A tale of the children... and the many seasons of the life and lives we live

I love my pastor's wife, she is a treasure to me...  A gift from God that entered my life almost three years ago and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.  No grandiose expression here..  My heart affection for her and her friendship runs deep.

Recently as we sat together, she just let me pour out my heart concerning all that which was upon it regarding my children... The oldest son heading off to college.. the youngest son needing special education intervention,  the middle son being sick... Life, ministry.. life.. she gets it and in these places I can be so very real with her.. 

We would be driving back to the church when she would begin to share her knowledge of how much writing has been soothing for me and she expressed her thought that maybe writing about Gregory would bring some comfort.. would bring some insight.. would just be therapeutic... 

So I began this piece thinking I would be writing about Gregory's story.  About the complications of his birth, about the complications of his young life.. RSV, seizures.. surgery... now classified as learning disabled and NOT classified as autistic and NOT classified as having aspergers but still having some large difficulties before him.. I had been questioning my parenting.. I had been reviewing the reality of his life.. of the life of our family over the course of the last few years... 

Amanda's words were to write... they were so from God.. thinking I would write about Gregory what came forward was something very different.. It is the story of our 12 children.. of what the miracles of their births and their lives mean to me...  She was so right..  In writing these words I arrived at the conclusion that there is no firm or set destination.. there is life to be lived and enjoyed and walked through.. there is life to be held tender and there is life to be held firm.. there is life and times when we weep and we struggle and we are afraid and there is life when we celebrate and cheer and rejoice..

Having finished writing tonight.. I arrived at the place of recognizing God's faithfulness through it all and emerge with a refreshed and a renewed confidence that for every season there will be grace and grace will be around for every season.

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To tell Gregory's story is to touch a piece of Heaven.

I was telling a very dear friend about what it was like to hold Gregory in my arms during those first few hours of his life. He was the fifth live birth we would have, and yet something was so different about this child. On the practical side he was tiny. He was barely five pounds. But it wasn't the physical practical side that kept grabbing at my heart.

Something was different.

Now there were special moments that are engrained upon my heart and mind with each birth and each child. Stories that are precious to each birth and life that entered our lives. For Josh the birth was so messed up it was comical, except upon his birth we witnessed beauty. Beyond our first son being born, we watched as Josh not even minutes old turned his head towards the voice of his father.

Throughout the pregnancy I had been very sick, at moments bedridden. Jim would come home from work and he would lay down next to me, place his hand on my belly and speak to Joshua, “Joshua,” He would say, “Joshua, this is your daddy and I love you.” Well, being the first grand child on both sides the room had filled with relatives right upon his arrival. He was fussy. But every time he would cry, Jim would take him back and look at him and say, “Joshua, this is your daddy and I love you.” The moments those words were spoken, Josh would settle immediately. Joshua would turn his head and listen for the words, again Jim would speak, “Joshua, this is your daddy and I love you.”

Once Josh was settled another relative would try to get in a snuggle except that little baby wanted his daddy, he wanted that voice... he wanted those arms. He would cry. Jim would take him back, and so the story would go....

With Caspian it had been a very long labor, over 72 hours... starting on a Friday evening and ending with a late Monday evening delivery. I was exhausted and running a fever by the time we were in our room. But the first moments that Caspian and I were left alone I will never forget. I was wearing these great pajamas that were so comfortable. The doctors had just made the rounds to check on my fever and my IV antibiotics.

The room fell silent.

And the scene from StepMom came to mind. When Susan Sarandon's character is dying but she brings her son to her side and tells him how she had always known that he was magical. That he was a brilliant magician. Well.. holding Caspian in those first few minutes I knew that. That there was something so magical about this child that I was holding.

I drank it all in... in those early morning hours, in those first hours of his life.. I remember... I remember knowing that there was something so beyond my capacity to understand how magical he was.

Now Gideon... Gideon is our miracle!

We had really liked the midwives we used for Caspian's birth. So when we got pregnant with Gideon it was a no brainer... We would use the same practice. Except...

I honestly don't remember how long into the pregnancy we were... it was pretty late. I had gone in for a routine sonogram. But not even a few minutes into the procedure I knew something was wrong. The tech moved the screen slightly.. but enough to hinder my view while trying to be inconspicuous. The tech would then get up and leave the room. Minutes later the midwife and another were in the room with the tech. No answers were being given to my questions as each one moved the tool across my belly. More gel. More people. More turning of the screen.

