Today I linger between the comfortable folds of my sheets; my baby three lies in peace beside me. The girls have being whisked away by their father for an afternoon date. He winked to me as he left, have fun and don’t sweep the floor! And so I won’t, I will write. My thoughts of the week have been given over to the miracle that has unfolded before my eyes deepening through my heart. It all started at midnight… wild contractions woke me with vengeance! I groped for Roger begging him to help me out of bed. He found the light, his clock, and me. They were a minute apart, so close I thought we would never make it. He rushed and I focused on staying calm. The girls were in the car, we called my cousin to meet us at the hospital to pick them up. Davina serenaded me from her car seat, her excited voice singing ‘it’s a small world,’ during the fifty-minute drive the song did not pause. Because of that song I knew I had time before the baby came, the song was too vivid for me to be going through transition. The contractions were coming now in increments of thirty-seconds apart. But I could still focus on the starry night sky and Davina’s song. Roger started to worry, I told him we had time.

We got to the hospital. They were close together and I thought I was well on my way. With the introduction to my nurse and the I.V I needed, I could literally feel my body urtching to a stressful stop. I searched Rogers eye’s sadly trying to tell him things were slowing down. For the next three hours my body lulled between a decision to go ahead or go home, discouragement met me in the halls of the hospital. This was not like my body, well-prepared in mind and body to do this strong and valiantly! The girls were born in moments. Roger walked and talked with me speaking sweet words of reassurance, “rest my dear,” was his advice, “if by dawn the boy has not come we will take the girls for breakfast”. And so I slept. And then I woke with my familiar birthing body. I asked for privacy for Roger and I, knowing my body needed its place…alone…to work this birth. Within minutes I was being taken to that place of total concentration. I whispered the words, “God has and will give me the strength”. When it got intense I pictured God and his strength, somewhere I saw clouds, majestic. The truth is this birth felt more like death, I was out of body. I could completely sense my body wondering if it had the strength to get through. It happened fast and I found myself pushing. Everyone rushed from different places. There seemed to be too many people for my comfort. I said to Roger like I always do at a certain moment, that I could not carry on, and he answered as he always does ‘but the head is here’. And then he was born. And I cried a tearless cry. Here my son and I meet, skin to skin heart to heart.

I wondered if it was over, all the concerns, all the worries, all the thoughts, was it over? Has my son arrived? Is he well? Did we make it the two of us? And then I looked into the father of a new son’s eyes and we rejoiced wordless together. God had brought us through, placing each trepid step on the right path. He had knit Roger and I together again through the life of a soul. His name spoken first by his father, christening him Lachlan Stanley, a name we both dreamed would mark a son of ours. We spent time searching him over, finding every perfect little part of him. He looked like his oldest sister, smiles like his mama’s family, has his daddies’ fine looks. We thanked the Father, the God who thought we were able.

Alone in my room remembering the details. I wondered why this labour was seven hours? So long for me, I felt again my discouragement in the slow moments of the night before. What had I done differently? I did not want to view this pregnancy journey negatively. I wanted joy of this womanly ability to linger over me as it had in my past. I wanted this birth to be like my others, glory moments, medals of my courage, my most daring moments. I asked my God to bring me peace. And then I saw motherhood, so different for each mother, a journey with her child, exposed before the heavens. God shapes us as we give ourselves to the power of Motherhood. My soul needed the cultivation of leaning more on the Spirit. I need more of Heaven to fill me before this child came. I, like always, need more patience. God knows and gives us the gifts we truly need. And so I saw again in the birth of my child, Gods hand upon me. Heavenly perfection. Then I cried, again, with tears full of motherly joy…