The Undiscovered Country

Two Years Ago Today

January 18, 2008. 3:24 am.

As I'm sprawled on an operating table, happily numb from the epidural and other giggle-inducing drugs, I felt the thing growing and wiggling inside me removed and my guts spread out to their original shape. I heard the suction of the doctor getting all the goo out of my baby's mouth.

But no cry. The nurse then took my little guy and ran out of the room with my hubby not a step behind. I didn't see either of them for at least ten minutes, and I kept looking at the door. Waiting.

We were looking at this photo with my mom the other day:



"That one's my favorite," Dave said. "There's a lot of emotion in that one."

"What do you mean?" My mom asked.

"Because when the nurses first worked on him, I thought he was dead, or very close. In this picture, he's alive."

I didn't know it at the time, but it took the nurses a good minute or so trying to get Thomas to breathe. Dave has several photos of them working on him, and he was as blue as some of the text on this screen. He took those pictures thinking they would be the only ones he would get.

All I knew is how badly I wanted to see Thomas's face when they brought him in to me. The way they put him in my arms, and me unable to move much, his face was turned away. For some reason, the little baby wasn't entirely real until I saw his face.

Now, two years later, he's a happy, energetic and curious little boy who completed my life in a way I never imagined possible, let alone be able to describe.

Yet even now I don't feel he's completely mine. He's a gift from God who entrusted me with Thomas's care. He still belongs to God. I pray that I do well in showing him not only how much I love him, but that God loves him so much more.