Finally the midwife wiped my belly from all the gel and asked me to get dressed.

My heart dropped.

There was no left side developing. No left leg. No left arm. No left side. “Mrs. Driscoll, you have a decision to make. You and your husband must make this decision soon.” I looked at them barely being able to take the moment in... wanting to vomit. There was NO decision. Well, that's not fully true. The decision we made was find another midwife.

We choose a detached birth center. We choose a low key solution. We didn't know what we were going to face but we were going to have a son and we awaited the day.

It would be the only birth my mother would actually be in the room for.. Jim and the boys were at a friend's house (not too far away from the birth center), and my mom and I would watch Dr. Quinn Medicine woman. I was being induced. So we waited and waited and waited.

Then Jim would come over and labor would begin pretty quickly. My mom on my right and Jim on my left. We had never had another sonogram. We would receive the child that was going to be born to us however he was going to be born to us... Gideon was born and there was no cry. The cord had been wrapped around his neck and he was beyond purple, he was blue. It would be the first and last birth my mom would be in the room with us for...

In those moments he was whisked away so there was no counting fingers and toes.. there was a life to save. But once that sound filled the air. Once he took his first breath.. once we all started breathing again, my heart found its own rhythm again and the words, “Is he ok?” The nurse was smiling and thinking it was his breathing I was concerned about however my mom knew and she went right over to him and started to cry. There he was!!!! PERFECT!!! Two arms, two legs... ten fingers.. ten toes... Want to hear the funny thing? He is left handed... Only one of our children who is left handed dominate.

A life given. A family crawling up on the bed together. The boys would come over and my friend's family would arrive and we would all just snuggle and sit on the bed beholding Gideon... Beholding this child. Beholding the miracle of his life!

Our daughter's birth was a tad traumatic. I had stubbornly labored too long at home. My sister in law, Jenn, tells the story the best! I had wanted to watch the finale of the first episode of Survivor. But

the labor was picking up. I left the tv room and went into the other room. I laid down on the sofa and refuse to get up. It was no longer about survivor.. I was remembering what was about to happen. You would think how would I have forgotten.. it really had only been 14 months earlier when Gideon entered the world, but there is this weird thing that happens that keeps us moms from fully remembering.

Well... I WAS remembering. And I kept saying to Jenn, “It's only going to get worse. I remember now. It's only going to get worse.” Then I would remember that our neighbor had been a doctor in Russia and two doors down in the other direction there lived an EMT. I was not getting up. I truly don't remember what I was thinking because once both Jim and Jenn convinced me it was imperative that I get up and get to the hospital, the contractions that were five minutes apart lying down dropped to three minutes apart standing up.

She was coming!!!

The race was on to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and Jim asked if I wanted to be dropped off at the emergency room door... which I did NOT... BUT I took one step out of the car and could not walk. I fell down to the parking lot and looking up saw that the moon was full. “Go figures.” Was all I could say. Jim rushed to get a wheel chair and having thought more of getting back to me hadn't realized he grabbed a juvenile one. But none the less we got me into the ER. Upon which Jim tried to tell the nurse I was in labor. She was a bit indifferent until the next contraction hit which was not even 30 seconds later... not wanting the baby to be born in the hallway of the ER, she was now on the phone commanding someone to come get us... Which I was very grateful for because I had now become the entertainment for everyone else in the waiting room.

Arriving on the floor and in the hands of my midwives, life would once again would get touch and go... The doppler read a heart rate of 220.. they thought the doppler was broken.. it was not. Upon getting another one the reading was the same. The baby was too far for an emergency C-section. I was informed they were going to break my water and deliver get her out.

The first minutes of her birth were followed by a scurrying of professionals.. Jim followed them while I was being taken care of by the midwife. I would be introduced to my daughter a while later in the NICU. Wires... Beeps... More wires.. Machines... More wires.. More beeps... Would I hurt her? How could I hold her?

The nurses were the angels of the hour.

Bringing in a rocking chair, guiding me to it, picking her up.. placing her in my arms... I would behold our first daughter. I would look at her bright blue eyes and her dark dark hair... I was hers. She possessed me. This tiny frame. This gorgeous creature... Our daughter... after three sons we had our daughter and the world never saw as much pink as the Driscoll household did upon her arrival.

