By this time (11:30am) thirty-0ne years ago, I was a very tired, but incredibly proud mom for the first time. Six and a half hours earlier (5:12am) I had delivered an 8 lb. 15 oz. beautiful son with a full head of dark hair and his father and I were euphoric to realize what God had just given us! A son! A beautiful, perfect healthy son...now least you let the "every parent says that..." thought cross your mind, this was no ordinary situation.
We are all young and stupid as 'teenagers' - you know, that stupid age where we know everything and we are invincible to anything bad happening to us, and this thinking we will avoid any consequences from risking life and limb (Mike - life, me - limb, hold that thought). I was invincible as a college senior, totally in control of the lithe body that did gymnastics with ease. Then, in a freak moment of stupidity, a hip joint popped and then life changed. In going back in to place, the joint pinched surrounding tissue and thus began a tumor that grew to the size of a grapefruit surrounding my left ovary and compromising chances for pregnancy. Surgery eventually corrected the situation after removing the tumor, ovary, and part of the other one as medical belief was that this was caused for another reason. Needless to say, our thought of conception was not foremost in our future.
Miraculously, just six months after the corrective surgery, my husband tells me that God told him I was pregnant. Not that I don't trust my husband hearing from the Lord, but I was very skeptical, to say the least. Sure enough, this barren 'Hannah' had conceived and after an unremarkable and delightful pregnancy, was delivered of the aforementioned miracle baby boy.
My standout thoughts on those remarkable times of our son's first hours, days, and years before the arrival of his sisters, are treasures that I am sure every first time parent feels. But two stand out as I write...the departure of my mom after spending a week with us, and a quiet moment just between Chris and I.
My mother was the most together person I have ever known. To describe her as wise was to say that the Grand Canyon is big - well, yeah, duh? How did she know all this stuff and when would I ever know a fraction of what she does - about anything, but especially about babies and what all needs to be done for them? And then she just ups and leaves..."time to go home, now" and the "love you, mean it, good luck with this" was implied. I stood at the back door and watched her drive off back home to NC (we lived in West Virginia at the time), and leave me with this living breathing, pooping, crying, being that needed to be nursed seemed like every minute and that I was now responsible for. "Wait!!!!" I scream in my mind..."You forgot something!!! Take this with you! I don't know what to do with it!!! HEEELLLPPPP!!!" What have I done now? And thus, began the miracle of my becoming a mother to my son, who made it seem so easy, as I remember.
And then one precious mom-moment happened during one of our bonding times after eating, that I took his little hands in mine, looked him in the eyes, and made him promise me that he would never bring me a snake in those precious, little busy hands. He never did...at least not in the slimy, slithering, crawl on the ground kind. A few of his friends turned out to be slimy, creepy crawley snakes, but then, they showed themselves to be so to him, too.
And the years between then and now, well, from the "carrying this child around at seventeen months because he won't walk yet" to the standing at RDU airport, sending him off to the woman of his dreams who lived in the land of his dreams (which was the last time I have held him in my arms), he has not disappointed us - in anything his (then) little hands found to do until now, when his almost Boppa-sized hands are finding their way in the life Abba has already "written" the days of before any had happened.
Thirty two years have passed since the miracle that became my son, Chris, started. They have passed all too quickly, as they will when he stares into the eyes of his first "Chris" or whomever. But I can without hesitation say, "Great is Thy faithfulness; Your mercies ARE new every morning and fresh every evening!!" Thank you, Lord, for the gift of my son, because of the gift of Your Son. (P.S. And thank you, Lord, there were no snakes in his hands... ;o)
