When I look at you, boy
I can see the road that lies ahead
I can see the love and the sorrow
Sam,
There’s a large window in what I’m fairly certain is
supposed to be the dining room of our home. It’s a funny space, though – not
quite big enough for a dining table, but with a low, centered chandelier that
seems to beckon for a table underneath to make sense of it. I’ve awkwardly
filled the space with a white loveseat – as practical as you’d expect with
three young children – and a library card catalog that I adore. It was a gift
from your dad for our third anniversary, and we store wine bottles in it, which
actually do seem a necessity when you spend your days wrangling three small
children. Facing the loveseat are a couple of chairs on wheels that you and
your brother and sister like to push across the house, though every day –
multiple times a day – I dutifully drag them back. And there’s a potted plant,
an angel wing begonia that I grew from a cutting your great-grandmother gave
me. You recently decided, to my horror, that its dirt makes the best snack.
But, cliché as it sounds, I wouldn’t have it any other way, son.
Today is Mother’s Day 2016. I’m looking out that window in our funny little non-dining room, watching a bashful drizzle kiss the
expectant earth, reflecting on Mother’s Day 2015. That was another rainy day,
but instead of a drizzle, Mother Nature let loose a bluster of violent rain and
intense winds. The creek near our house rose 12 feet in only an hour. We spent
the day indoors: me, cuddling with your brother and sister and reading books,
Daddy making meals and filling sippy cups and generally running the engine that
keeps our house functioning. You filled my middle with your seven-pound, unborn
body, four days “overdue,” and I couldn’t wait to meet you.
That day idled by with a chorus of thunder and rain serving
as the soundtrack. Lying in bed early that evening, I wondered when you’d
arrive. If you waited until May 15, I thought, we’d never have Mother’s Day and
your birthday overlap, plus 5/15/15 is a palindrome, the same backwards and
forwards… I’m content to wait until then.
I awoke a little before midnight with an aching in my back,
and I knew you had begun your first difficult journey.
Bright fields of joy
Dark nights awake in a stormy bed
I want to go with you, but I can’t follow
I couldn’t go back to sleep, but I didn’t want to wake
anyone. I spent those pre-dawn hours praying, stretching, singing, reading and
awaiting you, the baby to come. Since your brother and sister both kept me
waiting for at least 30 hours once labor had begun, I assumed you wouldn’t
arrive for another day or so. As the sun awoke, so did your dad and siblings.
We busied ourselves with calling Grandmama and PawPaw, who were spending a few
weeks in Dallas to await your arrival, to collect Ford and Vivi. When we went
outside to start loading the car for the hospital, we found that the windows –
following a botched repair a few days earlier at the Honda dealership – had
rolled down on their own at some point in the day before, and a veritable sea
of that dramatic rain had pooled in our car. Doors sloshed with the sound of
water upon opening, gnats had begun to swarm above the saturated floor mats. Once
we were finally able to get the ignition to turn over, every warning light on
the dashboard lit up. This was not how I imagined my peaceful labor.
We hurried indoors to write a stern but reasonable letter to
the dealership, reminding them of the mistakes they had made (and already
acknowledged) in servicing my car the week before and asking them to take
responsibility for the damage that surely was caused by the flooding. We threw
towels over the warped leather car seats and set off on our mission, praying
our waterlogged car would get us there. All the while, contractions began to
intensify, like a drumbeat marking our warpath toward the dealership.
Your dad spoke to the apologetic service manager as I walked
laps around the service bay. We were given a loaner car – a minivan. We laughed
at the chaos of what I had hoped would be a calm day, and at the irony of the
two of us – who had sworn out of pride never to drive a minivan – in labor with
our third child, doing just that.
We took our new wheels to Snider Plaza so that I could get a
chiropractic adjustment, then stopped at a coffee shop where I got a coconut
water. Daddy opted instead for a protein-packed breakfast of sausage and eggs
at Bubba’s. Being 9+ months pregnant is a natural conversation starter, it
seems, and as strangers would ask when I was due, your dad got a kick out of
telling them, “Five days ago, and she’s in labor right now!”
