Our 9 Pound Bundle of Joy

(circa 1976-1977)

How did it happen? Suddenly, after obstinately refusing to have children, we now wanted a child with all our hearts. This could only be the work of a very persistent, very wise God, changing our desires to match his. But month after month we were faced with the disappointment that only a couple yearning to have children face when there are no results.

Was this some cruel joke? Why did God work so hard to bring us to this point in our lives, only to be faced with such heartache? Again, our parallel with Abraham and Sarah came to mind. God promised them a son but it took many years for that promise to be fulfilled. The wait was surely a brutal test of their faith.

Thankfully, in our case, it wasn’t years – it was nine long months. But finally, my pregnancy test came back. Yes!! I was pregnant!! What a wondrous feeling it was to know that a little person was miraculously growing inside of me. And the day that I felt that first flutter of life filled me with an indescribable joy. I made several trips to the library to check out books to learn what was happening inside of me, following Luke’s development, stage by stage. (No internet or Google in those days.)

Ultra sounds were in their infancy in those days, only used for high-risk pregnancies. Thankfully I didn’t qualify. There were no gender reveal parties. The only way to know what gender your child was would be to wait until it was born. Then the doctor would make the official announcement. We, on the other hand, knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that our baby was a boy and his name would be Luke. As my ever-expanding stomach protruded more and more, friends would sometimes bump into it and apologize: “Excuse me, Luke”. All of our friends knew this baby would be a boy and that he would be named Luke and they were beyond excited for us. After all, he was an answer to their prayers too.

This was also the period of time when allowing fathers coach their wives in labor and delivery and actually watch the birth was a newfangled idea. The prospective father had to go to classes and get a certificate of completion before being allowed into the delivery room.

And so we signed up for evening classes being offered at Orange Coast Community College. Bill passed his test with flying colors and became an official, card-carrying, certified labor and delivery coach. We were now ready to welcome Luke into the world and when the time came for him to practice his newfound skills, he proved himself to be an extremely good coach.

My pregnancy was so much fun and I felt great through most of it, developing an insatiable craving for apples cut in half and slathered with peanut butter. However, two weeks before he was born Luke decided to sit on my sciatic nerve. Walking was agony. It was then that I decided I really didn’t want to be pregnant anymore so when my labor pains began, I was cautiously grateful.

We arrived at the hospital on a Monday morning at about 6:00 am. By about 10 labor was getting pretty intense and Bill was right by my side, coaching me through every contraction. I was reminded of Hebrews 12:2b: “…for the joy set before him, he (Jesus) endured the cross…” My labor certainly wasn’t as intense as Jesus’ pain on the cross but it really did hurt. However, there was purpose in the pain; a miraculous new life was going to be produced. There was joy set before me, just like there was joy set before Jesus. That joy was my (and Jesus’) endurance.

By about 1pm the nurse told me I could begin pushing and they would call the doctor to come to the hospital. Utilizing the breathing skills acquired in our classes, I opted to wait for the doctor and, with Bill’s help, not push quite yet. Finally, the doctor arrived and they wheeled me into the delivery room and told me to push. So as the doctor began putting on her gloves, I gave it all I had. Out popped our precious, squawking 9 pound, baby boy named Luke. Thankfully the nurse was there to catch him, or he would have landed on the floor. Then the doctor made her official announcement: “You have a beautiful baby boy!” Ummm, we already knew that.

But he was really here! The answer to our prayers was here! I had never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.

I gazed at this little miracle, gently kissing his velvety bald head and later realized that the doctor was busily at work with a needle and thread, making stitches in my nether parts. I asked her how many stitches she had done and she told me she had lost count. Gee, I guess I shouldn’t have pushed that hard…?… No matter. I was enjoying my new role as a mother.

After two days in the hospital Bill proudly drove his expanded family home to begin a new life together. As much as we had learned about parenting a newborn in our classes, reality hit when we were actually doing it. No, babies don’t break. Yes, they are washable. Yes, they cry when they are hungry or need a diaper change – or sometimes for no reason at all. It’s okay. Plus, we knew that they wake up often during the night.

So when we laid Luke in his bassinet next to our bed for his first night at home, we braced ourselves to be wakened every couple of hours. However, by 5:30 the next morning I was worried. He had slept all night long! This was not supposed to happen, according to what our childbirth classes taught us. But just as I was about to wake him up, Bill stopped me. Was I crazy? A full night’s sleep was something to be very grateful for! And so we crawled back into bed, and enjoyed another hour of sleep.

I know that women, after giving birth, have hormone issues. Maybe it was my off-kilter hormones, but the weeks following Luke’s birth were so precious to me. Every time I looked at him or held him in my arms, tears would stream down my face. No, they weren’t tears of sadness, but of indescribable joy and gratitude. And a song would rise from the depths of my heart, out of Psalm 116:12-13: “What shall I give unto the Lord, for all he’s done for me. I’ll take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.”

And I prayed that back to God. Luke wasn’t our doing. He was the result of a deep working of God in two obstinate hearts to transform them into oneness with God’s heart. How foolish we had been and how grateful that God, in his wisdom (and persistence), turned us around.

Life, thankfully, would never be the same – but we could never imagine the wild ride Luke would take us on for the next 20+ years. However, five weeks after he was born we underwent the biggest test of our faith we had ever been faced with. (Stay tuned…)