Isaiah 44:5, "One will say, 'I belong to the LORD..."

November 7, 2009.

It started out like any normal day, if there is such a thing for a pregnant woman three days past her due date. I went to the pool, came home, showered, and started getting ready. Around 10am I noticed my vision start to blur, so I checked my doctor's notes, which said to call if this happened. I decided to wait 15 minutes to see if the blur went away. It did - and then the contractions started. I got out the timer: 3 1/2 minutes apart. After about half an hour, I called labor and delivery, and they said to come in. I called Shannon, who had just arrived at work, and asked him to come back home. Allison came to pick up Isaiah. "When you come back home, you'll have a little brother," I told him. Little did I know that Timothy wouldn't be coming home for another two weeks.

Shannon drove me to the hospital and walked me to the Labor and Delivery triage window. "Can I help you?" the nurse asked. "We're having a baby," Shannon replied. I remember thinking, how strange, why else would a 9-month pregnant lady be standing there with her husband? Anyway, once inside, they strapped me to a monitor. Just like my last labor, the contractions made me feel like I wanted the barf bowl, so I asked for it, but never actually used it. After about 10 minutes in triage the nurse checked me and I was already at 8cm. The rush began to get me to a delivery room. "You may not have time for an epidural," the nurse said. I panicked - labor with Isaiah had been horrible and I was scared. Then the song came into my head: "God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He's so good to me." I kept it in my head during the whole labor.

Once in the delivery room, the nurse gave me two shots of fentanyl, which made me dingy but didn't do much for the pain. The anesthesiologist was brought in and did his job fast - thank God for the epidural. They stuck my arm several times and finally got the IV in. The nurse checked me again and told Shannon to RUN out to the car and get the camera. By around 3pm they were telling me to push.

"I can see his hair!" the resident said.
"Push!" said the nurse midwife.

In a just a few pushes he was out. I heard a weak cry, then...

"What's that?"
My husband looking white as a sheet.
"Did this show on the ultrasound?" "No."
"Take him to the NICU?" "Yes."
"Skin to skin okay?"

They laid Timothy on my stomach... and there was my baby, but... "What's wrong with his face?" I asked. At first they didn't say anything to me. "Maybe they can drain it," one of the nurses finally said. Then they whisked him off to the NICU. I had just delivered my son, and minutes later the room was strangely quiet.

After a little while the nurse sat me on the toilet - I had to pass the urine test before I could go to a postpartum room. "Can you sit there for a minute?" she asked. "Sure," I replied. Then, "Is it normal for me to feel nauseated?" "Are you going to faint?" Tunnel vision... then smelling salts, a cough, and wide awake. I don't know if it was from loss of blood or emotional shock...

Once upstairs, they told me they did not know what Timothy's tumor was, and that they would be doing a CT scan on him the next morning. How was I supposed to sleep that night? Shannon wheeled me down to the NICU where I got to hold Timothy for the first time. He looked like a monster. All I could think was, they must be able to just go in and remove it. Then he will be fine, right? I hadn't cried yet. I hadn't felt anything. I was numb.

The night shift nurse was named Winnie. Shannon asked if he could call her Winnie the Pooh, and she said that was fine. She was a sweet, funny, Taiwanese, Christian lady who told me that the mesh panties they give you in postpartum are from Victoria's Secret. I laughed... Then, Winnie prayed for our family, and I cried for the first time. "I just want to know what's wrong with the baby," I said. There were a lot of other things I wanted to know, but didn't have the mental resources to consider...

The next afternoon, they finally gave us a label: Cystic hygroma. Cystic what? We had to write it down. Thank God it wasn't malignant. Timothy was probably going to have a surgery before coming home. I kept thinking, everything will be okay after surgery, right? Then the visitors came: my parents, Shannon's mom, brother, and sister-in-law, the Harned's, Crizer's, people from our church. They didn't know what to say, but prayed for us and were there for us in our pain.

I was ready to be discharged from the hospital, and they brought us a fancy "Celebration Meal," which they give to all new moms. It felt like a bittersweet celebration. How could I celebrate without my baby? How could I enjoy a special meal when I would be going home without him? The food tasted like sawdust in my mouth. I wasn't very hungry.

So Shannon and I went home. I remember the moment I first sobbed. I saw a box of diapers that had been given to Timothy at his shower - and it had a picture of a beautiful, normal baby on it. Right next to the box was Timothy's empty crib. Timothy was not normal, and he wasn't home. He was alone in a NICU crib with strangers looking after him, and a painful, scary surgery in his near future. All I wanted to do was be with him, hold him, comfort him, tell him he was not alone, that everything was going to be okay...

Then God reminded me, "I AM with Timothy. I knew the whole time Timothy was in your womb that this day would come. I knew it before the foundation of the world. Suzanne," God said to me, "Timothy belongs to ME." "Yes, God," I replied. "Timothy belongs to You." God is so good, God is so good, God is so good...

I could write much, much more, but I will stop for now. Someday I want to tell Timothy from the very beginning how God has been at work in his life. This is how his life started, and this is the honest telling of the story, from his mother's heart.