Welcoming Noah

I haven't blogged in so long, and for my few but faithful readers, you already know why:

Our baby was born just over a week ago.



I was due on April 15th. Guess what day I delivered our beautiful baby?
Yes, April 15th.

On Tuesday the 14th, Mom and I trekked off together to my prenatal appointment with my midwife. She noticed my blood pressure was slightly elevated and we discussed the possible explanations; she was completely reassuring, saying, "I'll see you on Friday for another home visit, so long as you're still pregnant" but suggested I go get an innocent blood test to confirm I was still the picture of pregnancy health.

I went over to the hospital, discussing with my mom what errands we would run after this test, specifically, returning our digital camera that was dead, and getting a new one so to have pictures of the baby whenever it was to be born.

Suddenly when in the hospital, I was being met with residents with a much more concerned expression than that of my midwife only half an hour before, cranky nurses who had nothing pleasant to say for themselves, and hearing repeatedly the word "induction". I called Patrick who was innocently studying for his two exams scheduled for the next day, and told him, "I might be induced soon. I'm sure it's nothing but could you bring some of my stuff?"

We hadn't even packed the hospital bag. Frankly, we were still high on the hopes of a home birth up until that fateful blood test, so we didn't think ahead as though either/or was a possibility.

My poor husband arrived in a panic only to be told that my platelets were low, my blood pressure was high, and I needed to be induced as soon as possible.

I think I handled the brief time I was in labour very well. I slept all the way through early labour and progressed nicely even though I was sound asleep. Also, I managed my way through my contractions without medication, instead clinging to a baby blanket my mother had bought for the baby and focusing on birthing him or her as healthily as I could.

It was unfortunate I had a cesarean section. This was certainly the antithesis of my hopes for the birth of this child. Yet that old cliche is true: At least the baby is healthy.

The only time I ever felt that what was happening was unfair or scary was BEFORE the induction began. Standing alone with Patrick in the labour and delivery room, I cried in my husband's arms, saying, "I just know this means I'll have a c-section. This is NOT what I wanted."

Yet when labour was happening, and I could hear the fetal heart monitor getting slower and slower, meaning my dear child wasn't coping safely through my labour, all I wanted was this child to be born, to be safe. I never once questioned the doctors (who treated me very well, I should say!) or felt angry about the decisions that were made.

And now he is here!



At 3:12 am, our beautiful son was born. He let out the most beautiful cry I ever heard as soon as he was born and I felt hot tears spring to my eyes. My midwife called out, "It's a boy!" and I replied to my crying babe, "I knew you were a boy!" Then the doctor held him by me so I could see him, and I could hardly believe it. My hands, which were strapped to the operating table, and had shook hard during the whole operation, loosened. They ached to touch this little miracle.

After cleaning him up (although he looked remarkably clean to me even at very first), they placed him in Patrick's arms next to me. We both, through teary-eyed wonder, sang the hymn, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." It was a profound moment I will never forget.

Our dear baby lay propped in his father's arms with one hand resting on his face, as though he was deep in thought. My anesthesiologist commented that he looked so contemplative and I cried, "He takes after his father! The philosopher!" And so more tears were cried, more hymns were sang. The mystery of life enwrapped me totally so that I was oblivious to the doctors still in the midst of performing major abdominal surgery on me.

We had planned to name him Micah. Yet that name just didn't suit him at all when we beheld him. So hours passed and Patrick and I were so often busy with visits from nurses, our midwife and doula, my mother and so on, that we weren't able to have a quiet moment to ourselves to pick his name.

We named him Noah Paul Joseph. His middle names, we had decided on long ago. Both of us wanted Paul, because he was born in the year of St. Paul, and we were married on the eve of the beginning of said year. Joseph was a natural choice, after the spouse of the Blessed Virgin, and a wonderful example of righteousness to all men.

We were confounded about a first name, however. When the name "Noah" came to me, Patrick said he liked it. Neither of us felt a "bolt out of the blue" experience over this name, but felt calmly and deeply at peace about the choice. I told Patrick it was similar to how I knew we were called to get married; no "signs and wonders", just a peaceful confirmation in my heart.

The name has proved to be perfect. In 2 Peter, St. Peter describes Noah as a "preacher of righteousness", something we hope for dearly to be true of our son. Furthermore, Noah, it turns out, is Hebrew for "peace", "rest" or "consolation". He is a source of all these things to Patrick and I, and more. It was the perfect name indeed.

I must say, in the months preceding his birth, I had hoped for, read about, and planned to have an "empowering" birth. That was all I wanted -- to be in awe of what my body was capable of doing, to join this sacred "club" of sorts called motherhood in a holy, dignified fashion.

My birth was anything but empowering. They used every medical intervention on me in the text book, I couldn't see my son being born, and I didn't have the experience of "birthing" him. Rather, he was taken out of me.

Yet I don't feel cheated for having not been empowered. Rather I was given a gift much more precious: a humbling birth. So many things were out of my control, so many things happened so quickly, that all I was capable of doing was clinging to Christ in prayer and hearing over and over from Him, through the instrument of my husband, "I love you. I am so proud of you." I realized my own littleness, my need to surrender, and caught a glimpse of just how fragile and mysterious human life is.

For months I strutted around feeling like quite the celebrity with my pregnant belly. But it was all about me. Having Noah, everything reversed. I realized what Catherine Doherty was trying to get at: I am third. Serving Noah's needs before mine, placing what could have been a very scary experience under Christ's protection, and watching my amazing husband blossom instantaneously into a servant-hearted father has brought me to a place where I am more able to embrace the challenges of motherhood. I was shown so clearly how incapable I was of doing it on my own in child birth. This has made me able to comprehend just how reliant I need to be on others, but particularly God Himself, of course, in the rearing of this child.

I am made so little by a being so little. And this has continued daily since he entered life outside of me. I am so dearly in love with him.

"Families, become what you are!" John Paul II