Good to Me

My pregnancy with Jonah felt like one big, fat, literal metaphor. I know this is senseless. But I don't care. It feels accurate.

Me--with my healthy baby crushing my almost thirty-year old organs, pushing and kicking and ALL THAT PRESSURE and finally forcing his way out over seven hours, but really, over thirty-nine weeks of changing my body, loosening my joints, finding his way down and out. "All of creation groans..." including me.

This pregnancy was so hard physically. Not comparatively. Not like my friend who gets IVs because she can't retain fluids, or my neighbor who is sick from beginning until end. But hard in its own right, I suppose. Hard because pain is relative and because I had a two- and a four-year old and because I positively wilt under the mere threat of illness.

Advent would be such a better time to be pregnant. (Not just for symbolic reasons. Also, it's colder.) But since we are almost always in an advent of our own--hoping for something. And always communally awaiting the restoration of all things, I suppose the heat of the summer is just as good a time. (If more woeful.)

I jest. But this pregnancy brought with it a lot more emotions, a lot more anxiety, which I expected since it was on the heels of a miscarriage. But it seemed my hormones were extra wide in their expanse, my body was every day screaming that it was tired, that this fourth pregnancy in four year's time was too much, that I would crumple or shatter under the weight of it all. I had a lot of fear towards the end. I couldn't picture delivery ending well. I had very serious doubts of whether I would live. I didn't see how my body could endure another birth. I felt suspended, in limbo, awaiting something that would set me free... or maybe destroy me from the sheer trauma of it all.

I lived in the midst of this song. I sang it, I prayed it, I felt it every morning and every evening, usually with tears.

And I held an answer close to my heart. Another song that I sang as a prayer. That I put out there, hoping God to make the words real to me. Trusting and trying to trust. Real hope that whatever happened would be okay. Because He is good to me. I listened to it repetitiously in the last few weeks. I sang it in the shower in the early hours of labor, when I could still breathe, form coherent thoughts. I listened to it as I put the last few things in my bag--my phone charger, the makeup I would never wear.

I forgot it when we got to the hospital and the pain overwhelmed and I begged for the epidural and I knew it was too late. I really forgot it when I got the Stadol and I tried to climb the rail of my bed and accidentally ripped out my IV and my water broke all over the bathroom floor and I wouldn't open my eyes because I thought I'd see blood and a baby on the cold, hard tile. Who can think anything when they're screaming?

I couldn't remember it when Karis told me to pant, that the doctor was on her way, and I grabbed her arm and said, in what could only be described as melodrama, "Karis, you are going to have to deliver this baby."  I forgot everything in the moment except for the pain and the need for relief.

But that's something of a truth itself.

Then the doctor was there. And then Jonah was there! And I was incredulous.

Is it really over? Did we really do it? Is he really here? Is everything really okay?

There was a flurry of activity that made me worry. I lift my head. "Is he okay??" I ask. "Am I hemorrhaging?"

Turns out they just had to administer all the drugs that would normally have been given intravenously.

I look at Seth. "We really did it," I smile. I am still kind of high from the Stadol. I'm really focused on the fact that the TV is on. That Law and Order is playing. Why? I notice a man in the room amidst all the other nurses. His name tag says "Dan." I wonder why on earth he is there. Wasn't he the orderly who wheeled me in? I feel a little confused. But I come down pretty quickly.

In time to hold my perfectly healthy baby. Jonah, the only one that gave me no scares during delivery, no talk of a Cesarean. The only one without a lot of tests as a newborn--understanding a birth defect or an irregular heartbeat. All three boys are healthy, but the first two gave us questions. Jonah came ready to be cuddled.

And God is good. And He isn't good because Jonah is healthy or because I survived.

God is good anyway.

And we are so grateful for our healthy children.

I felt such relief. I can't properly describe it. I could not fathom that we were on the other side of things. I kept saying, "We did it!" in order to make myself believe it. And, "It's over!"

And when were settled in our recovery room, hours later, I played that song, Good to Me. And I sing it every day to Jonah to get him to sleep.

Asher asked me yesterday, "Sing that song to Jonah that always makes him be quiet."

So I did. I hope that it takes root in all our hearts.



*Special thanks to Andy whose song choices on Sunday mornings, gave me these prayers.