LIFE ISSUES NO. 2829

A SPECIAL DELIVERY

A gentleman wrote to me recently about another pro-life matter, but then went on to tell me his personal story.  I’d like to share this one with you.  Here’s how he expresses it:

“I have a very deep scar on my heart caused by the abortion of my child that was done without my prior knowledge.  This occurred almost twenty years ago, but that empty pit in my stomach still makes it feel like it was yesterday.  And this may be a big reason why I have spent 21 years working as a respiratory therapist and volunteer paramedic.

“One of the greatest thrills of my life was delivering a baby boy who was too impatient to wait until his mother got to the hospital.  The second, and by far the greatest thrill, was when the doctor called me at about 2 am because he was going to be delivering  “a bad one.”  This was in a small Texas town of 8,000 people in a 30-bed hospital. 

“The Lord has often handed me things that I felt unprepared to handle, and this certainly was one.  I arrived at the delivery room to find that one of my best friends (a Texas state trooper) was there, holding his wife while the doctor was trying to help her deliver.  They had been there for several hours, and you could cut the tension in the air with a knife.  I set up my intubation equipment and my ambu bag in the baby’s warming bed.  Then I prayed my usual prayer that basically asks the Lord to use my hands to do His work, because, as I said, ‘Lord, you’ve got me in an awful fix this time.’

“After praying, I went to my friend’s side and helped hold up his wife, as we both watched the doctor’s progress in the overhead mirror.  The baby finally came out.  She was the color of new blue jeans (the old-fashioned kind); the cord was tightly wrapped around her neck.  The doctor quickly cut the cord and handed her to me.  She looked dead.

“The father turned to comfort his wife.  I prayed to the Lord and could almost hear him tell me, ‘Do your thing, son.’  I suctioned out a lot of fluid from her airway and started CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation).  To my great surprise, her color rapidly improved, and in a minute or two she had a bounding pulse and was breathing on her own.  The little girl opened her eyes and looked at me with the most lovely brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

“I asked her daddy if he’d like to see his new baby daughter, who was just as pretty as her mommy.  The father turned with a startled expression of disbelief on his face.  The doctor looked up, equally astonished.  The bear hug I got from my friend and the handshake later from Doctor Davis were priceless rewards to me.”

He finishes his letter by saying, “I thank God for being there to hold my hands to save such a lovely child.  By the way, that little girl is now three years old and is already learning to read.  Her last three words were, ‘Praise the Lord!’”

[05/09/02]