Left handers day....
Jim had gone onto the roof of our amazing town home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Three nights in a row, Jim sought the Lord for the name of our son. I wanted to know his name. He came down on the third night and said it will be Gideon. Josh who wasn't even four at the time asked if his middle name could be after daddy and thus, Gideon James was named.
The events that had transpired still filled my head and pictures of what his birth would be like filled my heart.
We had loved our midwives for Caspian's birth and immediately went to them when we knew we were pregnant again. Except when the sonogram for Gideon came back reading that he had no left side developing they became the last people I ever wanted to touch me. The whole experience and the way they handled the reading of the sonogram was brutal, being obvious something was wrong but not communicating with me or telling me what until I was told that decisions were needing to be made about the pregnancy.
The only decision we made was to change midwives. A detached birth center was where we would give birth to Gideon. No more sonograms were done. We named him. We prayed. We waited.
Jim and my mom would be by my side during labor each holding a hand while I pushed.
Gideon didn't cry when he was born. The cord had been wrapped so many times around his neck and the child was all sorts of shades of purple. They took him immediately. Not fully understanding what was going on and being concerned about his development and what he looked like, I found the courage to ask.
When I asked after him the nurse thought I was asking about his breathing, it would be my mom who would find the words to ask the right questions.
As I held my perfectly formed son and counted ten toes and ten fingers, stroked the left leg and the left arm and held him close to me, I just wept.
What we didn't know in that moment was that as Gideon would begin to write and draw he would use his left hand.....
I think of it as a wink from God.. that the child who had "no left side," is left handed! It is a constant reminder of the greatness of God to my heart... whether the sonogram was read wrong, or Gideon was healed .. it didn't matter.... Gideon is an amazing human being.. full of kindness and generosity of spirit.
And every time I watch him write with his left hand I smile to myself and think upon his birth...
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