The Birth

As Joy and I prepared for Gavin's delivery our prayer was that giving birth would be work for Joy, but not overwhelmingly painful or uncomfortable. Genesis speaks of giving birth involving pain and suffering. Examining the Hebrew word for pain in Genesis 6:13 it seems the emphasis is on the work involved with labor. The NASB dictionary describes the Hebrew word for pain here as "hard earned goods." I particularly like this idea as the pain and work are given meaning. The "goods" are the reward for the strenuous effort. Anyone can relate to earning something of value with hard work. The reward is worth the effort as Jesus himself mentions, "Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world (John 16:21)." This was amazingly true as Gavin took his first breath and began to cry. The pain and toil that had been on Joy's face was immediately erased as Gavin was put upon her chest. Gavin's cries brought great smiles to our faces.

The Lord answered our prayer and expectation for childbirth. On Thursday May 20th, 2010 at 10:45 PM Joy and I were lying in bed when her water broke. We immediately called the midwife and mentioned that Joy's contractions were about 5 minutes apart. The midwife suggested that we stay at home and wait until her contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and she was unable to speak through them. I ate leftover enchiladas and went back to bed while Joy sat on the couch. At 12:30PM Joy woke me up and said that it was time to go. Joy and I had been through 15 hours of Lamaze and knew how to breathe through the contractions, but Joy seemed to be wanting to using the breathing technique for transition. Transition is the most difficult part of labor and represents the dilation of the cervix from 7-10cm. Being sure that my wife could not yet be in transition I encouraged her to use breathing techniques that were less dramatic. We arrived at the hospital at 1:00AM and it was obvious that Joy was having major contractions. She was wheel chaired up to Labor and delivery and I parked the car and brought up all of our gear which included a Bose sound system, enough food to survive a Tsunami, several cameras, and of course my lucky lightsaber (okay I didn't bring the lightsaber). The midwife checked Joy's dilation and asked us to guess. We thought maybe five centimeters. The midwife said nine and Joy threw up both arms praising the Lord. We started using the proper breathing techniques. Well folks by the time Joy got to her delivery room she had about three more contractions and was ready to push. However, being a good daughter Joy wanted to talk to her Mom before pushing. Between labored breathes Joy was able to say a few sentences to her mom and then she began to push. Watching my wife push was the easily the most exciting part of delivery. As she worked I could see my son's hairy head begin to appear. After maybe 20 minutes of pushing I witnessed the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life. Nuff said. Gavin was immediately put on Joy's chest and began to root around for her breast. I cut the cord and then we took him a few feet away to clean him up.

Several hours later, having that little guy lay on my chest for the first time and wiggle around was one of the highlights of my life. I could not help think of how the Lord must feel when one of his children is born again. There is an intimacy that is pure satisfaction, joy, bliss that comes from being close to your newborn child. Lord hold all three of us close that you may delight in us as we delight in you and each other. Lord we love you. Gavin Job Metevier we love you.