Our beauty would be three months old.... When at a conference a man, who doesn't prophesy babies or marriages or moves without understanding the weight of such things, looked at me... He began to speak over the lives of our children.. He would say “For two of your children....” and he would speak life into them. Then He would say, “For two of your children....” and he would speak life into them. Then... then he would pause, he would pause and he would look at me.. he would pause and he would look at me and he would take a deep breath... “and...” Another deep breath. “and for those yet to come.. for the two yet to come..” and he would speak life.

You rarely understand the reasons or depth of a prophetic word upon receiving it... there might be immediate implications but the depth and purposes are usually “to be revealed.” Never has a word been so needed and never has a word been so clung to... these words would fulfill my understanding of the theory of specific revelation.

The more specific the revelation is that is given, the more YOU ARE GOING TO NEED TO KNOW THAT GOD SPOKE IT!!!! People, I know so many people who want the really specific word.. What I will tell you is the more specific the words of knowledge are.. the more you are going to have to cling to them for them to come to pass. The more you are going to have to remember that which was said.. when the words are vague or more general there is so much more grace and ease. BUT when they are specific... it isn't that there isn't grace.. there is just the understanding that Heaven is telling you something very specifically because you are going to need to remember it … and remember it in the darkest of hours.

So NO, when Rebekah was three months old, and we had four children five and under I did NOT understand the importance of that word... It would only come to pass SIX YEARS LATER....

Joshua was entering middle school and Rebekah would be entering Kindergarten. It was time. An ache that I hadn't known in many years was riveting my soul. I wanted a baby. It was time for the “two yet to come.” EXCEPT.....

We would get pregnant with our daughter...

Now we had gotten pregnant with the first four relatively easily... and while there were the complications and moments within each pregnancy and delivery, we got pregnant... we had a live baby. I never thought there would be a different story...

Except...

Jim would be away at a conference. I would be laying in our bedroom. We were living in New Hampshire at the time. Something felt soooo very off. I got up and something felt even more off. I went to the bathroom and there was blood.

I called Dartmouth Hospital. I will never forget the kindness of the gentleman who I spoke with that morning... I began to try to tell him what was happening, trying to choke back sobs. He was quiet on the other end of the phone, he paused... he spoke, “I am so sorry.” I lost it.

My dear friend and I would make our way up to the hospital.

We would never hold our daughter.... She had passed into the arms of our Savior. She would never know the world. She would never know anything of pain or sorrow or suffering. But she would be missed. She would be missed by me and I would watch Rebekah grieve the loss of what would have been her sister and we all grieved... and we all mourned...

And yet.. “the two yet to come” would ring within my ears.. within my heart....

Here's where we arrive at Gregory's story... I honestly thought this writing would have gone a very different direction.. but I go as I am led. And we are here at last.... Gregory!!!

Maybe it was because we hadn't had a baby in six years.

Maybe it was because we had suffered loss.

Maybe it was a million different reasons... But there was a sweet presence upon the days of his pregnancy. I remember taking everyone to the sonogram. Bekah who sooo wanted a sister, asked the technician if it was a girl over and over and over again.... The technician looked at me and mouthed the words, “it's a boy!” Bekah understood and let out a sigh so loud that the ache filled the room. It would take her months to get used to the idea she wasn't going to have her sister... and once again we watched our daughter grieve.

We journeyed forward as a family... Moved to South Carolina.

We were weeks away from Gregory joining us and then all of a sudden I felt something was wrong... I could feel death looming. I begged God.. “Please, please.. I can't … I can't lose another child.” I would go into labor three days later.. EARLY...

We would be told two knots had formed in his umbilical cord. He was tiny. But he was alive.

Here's where we catch up to the beginning of all this.....

I held this tiny creature in my arms. It was the first time I felt like I was touching heaven. Joshua knew his father's voice, Caspian was magical, Gideon was miraculous, Rebekah was beauty and here... here... Here was Heaven. Gregory dripped of it... as if he had only moments prior been in the arms of Father... as if only seconds before my hands touched him he had been kissed by God. The sweetness of this presence saturated the room... It seemed as if Gregory even glowed. Bit by bit the sensation and awareness of this special presence would ebb away. We were left with this incredible little (and I mean little) boy.

Where did he come from? Blonde hair and blue eyes... Didn't he know Driscoll's have dark hair? Within his small frame one just knew this child was kind, one just knew this child was gentle... one just knew the sweetness that would frame out his life....

And that is what people say about him.. he is kind, he is gentle, he is sweet......

But again... Complications would enter our lives... RSV... seizures... a surgery before he was two.

