In June we were packing up our family and lives in Africa to come back to America for a year. With two small kids and me being six month pregnant, Steven and I still thought it would be worth the effort to stop in Paris for a layover and do a couple Frenchy things like eat a croissant and see the Eiffel Tower. It’s a “perk” of the job I tell myself—every flight path inevitably goes through Europe. We booked tickets that took us through Paris and then onto America.
After booking everything we hit a snag—Farrah’s passport was set to expire in September and apparently France requires three months of validity left on a US passport before giving a visa to visit their country. She only had two months left before she needed to renew hers.
(I'm getting to the birth, I promise…) Up until that last week on our island as we were packing our bags and house, we decided to take a risk knowing that not every customs agent takes those dates into consideration—and surely not a child’s passport! However, three days before we left for our flight, Air France emailed us asking for passport information and it was made clear by the computer system that Farrah would be flagged and not let into the country, even for a few days.
We quickly took this as a sign that God had other ideas for us and we changed flight paths. It was like a sudden grace had come upon us and we knew the Lord had reasons for removing our own plans and we needed to trust this way would be better. It also removed any stress I was feeling about getting through the airport (since Covid days, I was a bit paranoid we wouldn't get on flights that we had booked.) Finally, as confirmation from the Lord, while we were traveling through all the planes and airports we discovered Paris was enduring some riots. We knew God had clearly protected our path and gave us the blessing of extra days in Dallas with my sister and family which ended up being exactly what we needed.
We had endured a long season of beautiful work on our island and were in need of some rest physically, mentally, and spiritually. That was one of our biggest goals in returning to America. With Phineas’ birth story in the back of my mind, I had a small fear that I was set out to endure more struggle and a difficult recovery from a c-section.
The new plan was to get an epidural because I was feeling so much unease with the idea of an emergency C-section and going under if anything should happen. I felt my doc basically give me “permission” to take the path that kept my heart and mind at peace. At one point I got down on my knees and started praying about it and I was immediately reminded of France and the warning we took to take a detour which brought peace of mind and grace for our journey home. This brings me to my main point and lesson learned from Tucker’s birth: It doesn’t have to be hard for it to be fruitful.
Sometimes we think we know what we need only to see God isn’t asking us to do the hard thing in the hardest possible way. If we look, God is actually paving our path with many graces to help keep us on the journey. When He is bringing us through hard stuff we usually can't change the circumstances and that’s when we say “Not my will but yours, O Lord.” As far as the other things go, sometimes I think we are too hard on ourselves and the religious spirit twists the truth that we must die so Christ may live into self-hate or “earning points"--but maybe that’s just me! There's a time a season for everything. This was God delivering me from "it always has to be like this" mentality and learning to flow with the Spirit.
Contractions were about five minutes apart when my water broke in the shower. I mean it was like a “pop!” and gush. It was a memorable experience and maybe one of the only things in birth that lives up to its hype. Steven was just getting home at that time (about 3:15pm.) I remember shouting from the bathroom to him, “My water broke, call my parents!”
I went into the hospital that evening and they checked me and measure me at five centimeters already! I was so grateful to be that far along. I walked the halls until about 11:30pm. Once I got the epidural I actually started sleeping and so did Steven. Laying there turning from side to side was a lot smoother than laboring all through the night like I did with Farrah. I cannot emphasize enough how much getting some real sleep blessed us which made for an smooth and joyful postpartum period after he was born—a stark difference to when Farrah was born and we had been awake for 24+ hours already.
After sleeping all night, in the morning we were all surprised a baby didn’t suddenly pop out of me. I was a bit discouraged though when they went to check me and I didn’t have much progress. However, my doctor, Katie, came in that morning and greeted me and said “You were in my dream last night!” She went on to explain that in her dream she was sternly teaching some of the med students what three centimeters versus seven centimeters feels like and and then “out popped a baby!”
Her dream was a huge comfort to me because I knew my doctor was a believer and I had asked God to give her a dream if anything was going wrong or off during our labor. I had another co-laborer on our island have a difficult birth where her own doctor had a dream of spiritual warfare and a demonic presence in the delivery room with them. Because of that testimony and their baby being born safely from the warning their doctor received, I was discerning maybe there was demonic attack on our children and the work being done where we live. I see physical children labored for and delivered as a parallel to the work of birthing spiritual children. I had asked God for that grace to have my doctor see what the issue is, if there was going to be one.
We both agreed that the dream was from the Lord and that I had been measured wrong at some point along the journey. I think it may have been when I was encouraged to get the epidural because they thought I was closer to seven centimeters. The comfort I immediately took from my doctor's dream was that my baby was coming soon since he suddenly “popped out."
My doctor also called in some new nurses and told me “these are the ladies who helped me with my own birth.” I took that to mean they were experienced. They also brought the humor as I tried a few different sure-fire positions to encourage Tucker to make his way. It felt like in no time we were pushing and after only about four pushes, Tucker was here. You'd think one would stop crying with joy at seeing your new baby after having two kids already, but it really is the best moment a person can experience and I cried at Tucker's arrival just like I did when Farrah and Finn were born.
Some days I’m wondering if what we are doing will produce any lasting results. This is especially true in a season of having young kids since it has been the most trying of seasons on our bandwidth and energy. We can’t do a whole lot extra. Most of the time when I hear that voice telling me I should be “doing more” and to push myself, God’s kind word whispers to me again, “it doesn’t always have to be hard to be fruitful.” Sometimes fruit comes from labor paved with tons of grace along the way and we wouldn’t trade this season surrounded by our little blondies and mess and fatigue for anything in the world.
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