One waiting room. One sister in labor. One baby on the way.

7:00 am – labor induced

9:00 am – water broke

10:42am – my sister asked for me

At 10:42, I don’t believe I have ever had more adrenaline in my entire life. It takes approximately 15 minutes travel time to and from the hospital to my house, and today, it was 15 minutes too far. Let’s just say I went from dead asleep to dressed, in the car, flying down Chisholm Trail, tailgating people in the parking garage, sprinting through the hospital shoes-in-hand, and crying next to my sister’s side in 15 minutes.

But let’s unpack these 15 minutes and the experiences leading up to them.

count how many times I say “prayer” or a synonym for “cry” lol

For the past few months I have been attending The House Fort Worth, which in my opinion is the best church on the face of the earth. The House has become my home and a safe place. You never know the power of an atmosphere until you find a life-changing one that will forever impact the way you live your life. God has undeniably drawn me to THIS house… HIS house, and I know this is where He wants me to be. There are truly no words to describe the excitement, the passion, or the effect of God’s presence. It is something only understood by experience. Over these past few months I’ve learned more about Christianity and more about my own faith and beliefs than ever before, especially on the subject of prayer. I’ve heard sermons on prayer but no church I have attended dove deep into the concept and detail of it. I have a better understanding of prayer and the way certain people prayed in the Bible, and I have learned the POWER behind their prayers. Today, this knowledge came into play almost naturally, and for that I am beyond grateful for. For the first time, I prayed with authority and full confidence in my God. I rebuked the spirit of death with AUTHORITY in my voice and in my soul. I rebuked it’s possible hold of discouragement and fear over my family because it is not welcome here. I prayed that God would guide this pregnancy as it came to an end. I prayed that God would comfort my sister and her husband and what they were bracing for. I prayed for my nephew who I so desperately wanted to hold. I prayed over the doctors and nurses who will assist them and walk them through the darkest parts. And as I prayed, I sobbed. I sobbed and wept and whined and groaned for so many reasons.

I wept as I threw clothes over my body and shoved my feet into some fake burks that truly need to burn in the fiery pit because they are that uncomfortable. I ran down my stairs, unset the alarm, reset the alarm, and yelled, “LOVE YOU, BE SAFE!” to my dog. (Yes, he looked at me like he should be running too.) Once again, I cried as I drove to the hospital to “Most Beautiful / So in Love” by Maverick City Music, one of the best ugly cry songs. This song is not only over 10 minutes long, but also raw, powerful, and began to play on its own. I screamed the lyrics and the name of Jesus in my weepy, shaky voice. In this moment, I felt the presence of God and I cried harder as I flew down the highway.

I don’t get road rage very often but of course every slow driver decided to pull out in front of me, particularly in the hospital parking garage. I was tailgating like TCU frat boys when the team finally made it to the playoffs (notice the “finally” because we had a terrible season). So imagine this….you need to be somewhere really… really bad and you have a Dodge Charger going .5 mph in the parking garage all the way to the 6th floor. Yea, that was me. I then whipped into a parking spot way faster than I should have and ran to the elevators. (longest elevator ride ever). As soon as I reached the bottom I kicked my shoes off and BOOKED IT through the entire hospital lobby to my sister’s room.

I stepped one foot in and I loved being in her presence. I love my sister and the strong person she is, that even when she is groaning or crying, I admire everything about her. There is something that people don’t tell you about labor. Well actually, there are a lot of things people don’t tell you about labor, but I’m specifically talking about the feeling of helplessness. I felt truly helpless. I didn’t know how to help. I wasn’t useful. It felt as if I had a purpose yet had no means of fulfilling it. And that was the worst feeling. When she cried, I cried. When she was in pain, I wanted to take it for her.

When it was time to leave her room, I read article after article about being a useful supporter. Yet, I didn’t feel I would be useful, let alone genuine, if i yelled, “YOU GOT IT MAMA” or “KEEP PUSHING”, which I would probably say during early to mid labor which is frankly hilarious if you know anything about labor. (haha I know stuff now). I learned that it is really too late to know how to help (if you were meant to) and to just being able to offer your presence to someone you love or simply being open to requests can be a game-changer. (P.S. sometimes, this is life too).

