House on the Rock

Of all the lyrics on my 20-hour labor playlist, there’s a line from a Hillary Scott song that rings most resonant in my mind —

Sometimes I gotta stop, remember that You’re God and I am not.

I’m one week into life with little Luke, and those lyrics seem to be the only consolation to all of my questions. I had made all the arrangements. Watched all the reels. Read the right books, prayed the prayers, penned each carefully-crafted section of a Canva-template birth plan. And yet nothing — and I mean nothing — went according to that plan.

To put it simply, Joe and I had five key prayers for the delivery of our son:

• We prayed for him to come in 2024 (shoutout to a met deductible for that one)
• We prayed for him to come on a day when Christen wasn’t working (so that she could be in the delivery room with us)
• We prayed for a natural birth without need for Pitocin (since I was deemed not a candidate for an epidural)
• We prayed for a relatively quick labor
• We prayed for no tearing or complications

January 14th rolled around, and my due date felt like a far-off memory. I was over a week and a half late already and sensed no stirrings of impending labor. Each day brought a temptation to despair, a weariness woven with threads of physical discomfort and emotional agony. The thought of a 2024 baby was a laughable dream gone dark.

But then a successful membrane sweep sent my midwife singing. “I bet contractions will start tonight!” Despite our relief, I began doing the mental math: if contractions start tonight, that means Luke is quite likely coming on Wednesday night into Thursday. Both days my sister is scheduled to be on shift. I FaceTimed her with teary eyes. “Is there any chance you can take off tomorrow?” My stud-of-a-firefighter little sister smiled resignedly. “Not at this short of notice.” And another prayer seemed to vanish into thin air.

Sure enough, contractions fired up that night. Tolerable at first, then increasing to the point where I was brought to my knees, breathless, pleading with Joe for counter-pressure massages and anything to bring relief. These continued well into Wednesday, and despite my constant calling to convince midwives it was time, they knew what I didn’t: my contractions weren’t close enough. Active labor was nowhere on the horizon. But at this point it had been nearly twenty-four hours, meaning that cry for a quick labor was vanquished as well. Worse still, we hauled to the hospital and found that I was dilated and not progressing, which would thereby necessitate Pitocin. If you’re keeping track, we are now 4-for-5 on things going not as I had prayed for.

Early labor continued into the next night. We settled into our delivery room, biting back breathless groans as contractions crashed through my core. I begged God for mercy and the nurses for a C-section. (The mercy was provided; the C-section was not). But miraculously, after 36 grueling hours, it was finally time to push.

Luke Thomas House entered the world only forty minutes later, bursting forth beautifully with a head full of shiny blonde hair and the most darling little dimple. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, suddenly unaffected by my silly little wishlist. Nothing else mattered — we had a healthy baby boy and he was finally here.

But just as soon as we settled into those blissful hours of skin-to-skin, he was pulled frantically from my chest as my blood pressure plummeted to frightening lows. My pulse soared as blood rushed from my uterus; the fluorescent lights grew fuzzy and I faded to fogginess while nurses worked stealthily to still a massive class IV hemorrhage. Luke slept soundly under a warmer while Joe grasped my hand and prayed, tears flowing, over my weakening body that continued gushing blood. I’ll spare you most of the gore, but as I shrieked from the pain of a gloved hand removing blood clots from my uterus, I realized my body was fighting to stay alive. That quickly ruled out the way I would have answered prayer number five.

Hours later, while a blood transfusion coursed through my veins in efforts to replenish the 48% I had lost, I willed my eyes to open. I caught sight of my dad holding our precious son, beaming with a picture of Luke’s beautiful grandma in Heaven. I had finally been brought to a recovery room, resigned to bedrest but reunited with our baby boy at last. I noticed the golden glimmer of Dad’s still-worn wedding ring as he began to embark on grandpa life without his bride. The tears began to pour. I had been given the beautiful gift of this precious baby, and yet I had so many questions. Why couldn’t my mom be there? Why did I have to labor so long, to hemorrhage so hard? Why do some people get a beautiful, perfect, peaceful birth story? And why oh why didn’t I?

With tears in his eyes, Dad’s honest was reply was that we are not God. I thought back to those lyrics on my labor playlist — the ones I had repeated over and over through long labor, late delivery, and now the recovery from a massive hemorrhage. You’re God, and I am not. So often throughout the delivery process, I thought I knew what was best for me. I thought I knew how everything should go. I had projected my plans onto God and told Him what should be so.

We didn’t experience some grand metaphor or prophetic revelation that gave us any answers. In fact, those questions are every bit as real today as they were a week ago. But what I came to see is this: I am not God. God knows better than we do 100% of the time. Even if we don’t ever get an explanation for the events of our lives, we can trust that He is in control. He is perfectly, powerfully good. And He is God — I am not. This is the only reality that brings rest. We don’t know best!

God is omniscient — not me. God is sovereign — not me. And God is so holy that He can only be perfectly trustworthy, perfectly in control — not me.

Proverbs 19:21 seems like a fitting way to close:

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

So should the Lord will another child for us, I will have one birth plan: no birth plan. I will pry my fingers open from my agenda and surrender to His sovereign plan — a plan that is perfect, even if I never understand how. I will remember, today and every day, that He is God, and I am not.

And that will be the truth that sustains us for the long journey home.