We filled the day with walks and short naps and cleaning and
generally just waiting. During a walk around 5 in the afternoon, my water broke
and left me standing on the sidewalk around the corner of my house, soaking,
stunned and silenced. My water had never broken before I was at the hospital. I
quickly waddled back to the house where I showered, changed clothes and telephoned
the doctor on call, Ashley Tovo, who encouraged me to go to the hospital. Into
the loaner minivan we went, again with towels, although for reasons much
different than earlier in the day! And thus began a humiliating couple of hours
in which I was placed in triage where nurse after nurse, seeing how calm and
not-in-pain I was, suggested perhaps I had only wet my pants, not ruptured my
membranes. Eventually, around 8 p.m., they did a swab and found that the fluid
was, in fact, amniotic, and that I could be admitted to Labor &
Delivery.
While walking laps around L&D, I ran into the nurse who
helped deliver Vivi, and we had a nice time catching up. My nurse for your
delivery, however, was clearly stressed, and I heard her complaining about her
patient volume to her colleague when she thought I wasn’t listening. Then I
caught her crying outside my delivery room a short time later. I considered
requesting a new nurse, but ultimately resigned myself to her, deciding I was
probably very close to delivery and should just see this thing through with the
same nurse with whom I started.
Tuesday began with an epidural. Your heart rate dropped just
after midnight, which began the longest hour of nurses turning me over and
contorting me into more positions that I would have guessed possible for a
woman who, at this point, couldn’t feel her legs. Moments of calm and listening
to music from my iPod were followed by hurried moments of monitoring your heart
rate, moving me from one side to the other and giving me oxygen. With a final outburst
from the nerve-wracked nurse that, “He’s bradying! We need a table ready now!”
the scrubbed-up Dr. Tovo entered the room and told me it was time to push.
After 27 hours of labor, you came out in only two pushes.
The cord had wrapped around your neck twice, which explained your low
heartbeat. Your eyelid was bruised and your nose was bright red and covered
with milia, but to me you were gorgeous with thick, dark hair and the longest
feet. “Swimmer’s feet,” the nurse remarked. Seven pounds, six ounces,
20-and-a-half inches long and looking like a pint-sized prizefighter. “I Will”
by the Beatles played overhead. You were healthy, whole, and most importantly
here. In my arms, this baby that I had prayed for so much. Like your brother
and sister, you were born six days after your due date of May 6. We named you
Samuel Thorne after my dad, a steady and gentle man. In the last 12 months,
I’ve seen those same characteristics in you.
Here I sit by the window, nearly a year later. You
will be one this week. I blinked and you went from a tiny, vernix-covered
newborn, helpless on my chest, to a curly-headed, twinkly eyed ragamuffin who
struts around the house eating dirt pilfered from potted plants. We love you so
much more than I can even explain.
It strikes me that motherhood precipitates a unique grief.
My heart cries, “Go forth, my children! Conquer, discover, become the fullness of who God has created you to be!” while at the same time mourning what’s left
behind. With each milestone, each “R”- and “L”-sound that become more clearly
enunciated, every tooth that erupts from the virgin gums and every lovey that
is cast aside, I see these rosy, golden days dwindling. I’m at once grateful
and wistful. I cry more deeply and laugh with more abandon because of
motherhood. I’m steeped to my eyeballs in everything that comprises life with
littles. It drives me daily to frustration, yet I grieve how temporal it truly
is. So I thank the Lord for my precious arrows (Psalm 127:4-5) and pray that your dad and I
will aim you well and you will become a man who loves God and others.
I love you, my steady Sam!
So keep to the old roads
Keep to the old roads
And you’ll find your way
(Andrew Peterson, “You'll Find Your Way”)
