There's just something about the gloaming between seasons here that is also downright gloomy. When winter hangs over the skies like a bloated ghost, or summer moons about with its oppressive heavy blanket, as if it thinks it's Savannah or something. Have you ever been to Savannah in August or September? By then, the mosquitoes are so heavy with human blood, their bellies are dragging the ground. I can't even imagine what it was like before the advent of air conditioning down there. It was bad enough up here in the ole' Piedmont, though we really didn't know any different, if the truth be told.
But you can't stay gloomy when there's a baby involved. We knew that a grandson was on the horizon and that his Mama was pert-near beside herself to get him on out here with the rest of us. Our son, Jesse and she had had quite the trial of getting him to fruition. They have three hale and hearty children: Eden, 9, Titus, 7 and Tate, 6. They tried and lost four dear babies in the last year before the Lord brought this little boy. They tell you not to be anxious, to not worry, to trust the Lord...we all say those things. To walk in it and be at peace is quite another thing.
Bailey was determined not to use pain medications or an epidural with this labor. She said that epidurals had caused her earlier labors to stall, so she didn't want that to happen again. Even though they hooked her up to a pitocin drip, which is code for devil's brew, she was hanging tough many, many hours later with this labor. I didn't open my mouth about it, because mother-in-laws should not (unless they are asked). Even though I am a massive proponent of natural childbirth and did it myself twice (and tried valiantly a couple of times before that), I didn't see how she could possibly make it all the way through with that cocktail of labor meanness they had hooked up to her veins. That stuff brings teeth grinding to new levels and the expression "peeling oneself off the ceiling" becomes reality. Her Daddy, Mama, my son and I held her hands, prayed, rubbed her back, hummed through contractions and wondered if it would ever end. She soldiered on until the doctor checked her and said she still had a good ways left to go. She cried out in agony, still refusing the medications. My heart cried out for her, remembering the pain of my own labors with her husband and my other babies. In the midst of it, time indeed stands still and the advent of the child that is so wanted, so feared-for, so needed to be delivered...seems to never actually arrive. The pain is indescribable and indeterminable. You wonder how long you can take it, and whether it will go on forever. It is not dissimilar to the waiting upon a loved one to die, wondering whether their next breath is their last. But on this end, the happy result is life, as difficult as that can and will be, with all its resulting responsibilities and uncertainties.
She paused, calmed herself. She turned to Jesse, her husband (my son) and said, "Please turn on my music." He pulled up a playlist on his phone, fast-forwarded past a few songs and then began playing one that spoke about strength, about not leaning on our own but God's, about not caving into fear, about fear not being our future. We were all praying, tears streaming down our faces. In those moments I saw a new resolve come over her, as if the Spirit overcame her flesh. And that's really what happened. Somehow, she mustered through and in those next hours, that young Mama relaxed into her pain, trusted, breathed, let go and gave way to let that big old baby boy out. She felt the need to push, the doctor came in and said, "Sorry, you're still not ready" and walked out the door. Before the doc got 15 feet down the hall, Bailey said, "I'm pushing!" and Matthias Slate Norton was born into this world, all 9 pounds, 4 ounces of him.
So on a gloomy, hot, humid Southern day, the sun and the Son broke through. There's hope in the world and the world just keeps on turning...
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