ironically, after being prepped, it only took 10 minutes before I was a mommy again to a PERFECT baby girl.
The day of Alathea’s birth was hectic and not what I had envisioned or planned, but that was nothing compared to the pregnancy itself. My pregnancy was nothing short of a daily struggle. I had to take it one painstaking day at a time. For starters, I was on a low carb diet for gestational diabetes, so I had to plan ahead every meal so as to not go over my carb limit (PS. Carbs are in everything! I thought I was going to starve- lol). I had to check my blood sugar four times a day by pricking my finger for my ENTIRE pregnancy. I had to give myself six injections of insulin a day. I had to receive a hormone injection at the doctor’s office once a week for 20 weeks. I had no less than three appointments a week AND…a partridge in a pear tree! Haha, just kidding, but seriously it was a lot.
So, when Alathea was born, a part of me was like, “Are you kidding me? After all that, THIS is how she is going to be born, God?” The struggle during my pregnancy and her birth was not just physical but also mental and emotional. Day by day I had to cling to truth, not always sure that I believed it. Day by day I asked, “Jesus, where are you? Why is this so hard?”
It is only in retrospect that I am now able to see that He was bringing new life, not just into our family, but He was creating new life deep in me as well. I see that:
- GOD was for me (My faith is stronger and I possess a greater endurance to weather hard things rather than being taken under).
- GOD was there (I was able to hear God’s voice and feel His presence on the operating table. What?!).
- GOD was in it (He was intentionally drawing close to me through those circumstances), and
- GOD was working it out (Alathea was born healthy and my heart was being revealed).
Like a careful surgeon, He was and is exposing my false saviors and removing my misappropriated ideals. Sometimes, although it seems like Jesus does things the hard way (hard for me anyway), I know He can be trusted. And just like I was joyfully anticipating seeing my baby at the end of that C-section, I also look forward to seeing what beautiful life will be produced in my heart and soul when He is done.
