Not knowing what to expect from this whole ordeal, I'll be honest, I didn't even realize that what I was feeling was actually labor. For some reason, it didn't even click.
Until my water broke.
That that would happen had never even crossed my mind. But before I could even process that that's what happened, I felt something... else.
"What was that?" I asked the nurse, and was careful not to look down.
She simply nodded and confirmed. "That was the baby."
Wow. Just like that, and he was out. No pushing. No pain. No nothing.
We had told her beforehand that we would leave it to her discretion as to whether or not we should see our baby. At only 15 or so weeks gestation, there was a whole slew of possibilities as to how he could look. And no doubt Nurse Cameron had seen them all. So instead, I waited to follow her lead.
She let Jason cut the cord. A very fatherly thing to do, and I know it meant the world to him. And within a few moments, she placed our tiny baby on something vaguely resembling a potholder and presented him to us.
And that's when I saw the very hand of God.
He was perfect. As perfect as a child could be at that stage of development. Born at 5:20 a.m. on 4/30/10, Benjamin Spross Ryan was four inches long and weighed less than an ounce.
He had legs and arms and tiny webbed fingers and toes. His little head was round and his eyelids, which had never even opened, remained closed. On the side of his head were two little places where his ears would be and his nostrils were just taking shape on his teeny tiny nose. And he also had sweet little lips that I would never get to kiss...
Dear Benjamin,
It's hard to explain just what I was feeling as I looked down at you. I felt love, of course, but to put it so plainly somehow feels like it cheapens it. I felt loss. I felt grief. I felt anguish. I felt regret.
But mostly, I felt honored.
I felt honored because I feel like I got to catch a rare glimpse of God in action. Like He was in the middle of creating something - Life - and He pressed the Pause button so I could see.
Psalm 139 holds one of my favorite passages of all time.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
I'm not the world's best knitter, but I've done enough knitting to know how important each individual stitch is. When I looked at you, I understood how God "knits us together in our mother's womb." It was as if God was knitting...and just ran out of yarn.
I've never felt so small, yet so significant as I did when I held you in my hands.
Daddy talked to you a lot. He talked to you as if you could hear every single word. He told you how much we love you and how much we're going to miss you. And me, the writer, just sat there in silence because no words would even come.
But I did take pictures. I took some of you, and Nurse Cameron took some of the three of us. They aren't the kind of pictures we'll ever post on Facebook or on a blog or share with just anyone. They're more special than that.
You're more special than that.
And while I thought of a million things to say to you, and nothing at all at the same time, there was one thing I knew I wouldn't be able to say for a long time - if ever...
Goodbye.
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