7-year-old prayer

It was at about this time seven years ago that they told me to start pushing. My mother went out into the hallway to tell the rest of the family that the doctor had given the go ahead for me to start pushing.

"You mean like in the movies?" my sweet brother-in-law asked. "She's pushing just like in the movies?"

Yes, I was pushing just like in the movies except thanks to a nice epidural, I wasn't sweating, screaming or calling my husband bad names.

I pushed for about 2 hours--no baby. Long story short, I ended up with a c-section and a baby with "issues." He was have trouble breathing, they thought they heard a heart murmur, etc., etc. Lucky for us everything was fine, but MAN he gave us quite a scare.

Well, I shouldn't say us because I was out of it, high on a post-delivery cocktail of morphine and I don't know what else. I am so grateful that I had passed out because I was blissfully unaware that anything bad was going on. Every once in a while I would wake up and ask when they were going to bring my baby to me. My family just kept telling me, "any second now" and since I had absolutely no concept of time, that answer worked just fine.

But by that night, the drugs had worn off and I was very aware that my baby was in the nursery being monitored instead of being with me. I quickly woke up the Golfer, asking him to go and check on the baby. When he got back, I did something that I rarely do. I told my husband that I wanted us to pray for our baby.

I pray...privately. I'm not a good "group" prayer person. My relationship with my Heavenly Father is just that, my relationship. I don't have a problem with other people praying out loud, just don't ask me to do it. There's somebody who can do a better job than I could. Put me in a room alone and I can pray all day, but make me pray aloud and I start stuttering and sounding like someone who has no idea what she is talking about.

I wish that the Golfer and I prayed more together, especially when it comes to things with our kids, and it's something that we should really make an effort to do together. Funny thing, I have no problem praying with my kids when putting them to bed. Guess I know that they don't have high expectations for my prayers and are a-okay with whatever happens to fall out of my mouth.

But the night our first son was born, I felt totally differently. I had absolutely no control over the situation and even though I knew that our baby was with very capable doctors and loving nurses, the only thing that we could do as his parents was pray for healing. And that's just what we did. Within a few hours, the doctor came in to tell us that everything was looking really good, that the tests showed that he did not have a murmur and that if he kept on improving he could leave the nursery and join us in our room by that afternoon. That's what I call an answered prayer.

So when my baby walked into my bedroom this morning, asking for a Pop Tart and a present, for some reason I couldn't help but think about that prayer. Our prayer had been a simple one: for our baby to be healthy and for God to protect him. And seven years later, my prayer is still the same.