My medical knowledge has increase just a tad since Emery was born. I have a greater insight into breathing, pooping, peeing, heart rate and blood pressure. There were two areas that when I began to learn of their importance, brought goose bumps and a few tears.
While Austyn was in labor, every doctor and nurse seemed to be focused on one thing, allowing this baby to be born naturally. In fact at one point, they had rushed Austyn to the ER but as soon as Emery’s heart rate recovered, they stopped the procedure and sent them back to their room.
As it was explained to me, there is a level of stress that is created as a baby makes it through the birth cannel. This stress triggers the organs and lets them know life is changing, that it’s time for them to begin to work; it’s time for them to do what they were created to do. Without this process, she may have had other more serious issues.
Emery had a lot of bruising from this birthing process. Her head was quite dark, her tiny nose had a large spot on it, her right eye was also very dark and there was a bruise on her back. All very normal, we were informed; because she was so tiny and her systems so immature, it would take her body a little longer to heal these bruises, but they would go away.
When it was discovered that there had been some level of bleeding in the brain and that Emery required a procedure to allow the fluid that was now collecting around her brain to be drained, did we begin to understand the importance of the bruising. Bruising stretches the skin. This allowed for Emery’s little head to expand when the fluid was collecting and protect her from additional pressure. The one thing that prevented her from looking perfect at birth was the very thing that would protect her.
Rarely does God turn water into wine, or send us a million dollars in the mail, or prevent anything bad from every happening; most of the time He uses normal things such as stress and bruising. We miss it! We miss see all the miracles that happen every day. We miss it because we don’t want to feel the stress nor do we want to look at the bruises. It these things that trigger us to become what we were created for. It’s these things that protect us in ways we may never understand.