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

1:14 am – I went in a few more times offering nothing but my presence and once a subway sandwich, which didn’t go as planned iykyk, and now we wait. More family has shown up and my other sister and I had a contest of who-can-throw-the-ball-of-trash-into-the-trash-can-first or trashsketball which I realized is WAY easier to type when it was too late. We haven’t seen them in about 3 hours but no complaints because knowing they are behind this wall is good enough for me. Now, we wait.

1:38 am – SHE’S PUSHING ABDFAHJSBNJGENBFHWVFFUIAERGNLGK

3:18 am – We were notified baby was born. It’s actually really surreal. It’s hard to imagine that MY sister has a baby now. WHAT. UNHEARD OF. The thing that’s even harder to understand is how I’m going to continue on regular routine life, when I know baby is in this world.

5:07 am – We received a call telling us the unexpected. A twist in the seemingly slow straightaway. A stroll through candy land then unexpectedly being thrown into the forbidden forest. (I speak for those not dealing with labor pains). Remember that feeling of helplessness I mentioned? Yea. It doesn’t always go away when the baby is born or when the labor is finished. At this point, I now have an understanding of how much this is affecting other people. I notice the shaky voices that were once shaking with joy and excitement now shaky with fear and anxiety. I notice the once concentrated confidence become a little more watered down. But as much as these feelings are strong, the love is stronger. It was said that you need a “no to grow” or a “difficult time to open one’s eyes”, and I believe it. Not that I dealt with the pain or the panic, but I saw the picture of love being painted before my eyes. The picture of God’s love. If God loves us to an unimaginable extent, and He does, this feeling that we have towards my sister and her little family is somehow nothing in comparison to His love. I cannot imagine loving anyone more. As of right now, we aren’t out of the woods yet, and I want to throw up. I wonder how God feels in situations like this.

while we’re waiting I’ll share a nice side story:

I was HUNGRY. I talked my mom into letting me go downstairs and get food for both of us, but it didn’t take much because she was hungry too. I grabbed my phone, my mom’s credit card, and my crappy shoes. For clarity, this was about 9:05 pm. I walked down with my dad since he was leaving to go pick up my other sister. As I approached the corridor leading me to the cafeteria, I saw it was roped off and a line began to form at the check-in desk. UGH. Apparently you have to sign-in when you enter a hospital at 9:05?! I mean I get it for safety reasons but come on, man, I just want food. I also had no clue if I had to wait because I was technically already inside but oh well. As I waited in this line, I saw him ask for I.D., a room number, and your full name. Well….. I had two of the three and my mom’s credit card, and this is when I began to beat myself up for not bringing my wallet downstairs. This is also when being older hit me for the first time. Whenever I forgot something I would apologize and explain my situation, but that was when I was 16 and under. I don’t know why people automatically trust you when you’re younger, but boy did that save my behind so many times. “Would he even trust me or think I’m some 17 year old crackhead who is trying to steal a baby?” I eventually got to the guard, told him everything, and he definitely looked fed up, but I would too if I had to deal with the volume of visitors coming at that hour. Well let’s call it a long story short and say that I negotiated with that security guard LIKE. A. BOSS. I don’t see how I was supposed to go about that situation but it ended up taking a good 15 min out of my food run. Yea, so not fun, anywayyyy, back to the story.

