My (under)Planned Son

So our second son was not really planned.

Or really, not expected to happen so soon in several ways.

I mean, it takes 4 years for the first one and the second just decides that he’d really like to join the party as soon as possible. As many women know, it was quite difficult to chase after a crawling, then walking, then running child when you are sick, tired, then hugely pregnant.

This pregnancy was fairly uneventful, thankfully. When I was about 7 months pregnant, I woke up one morning and something wasn’t right. I won’t go into the details, but I called the doctor with my concerns and she was concerned that my water had broken. I went into the ER and after she checked things out, sure enough, my water had broken.

Whoa.

I was 32 weeks pregnant. We were so not prepared for this to happen on that particular morning.

So remember when I said that water being broken means that you’re having a baby that day? Well, that assumption is what created an anxious stir in the hospital room. No one was telling us what would happen. No one was looking us in the eye. We prayed for the safety of our child. We prayed for peace. We cried.

God was gracious despite our anxiety. The local hospital sent us by ambulance to a hospital downtown with a high risk OB ward where they immediately went to work with magnesium, other nasty drugs, catheters, and other nasty words. As long as they were going to take care of our child, we really didn’t care what they were doing at that point.

And take care of him they did. Or, let’s be frank, God did. I lay in a bed in the hospital for another three weeks. I watched movies and very dumb daytime TV, did crosswords, read books, prayed for my child, had visitors, ate Graeter’s ice cream, missed my husband and child, all frequently interrupted by magnesium, steroids, other medicine, tests, doctors, vitals, nurses, and nausea. But all in all, it was a peaceful three weeks of allowing my child to continue to grow and thrive.

They did an ultrasound 4 days before he would eventually be born. They estimated that by his birth, at 35 weeks exactly, he would weigh about 4 ½ to 5 pounds. Our wonderful family and friends supplemented our stash of boy clothes with cute preemie outfits so our child would not be swimming in his brother’s hand-me-downs.

Brock entered this world with a scream. Loud and mature lungs screamed relief to us. He didn’t need a ventilator. He didn’t even need oxygen. And he was over 7 pounds.

Like Hannah with Samuel, we will so full of thanks. “I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.”

I underplanned this child – underplanned his pregnancy (we were thinking maybe in another year or so), and underplanned his birth (by at least a month!). But God’s planning and timing were perfect.

We spent the customary 4 days in the hospital after a c-section and Brock seemed as healthy as a horse.

After we got home, Brock continued to grow and Tyson continued to run! It was extremely overwhelming to have a 17-month old who was full of energy and wanted my constant attention and this new baby. Looking back, there were much better ways I could have handled myself during the stress of this time. But God was preparing my immature heart, He was taking all the focus I had on my life, my stress, my sleep, and trying to help me turn it outward.

These boys were crazy. wild. energetic. tiring. But man, they were sure fun.

The first three months were the worst. You know, when you have no sleep, hormones are still raging, c-section is healing. But you get into a groove at some point and things start flowing again.

Fall turned to winter. Winter turned to spring. Spring turned to summer.

And my stomach turned to mush.

I looked at the calendar again and was sure it had to be wrong. Sure I was counting wrong. Right?

The boys were about 8 months and 2 years old. And I … was pregnant again.

Overflowing blessings indeed.