NOTHING could prepare me for what I was about to experience. It was after 10 pm while we waited in the pre-op room. Dancing in denial of the situation with the nursing staff, sometimes in distant banter, some of which were light-hearted, my wife lay there; Her abdomen has a different shape, in the sense that I could see the outline of our baby, motionless, still forever.
While conversing with the others, and while my wife lay shaking with shock and fever due to an infection, I massaged her abdomen; the shape of the left side, the hip and the thigh of my son, perceptible. I found myself strangely aware of everything that was going on; strangely calm given that my son had passed away hours before. In fact, as I faced those endless moments I found God, there with me, giving me the strength to be real. And it wasn’t hard to be real. Despite everything, my wife was also very real, despite the fever she presented.
And, “through it all” was a hymn to us, when this period might have been rather an anathema to the enemy of God who would seek us out in heaps upon the earth; a time in which the Presence of God transcended any number of inhabitants. “All my eyes are on you…it’s alright…” were the words of a song we played twice, during the birthing process, through tears of longing for eternity and through fearful anticipation. of what was coming. us as an unprecedented experience.
I will never forget the moments before Nathaniel’s birth. It was a long cesarean delivery procedure (compared to having my previous four children born that way). The mood inside the theater was gloomy. Silence, plus Kristene DiMarco’s voice and her ethereal music. No one wanted to mention the elephant in the room. My response was to grant grace: God knows, we all needed it badly.
Every time we sensed movement in my wife’s abdomen as the surgeons manipulated the tissues, we prepared ourselves for the moment of Nathanael’s actual arrival. There seemed to be several iterations that we prepared on. The medical team was struggling to get Nathanael into a position where they could extract him. When they finally delivered him, our midwife gave me the signal. She wrapped my cradled hands in a towel. As I got up from the stool he was sitting on, I was greeted by the surgeon who delivered my son to me. As with the births of all my children, nothing could prepare me for the emotions I was feeling now. But this moment was different from the world. There was no feeling of positive pressure amid the joy of caring for the baby. There was no eye contact or interaction from the surgeon. The moment was asleep; empty of something It was an incredibly sad moment for which courage was taken.
I grabbed Nathanael with both hands, my son, each nearly 8 pounds, who was very healthy given 36 weeks and 2 days gestation, and immediately kissed him on the forehead; a kiss of longing His skin had a distinctive scent about it. He had a scowl on his face. She looked like his older brother, just asleep. I just wanted to hug him. I took it to Sarah and we both cried for a while. The operations staff went on with their work, leaving us alone. We were in no rush. We spent the first 3 hours with Nathanael, including bathing and dressing him in my wife’s delivery room.
Moments like this life and time stops. Nothing else matters. And you have the clear impression that your life has changed forever; a very surreal feeling that demands surrender. Yet strangely, he was also so happy to have met Nathanael in this way. God was good to sustain me and us when we might have been so overwhelmed with emotions that we couldn’t make the most of the moment.
Later that morning, literally just five hours later, the entire family was in attendance as Heartfelt took photos for us. It was a difficult experience for several in our family, but everyone did their best and that’s all anyone can ask for. We were very proud of our family throughout the period.
***
One thing I learned in that darkest hour,
It was definitely not me who had the power,
By faith alone I had the grace of God,
Because I obediently walked and searched for his face.
© 2015 SJ Wickham.
