We welcomed Charles Ender Trivits into our world just two weeks ago, but it's difficult to imagine life again without him. He is as consistently calm and charming as Daphne was at this age. This bodes well. I don't want to jinx myself, but it's seeming as if we have twice struck gold. We feel so very blessed.
His birth, as you may or may not have heard, was not without incident. I labored for 24 hours (when Daphne's was, from start to finish, just SIX hours). He was nine pounds (when my doctor told me he'd be about the size of Daph at birth, who was almost three pounds lighter). All that is excusable, though. The part that gets me about his birth was that a few things went wrong right at the end. He was coming out at the wrong angle. The cord was wrapped around his neck and arm. The doctor's expression changed from excitement to concern, and she reached in and yanked him out by the shoulder. He laid there for a moment or two without moving or breathing.
These moments, though probably only a matter of seconds, must have felt like an eternity to Kevin (who was watching and experiencing this trauma in a way that I, strangely, was spared). After Charles finally began to cry, the nurses quickly cut his cord and whisked him to his little warming station. I knew something was wrong at that point, because Kevin had been asked if he'd like to cut the cord. At that point, the doctor and nurses were calm and tending to me, so it seemed to me all was fine. Kevin, though, had seen something that left him in shock, filled with horror. It took a while for him to realize that our child was alive and well, and not dead, as he must have looked when the doctor laid him down after pulling his arm (and eventually, his body) free.
Later that night, as I sat holding Charles and listening to Kevin process what he had experienced, I remembered Charles' passage of scripture.
Side note: When Daphne was born, we did the same thing -- prayerfully consider a passage of the Bible that we believe applies to the life she would lead. Hers is Isaiah 55, which says, briefly, "You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." We believe she is a ray of joy, beaming into the world, for the purpose of spreading the love and peace of God wherever she goes.The scripture we had chosen for Charles is also from the prophet Isaiah, based on the meaning of his name. Charles means "freed man", and Ender (or Andrew) means "strong man". His passage says, in Isaiah 45:
Thus says the Lord to his anointed,
whose right hand I have grasped;
to subdue nations before him,
and to loose the belt of kings,
to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed.
I have stirred him up in righteousness,
and I will make all his ways level;
he shall build my city
and set my exiles free.
