Meeting My Hero at 3 a.m.
2:15 a.m. Pitch black Saturday morning. Phone is ringing. Doula-daughter on the line. A young Momma’s water broke.
Here we gooooooo!
And one of my dreams was about to be fulfilled. To share in a bonafide home birth with a modern-day midwife I’ve admired from a distance for more than a decade since I’d learned of her. A gifted, passionate, seventy-something hottie (seriously-she greeted us in full makeup and dress at 3 a.m. looking like a model from AARP Magazine) with magic hands and a lion’s heart - her impressive resume lists right around 5,000 pregnancy journeys, deliveries, and follow ups with generations of expectant mommas. Do the math. Crazy!
In the words of our United States Postal Service legendary creed - slightly adjusted by yours, truly… “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays this courageous courier from the swift completion of her appointed babes!” She’s even written a book compiling a sampling of her birth stories, and yes, I had to have my hero sign a copy for me during our many hours spent together. Hashtag fangirl. :)
This was a day filled with tender nostalgia for me, as 33 years before, almost to the very day, my firstborn son arrived. Funny enough, the labor and delivery I was attending unfolded with so many similarities to mine, and although ‘homebirth’ wasn’t on my radar screen in those early days, I was graced with an attending RN, Ginger, who previously had worked as a midwife. I’ll never forget her name as she saved me from a certain Caesarean with her intentional, courageous initiative in a crucial moment. I’ve often reflected with gratitude for her presence in our lives that day.
Watching young couples enter this new season called parenting, sobers me. For I know too much.
I know the arrival of my firstborn redefined my identity. At his birth, my mother-heart was also born and my DNA, so to speak, my ‘fundamental and distinctive characteristics and qualities’ according to Websters, changed forever. A new set of lenses came with the package and I would never see life as I’d seen it before him. (Photo: Hubby and I with our first of five sons)
It was apparent to me that this was, indeed, no . . . ordinary . . . child. Time stood still in our vast universe as I drank in the beauty of my tiny miracle. This was not another mouth to feed or a profitable tax deduction. This custom-designed creation was brimming with life, arriving at the appointed moment and poised to impact history’s timeline. He shouted his gigantic potential to the world around him! No words could describe the holy hush hanging thickly in the air all around.
You, too? Of course! For never has there been even one ordinary child born into this world. No matter what his physical condition or worldly worth, I am convinced that an inherent greatness resides within every fiber of his being. Planted in his DNA are the seeds of a world changer. His substance awaits us, his parents, to spring into action with all the resources available to us to use in seeing this potential realized.
And to this end, my prayers will be steady for this precious couple and their little one, fresh from heaven.
(Photo: My firstborn, holding his firstborn <3)
