I would have lost heart,
Unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of Yahweh
In the land of the living.
Wait on Yahweh;
Be of good courage
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord.
At 4:03 am on September 1st Heidi gave birth to one good looking boy - Aidan Jerome Blair at 7 lbs, 9oz
Heidi went into the doctor tuesday August 31st (St. Aidan’s day, by the way… just missed it!) for her normal weekly checkup. She was already at 37 weeks and, since she is diabetic, the doctor wasn’t going to allow her to go beyond 38 weeks. So it wasn’t much of a surprise to “get the call” that afternoon. However, I later learned that her blood pressure wasn’t going down (a sign of preeclampsia == very bad) and so they had to induce her. It was time.
I got the call at work (see below…) and left with my Dad shortly thereafter to make the one hour-long trip down the mountain to Arrowhead Regional Hospital.
Shortly after we arrived Heidi was put on the inducing drug, Petosin (sp?), causing her uterus to contract. My Mom was already in the delivery room with Heidi when we arrived and Heidi’s Mom, Candi, and her Aunt and Uncle, Val and Ken Tichy came shortly afterwards.
The inducing drug was rather slow. Nothing really happened for quite some time. Finally, the decision was made to rupture the amniotic sac and get the show on the road…
Then comes labor: talk about the point of no return. After the amniotic sac was ruptured the real fun began. Contractions. Hard contractions. Harder contractions. It was hard to watch her go through it all… especially since it could only get worse. For those of us who are used to “TV-labor”, this is when the pregnant mother starts doing all those crazy breathing exercises. But UNLIKE TV-labor, the baby didn’t come after the next commercial. It was only about midnight now and hours to go before we sleep…
I can’t really recall when, exactly, we knew that, Behold! The time is at hand… but we were all slightly relieved when they finally called in the OB and her team - the doctor, after all, doesn’t come in until birth is imminent. Twenty years from now I won’t remember anything about that doctor, but I will certainly remember all the hard work Tricia the nurse put in with Heidi - she was there from start to finish.
And then Heidi gave birth to our little Aidan! Unbelievable. Everyone I’ve ever met has told me this, but that’s because it’s true: a complete and total miracle. What a privilege to witness the birth of my son! I cried a lot.
After Aidan’s birth they whisked him away to the NICU in order to monitor his blood sugars. I followed - my first act of fatherhood methinks. And then I got to feed him and put on his first diaper! This will become un-newsworthy in a few short days, but I felt it a great honor to be the first in this way. I stayed with Aidan until 7am, holding his little hand, until they kicked me out for a NICU shift change.
Meanwhile, Heidi was totally worked over - an episiotomy, some internal tearing, a bunch of stitches, full of some horrid Magnesium Sulfate solution used to keep her blood pressure down, (or was it Magnesium Nitrate? - can’t remember. We just referred to it as “that Magnesium crap” most of the time), and, of course, the grueling ordeal of just giving birth. She was left to recover and to sleep.
So Aidan’s blood sugars were alright. That was good news. However, other things were amiss… not “holy crap! your son has an extra nose” sort of things… but things like elevated levels of bilirubin (sp?) which leads to jaundice and jaundice equals VERY BAD. Plus he wasn’t eating… so they put him on an IV drip. Plus he turned blue half a dozen times, which is generally not a good thing. Plus his blood work indicated that he might have an infection. Plus he had cat eyes and a forked tongue — JUST KIDDING! He didn’t really have cat eyes.
So he’s still in the NICU as I write this. The good news is that his bilirubin levels are way down, he hasn’t turned blue in quite awhile, he’s eating more and more, and he may not have an infection after all. Good things all. I really hope we’ll have him soon.
And so we wait….
The job story follows:
So I gotta job
Unexpected. A complete “God-thing.” Many of you know that I’ve been searching for some sort “pastor-job” that might use all this theolojikcal edukashun I’ve stuffed into this tired mind over the years. And so I looked and looked and looked and looked and, yeah, you get the picture. Someone told me a few months ago that it was “a tough row to hoe.” No kidding.
If you like, I’ll bore you with that whole job search over a few beers sometime…. Oye.
Anyway, things were looking mighty bleak. I had been on a number of interviews and it soon became clear that this sort of job search could take at least six months to twenty years to be successful. We didn’t have six months. We had until the end of August to find something, and then the money ran out.
So I began to look for something in Big Bear. Most of my options were along the lines of “would you like fries with that?” Not too fun, but the bills had to be paid and a new baby was imminent.
For those of you who know me, I even applied to Starbucks — See to what depths I sank!
I had a few interviews lined up with the likes of Kmart and a local snowboard shop, when my Dad suggested I give his web developer a call - “She’s a good contact to know here - perhaps she knows where to look.”
Well, not only did she know where to look, but the place to look was in her very office! She offered me a job right there in her office last Saturday… at the only web development company in for a hundred miles in every direction AND it was a good fit for my skills. Talk about a needle in a haystack. And talk about timing — it couldn’t have come at a better time.
So let’s talk about timing real brief-like. The timing was too perfect. To call this “coincidence” would be absurd. The whole thing was just too perfect in content and too perfect in timing. My friends, we had been praying for these things. And not the beautifully handwritten cheesy Precious Moments variety either: they were Davidic psalms, my friends, of the “Help I’m going to get my ass whipped from all sides Oh Yahweh - Oh please oh please oh please God SAVE ME NOW!” variety. Most of the psalms only make sense when you’re truly in a bind, when your enemies are close at hand, when you’re at your last. And that “saving” thing does not mean something abstract… it’s a real salvation… not for some disembodied “soul” but for heart, soul, mind, and strength… for the whole, real, physical, tangible, bleeding PERSON.
And so I rejoice because God saved us in a mighty way this week. He visited his salvation on our house. He rescued us from the miry pit. He caused our footsteps to be firm. He readied our hands for war. He’s filling our quiver even now. I rejoice because Yahweh saves - YESHUA in the Hebrew IESOUS in the Greek, but we know him as Jesus.
We were saved this week, my friends… and given a new life for our stewardship, love, and care! Our God is awesome
He really is.