7:06 am – After the climax had dwindled down, although the anxiety and nerves didn’t, the family one by one stepped into the beautiful, exhausted hospital room. Last, but certainly not least ;), I walked down the hallway towards a door that separated me from a tidal wave of emotion. I didn’t know whether to cry or to jump with joy or to talk or to stay silent or to keep my distance or to jump on her like I would’ve never seen her again, which is 10000000% what I wanted to do. In the midst of these thoughts, I paused. I paused before the door with my hand up ready to lightly knock notifying them of my presence. You think that I would’ve been dying and clawing my way to see the newly born blessing, and while of course I was so so happy, I just wanted my sister. Having an earthly safe place is a necessity. I don’t believe you can function long without it. The only problem is when your safe place is rooted in a person, because that person can be ripped away at any moment. Today, the possibility of that loss just barely brushed the side of my cheek. You know those movie scenes where the protagonist is seemingly doomed and the villain is slowly swiping their blade across the cheek of the hero to instill fear in him? How their end has basically come but they continue to stare into the eyes of their enemy with such power? This is how it felt staring into the face of this adversity while still knowing God is on our side. I stepped in, partly hesitant and partly rushing myself, and locked eyes with her. I froze with the uncertainty that I processed behind the door. I slowly sat in the stool next to her bed while the nurses conversed. Beautiful. Powerful. Miracle. That baby came out of my sister…WHAT?! I love this baby, but he isn’t my main concern. There she was, raspy and all. Just as equally as beautiful as ever. I sat there still processing everything that happened, yet while somehow not thinking at all. I love her. I would do anything for her. The tidal wave hit. I lost it. Everything I wanted to say built up. “I missed you so much”. That was all that I could get out before I couldn’t say anything else. At that moment, I cried into her arms like I have so many times before.

*Brief intermission: This is when we went home to get some sleep, but I would be lying if I said we didn’t stop by Rosa’s for breakfast tacos*

*another side note: time does not exist in hospitals and you cannot convince me otherwise.*

3:19 pm – we drove

04/28/20 – 1:31 pm – That was the last time I worked on this project. I became “busy” and enveloped in my world that I put this off. Humans tend to do that. I tend to do that… a lot. I love writing. I love it with everything in me. If I could make a living out of writing small things like this I would do it in a heartbeat but I don’t know if that’s my plan. Somehow it fits in there, but it’s not the main attraction. Because of this passion I can’t stop thinking about it. Ever since I started this project I have thought about it almost every single day. Which means I experienced this day over and over again for months. I feel every emotion the same. I feel every detail. I remember what it felt like to have burning tears streaming down my face flying 90 MPH down the highway looking for state troopers. I remember the feeling of every carpet strand on my bare feet as I ran to my sister’s room. I remember the feeling of helplessness or seeing the faces of the ones i loved the most turned white. I remember my usually vibrant, goofy sister sit in the same position waiting for news. I remember what it felt like to walk alone through the empty hospital lobby. And I also remember the thoughts going through my head as I held the baby boy in my arms for the first time, which is what I wanted to share.

3:19 – (I’m guessing based off my initial entry) – We drove to see them once again. *skips to baby part lol*

My sister always talked about the immediate love she had for me the second she held me in her arms, but that’s not what happened for me (sorry bud if you’re reading this). Of course I loved him but it wasn’t what she described. I felt something just as equally as powerful. I honestly couldn’t put it into words. In the song that I sang that morning “Most Beautiful / So In Love” by Maverick City Music, a part of that song perfectly described that moment. “With just one look. Everything changes. I’m captivated. I’ll never be the same.” My entire perception of love changed in that moment. I just know that I understood God’s love a little more. A parent’s love a little more. General love a little more. And life became a little clearer. I became more emotional from that day forward (somehow that was possible). In that moment I felt every emotion. I felt love because I felt like I understood even a little the love that God had for him and I knew he felt the same way towards me. I felt sadness because as a human we experience pain and sorrow and I never want him to feel that. I felt anger because of the things and people that were going to make his life difficult. I felt helpless because I couldn’t keep any of that from happening. But I also felt joy just because he was in the world.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later. I remember the first time I was holding him alone. One of the first things I said was, “Your momma loves you, I love you, Jesus loves you.” And I felt the presence of God in that moment. I felt him around the entire room. And even now I feel Him in the wind brushing against my face as I write this on the back porch.

Then today. The world today is different than the world he was born into, but it’s a great reminder to everyone that even though the world is different, the love never changed.