He would never need anything.. He had 6 parents. He didn't have to speak.. he barely had to point.. we were all just willing to do anything. Except he would be 2 and the doctor would be concerned. He wasn't speaking. He wasn't developing. There were a lot of “wasn'ts” around... We had heard some of them before with other kids... and all had worked itself out.. but this time I wondered. I watched him play. I watched him rock back and forth. I watched him fixate on something.. anything.. one thing...

But life doesn't happen in a vacuum. There usually isn't just one thing going on... In that time we would also begin to walk out the why of the specifics of the words, “the two yet to come...” There would be two more... but there would be a fight to receive the second of that two...

We would get pregnant.

I would take a pregnancy test.

It would be positive.

I would begin to bleed.

We would miscarry.

We would get pregnant again.

I would again take a pregnancy test.

It would be positive.

We would be pregnant.

We would be having another son.

I would begin to bleed.

We would miscarry.

Life would keep going. Five children.. a household to run... ministry.. work... life...

We would get pregnant again.

I would take a pregnancy test.

The next day I would start to bleed.

Oh Lord.. I would have thought it just a very bad period.. but it mattered to you, it mattered to you that we knew we had life... we had a child...

We would miscarry.

And I was done.

EXCEPT...

“The two yet to come....”

“The two yet to come...”

It would be a night full of agony. Something was in the air and I don't mean pheromones... I knew.. I knew that I knew we were to have another baby.. but agony filled my heart... “I can't do this again.. I can't lose again.. I don't know if I have it in me to do go another round.”

But trusting the Lord and clinging to the fact that He had spoken through a man eight years prior.. “the two yet to come...” I was willing to try for the last Driscoll child of this generation.

WE WOULD GET ELIZABETH!!!!!

MAN!!! IS that girl a power house.. She is so worth the risk, the leap of faith and trust...

I didn't want to tell anyone we were pregnant. I didn't want anyone to know. I wouldn't even go to the doctor. I didn't want a sonogram. I didn't want to hear the heartbeat. I didn't want to be afraid. But I was living in anguish. How can I receive this child? How do I not live in fear?

A friend would come to the house, sit down on the sofa and begin to speak, “you are pregnant aren't you?” “You must receive this child. You must welcome this pregnancy. You must believe in life.”

Jim and I would decide on a home birth. We had been through so much. We wanted something very natural. We wanted something very organic. We wanted to be home.

Elizabeth would be born at 11:11pm (est) on February 12, 2009! The second of the “two yet to come!”

She was alive... she was beautiful...

I remember when all fell silent... I remember when I would lay down next to her in bed. She wasn't even an hour old. I would behold her and think, “who are you? Who are you little one? Who are you?” I wondered about her personality.. I wondered about who she would be.. I wondered...

I think of our journey... I think of parenting.. I think of all the books I have read.. and all the things that no book can tell you. I have sat in hospital rooms, I have sat at bedsides, I have sat in auditoriums, gymnasiums, stadiums... I have watched tears and sorrows ripple their way in and through my children's lives and have been the cause of that sorrow at times... I have watched them grow and discover.. I have watched first steps and I have heard first words, whether spoken at 3 or at 10 months.... I have discovered life.. I have discovered and grown more than I would have ever anticipated.... I have been changed .. altered forever by the six lives I touch on a daily basis and the six lives that are lived out in Heaven... (Five miscarriages.. one abortion).

It is an awe inspiring crazy task to think of a human being raising another human being in this world... it is a crazy awe inspiring thought concerning the formation of another human being.

I didn't fully know the heights of joy until I touched Joshua's finger tips for the first time and I hadn't known the depths and levels of anguish until I walked beside children suffering and couldn't take it away.

No book, no instructor, no mentor can ever prepare you fully for the journey and the journey will change up everything but at the end of the day... at the end of the sleepless, crazy days... when I lay my head on the pillow and the thoughts of Joshua heading to college, the thoughts of Caspian's intelligence and wit and charm, the thoughts of my hero Gideon, the thoughts of my darling Rebekah, the thoughts of my sweet sweet Gregory and my thoughts of the ruler of the world Elizabeth fill my head and my heart... when the thoughts of the night before I would be induced for Josh run through my head.. the last night before parenthood would be upon me.. and the thoughts of the upcoming night that will be the last night before he leaves for college.. when all of these things fill out my head.. fill out my heart.. I know I have touched a richness that no treasure of the earth could ever even touch....