Our Miracle

I forget all too easily all the amazing things God has done for me over the course of my life. There are several times in my life that I look back on regularly to remind me of God's timing, God's wisdom, and God's provision. Times that had me broken, wondering, "Why is this happening?" And then God stepped in, taught me, picked me up, provided for me, and showed me in big ways that He is the Only One I can count on, that in any situation, good or bad, He is the reward.

All that to say that, of course, Eli's birth makes this list. But for some reason it is easy for me to forget, as I go about the day-to-day tasks of changing diapers, feeding bottles, cleaning up toys, etc., about the miracle that God performed in His life. Today I was reminded.

Our memory card on our camera filled up today after I took a video of Eli rolling over. (He has gotten the hang of this feat so well that he will not stay on his stomach for anything! I had to hold him in place while I pressed the record button on the camera, lest I miss it!) We bought a huge memory card so that we wouldn't have to worry about cleaning it off very frequently, and it contained all the pictures that we have taken since Eli's birth, which is, needless to say, a whole lot. So before I deleted all the pictures and videos of Eli's birth from the memory card, I wanted to check to make sure that we had them saved onto the computer. And I came across the videos Eric took of Eli's birth.

I was majorly out of it then- after 14 hours of labor, several doses of something that made me really sleepy, an epidural, magnesium to control the blood pressure, and a whole bunch of medicines to keep my kidneys and liver functioning long enough to deliver Eli, I could barely hold my hand up, much less pay attention during the c-section. I remember the nurse showing Eli to me. I remember giving him a kiss before they took him away, and that's it. So these videos were amazing for me to watch.

They show our tiny little 2 1/2 pound son lying on the table as the doctors gave him oxygen and got him hooked up to the monitors. He is crying this tiny, quiet little cry. The doctors are all commenting on how small he is for his age, on how growth-restricted he was. He is skin and bones, little more than a foot long, born way too early. His tiny arms and legs are waving in the air, and he just keeps on crying that tiny little cry.

And despite the fact that he was born prematurely, despite the fact that he is tiny and will need much medical intervention to get him through the first months of his life, he is perfect.

In Eli, we got a glimpse of the miracle of God knitting a child together in the mother's womb. We're not supposed to see a baby so young, so small- they have far to go before they are "ready." But God gave us a window to look through, to see the perfection that is a baby being formed. The fingers are all there. The toes are all there. The eye lashes, the fingernails, the peach fuzz hair. Not to mention the beating heart, the inflating lungs, the vast network of blood vessels... Perfect.

As I watched those videos I cried. I cried for the miracle that God performs in knitting each child together in his mother's womb, for allowing us to glimpse that sooner than most people get to see it. And I cried for the fact that, as I watched those videos, I held my 11 1/2 pound son who was babbling and chewing on his hands and kicking his legs. He is our miracle, and I praise God for allowing us to be his parents, for allowing me to have this time in my life when, in the most dire of circumstances, He stepped in and worked mightily. I am in awe.