The Baby I Didn't Think I Could Manage

Yesterday at one of my medical appointments I noticed that my nurse (whom I've known for a couple years now) looked ready to have a baby soon. She is such a nice nurse that I was excited for her, and glad for the baby to have such a wonderful mother--a wonderful mother like my niece whose baby made the third in a 3-generation photo my sister Joella sent a couple days ago.

As this nurse and I talked, she told me that she was thirty-seven years old, "too old to have another baby," she sighed, looking weary. I understood. I had our Tim at age 37. I felt satisfied after that. He was our fifth, and that was enough babies.

This is his home in western Colorado--all lit up because our fifth son loves light in otherwise dark places.

But back to my story. At age 37 I had Tim and thought he would be our last--but he wasn't. At age 40, I told the nurse, I had another baby, Danny. And then at age 43, I found out I was pregnant again.

I think of that day every time we watch the March for Life in Washington, D.C., as we did again last Friday--along with our cat. I remember standing in front of my dresser, having just found out I was pregnant again--and telling God, "I can't do it."

I was too exhausted.

I was too old. 

I remember that day as I watch the different marchers and their posters in January in our nation's capital. These posters were a couple of my favorites, the one in the center being one that made me almost tear up. 

"Thank you, Mom," says a little cowboy.

And I remember that day in my bedroom, completely overwhelmed, realizing that this is how some women feel who choose to not give their baby life. I know how it felt to feel I couldn't do it. 
I was a Christian and already a mom of children, but I felt I just couldn't physically do this again. 

How could this be happening to me all over again?

That is when a Psalm came to mind. 

God wanted me to stop beating myself up for what was happening. It wasn't somehow just my fault that I got pregnant when I was that old and not planning for this.

He reminded me, "It is He who has made us and not we ourselves."

I suddenly knew that it wasn't my husband and I who had made that baby. 

It was God.

That was the comfort that got me through eight miserable months of pregnancy with its related morning sickness, hip pain, weariness, prolapsed bladder, and other miseries. It also helped that my older sister Dorcas was pregnant with her ninth and last baby--all at the same time I was--and she was fifteen months older than I!

I shared a little of this with my nurse and told her how that baby whose pregnancy I thought I couldn't do, was right at that moment giving up her plans for the day so she could drive our friends to Pierre for a medical appointment.  

Mrs. Ambrose, who is also fighting cancer, hadn't slept much the night before and was feeling terrible and just didn't know how she was going to stay awake to drive her husband to his appointment. 

She had texted to ask me to pray for her to stay awake on that long trip. 

Instead, I called Hannah who said she could drop everything and go with them.

They were needing to leave immediately. 

Hannah had been up on time, done her animal chores, and could be ready in minutes.

The baby I couldn't do is now driving one person after another to medical appointments, cheering their day by helping them or gardening with them, and helping organize my home and keep it halfway cleaned up. 

Today when I stopped for a few minutes at Mrs. Ambrose's home, she told me how they had enjoyed taking Hannah out to eat at Perkins and watching her so thoroughly enjoy her breakfast platter with a whole pile of yummy pancakes!

And in Sioux Falls clinic after the nurse had drawn my blood, I was telling her what a blessing our two youngest children were that I had borne well after being "too old" for it. 

I told her how at that very minute Danny was taking Jonathan's place supervising reservation men who were sawing firewood for the reservation and some for the mission. Officials had arranged that if Building Hope Enterprise workers would saw firewood, the mission could have half of it. So while we parents were at medical appointments in Sioux Falls, Danny was giving a crash course to the guys on chainsaw safety and use, and they were bringing three trailer loads of logs to the community.

This afternoon I was spending time praying and thought about the baby I heard about Sunday as we fellowshipped after church service.

"She's a meth baby," a lady told us, "what do you call it?"

We couldn't remember in the moment, but today it popped into my head. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

The mother no longer had the baby, and a relative was taking care of it.

"Does the tribe help take care of a baby in this situation?" I asked. 

Dumb question, I suppose. 

"No," the lady shook her head, the lady who has helped care for who knows how many children, young people, and relatives of her own. 

Of course not. 

But God cares about each one, even when the tribe doesn't.

And when a weary mother who is "too old" to have another baby ends up with one, He cares about that, too, and today I am blessed with the baby I thought I couldn't manage.