A Doula's Prayer
Stories
Shining Moments
Visions Of The Holy In Ordinary Lives
By LaNette J. McQuitty and related by John Sumwalt.
As a birth doula, I often find myself praying for my clients long before their labor begins. This particular time, for some reason, my prayers seemed to be much more intense. I prayed all week for a miracle birth, but you never know how God will interpret your prayers.
Labor for this mom, a first timer who wanted to go "all natural," began on October 23, 1999, at 6:30 a.m. She said she had things to do and she would page me when the contractions picked up.
She went about her business and paged me at 2:00 in the afternoon. I went to her house and, at about 4:30, off we went to the hospital. When we arrived, she was dilated to only two centimeters and decided to go in the Jacuzzi for an hour and a half. When she got out of the tub she was at four centimeters and we celebrated. I said more prayers, thank God!
The contractions really picked up and we spent the next two hours on the floor on our hands and knees together, then the deep squats started and I knew this was it. She was so beautiful, she just let her body lead the way. At 8:11 she said, "I can't do this anymore. I'm going to die."
I prayed and told death, "No! There is no way!" I had her checked and she was completely dilated. The baby was born at 9:12 p.m. and the doctor did not arrive on time. She nursed the baby and I stayed with her and prayed and thanked God for this beautiful miracle. Little did I know!
I got home at 1:30 a.m., still on a "high" from the birthing experience. My sister, who was watching my children, was just hanging up the phone. She turned to me and said, "Michael (my eighteen-year-old son) was in a severe car accident, ejected from the vehicle, and his neck is broken in two places. Flight for Life is taking him to Froedert Hospital and we need to go."
My heart was broken. I prayed the Our Father the whole way to the hospital. It was an hour before the helicopter landed, and much longer before the neurosurgeon told me that my son's spinal cord was ninety percent compromised. The damage was so severe that we should expect him to be a quadriplegic with only eye movement. His injury was similar to Christopher Reeves'.
They called in the best surgeon in the country and he arrived at 6:00 in the morning. He told me that Michael was lucky to have survived the accident at all. According to the reports, the first call for help came in at 8:11 p.m. (when the mother I was helping through labor said she was going to die), and four emergency departments from surrounding counties searched a cornfield for my son with no luck. At 9:02 they called for a Theda Star helicopter with an infrared heat seeking device, and that helicopter located him at 9:12. He was "born again" at the same time as the delivery I was attending.
I continued to pray throughout Sunday while they gathered up eight neurosurgeons to operate on Monday. I stayed in the intensive care unit at Michael's bedside the whole time, and when they took him for surgery he looked at me and said, "Mom, when I flew from the car I was caught by an angel, and God was with me the whole time I laid there unable to move." He said, "Call my friends and tell them I'm going to be fine." After ten-and-a-half hours of surgery (and we thought labors were long!), and two hours of recovery, the intensive care nurses said we could see him. They could not explain it, but Michael was moving his hands and feet and responding to touch.
Three days later my son was transferred to the Acute Spinal Cord Injury Center, where they had him take his first steps. They were a little slower than the first steps he took when he was ten months old, but they were no less important. The Flight for Life pilot came to his room and broke into tears. Michael was the only airlift that "made it" the whole week. They put him in a wheelchair, took him up to the roof and took pictures of him by the "ship."
Michael is known as the "Miracle Kid." He is at home now, and doing most things for himself.
As a birth doula, I often find myself praying for my clients long before their labor begins. This particular time, for some reason, my prayers seemed to be much more intense. I prayed all week for a miracle birth, but you never know how God will interpret your prayers.
Labor for this mom, a first timer who wanted to go "all natural," began on October 23, 1999, at 6:30 a.m. She said she had things to do and she would page me when the contractions picked up.
She went about her business and paged me at 2:00 in the afternoon. I went to her house and, at about 4:30, off we went to the hospital. When we arrived, she was dilated to only two centimeters and decided to go in the Jacuzzi for an hour and a half. When she got out of the tub she was at four centimeters and we celebrated. I said more prayers, thank God!
The contractions really picked up and we spent the next two hours on the floor on our hands and knees together, then the deep squats started and I knew this was it. She was so beautiful, she just let her body lead the way. At 8:11 she said, "I can't do this anymore. I'm going to die."
I prayed and told death, "No! There is no way!" I had her checked and she was completely dilated. The baby was born at 9:12 p.m. and the doctor did not arrive on time. She nursed the baby and I stayed with her and prayed and thanked God for this beautiful miracle. Little did I know!
I got home at 1:30 a.m., still on a "high" from the birthing experience. My sister, who was watching my children, was just hanging up the phone. She turned to me and said, "Michael (my eighteen-year-old son) was in a severe car accident, ejected from the vehicle, and his neck is broken in two places. Flight for Life is taking him to Froedert Hospital and we need to go."
My heart was broken. I prayed the Our Father the whole way to the hospital. It was an hour before the helicopter landed, and much longer before the neurosurgeon told me that my son's spinal cord was ninety percent compromised. The damage was so severe that we should expect him to be a quadriplegic with only eye movement. His injury was similar to Christopher Reeves'.
They called in the best surgeon in the country and he arrived at 6:00 in the morning. He told me that Michael was lucky to have survived the accident at all. According to the reports, the first call for help came in at 8:11 p.m. (when the mother I was helping through labor said she was going to die), and four emergency departments from surrounding counties searched a cornfield for my son with no luck. At 9:02 they called for a Theda Star helicopter with an infrared heat seeking device, and that helicopter located him at 9:12. He was "born again" at the same time as the delivery I was attending.
I continued to pray throughout Sunday while they gathered up eight neurosurgeons to operate on Monday. I stayed in the intensive care unit at Michael's bedside the whole time, and when they took him for surgery he looked at me and said, "Mom, when I flew from the car I was caught by an angel, and God was with me the whole time I laid there unable to move." He said, "Call my friends and tell them I'm going to be fine." After ten-and-a-half hours of surgery (and we thought labors were long!), and two hours of recovery, the intensive care nurses said we could see him. They could not explain it, but Michael was moving his hands and feet and responding to touch.
Three days later my son was transferred to the Acute Spinal Cord Injury Center, where they had him take his first steps. They were a little slower than the first steps he took when he was ten months old, but they were no less important. The Flight for Life pilot came to his room and broke into tears. Michael was the only airlift that "made it" the whole week. They put him in a wheelchair, took him up to the roof and took pictures of him by the "ship."
Michael is known as the "Miracle Kid." He is at home now, and doing most things for himself.
