Children and Babies (Part 2) - S1E3

You're listening to The Paul Young Podcast. Hey everybody. So this is part two. I'm not sure how many parts this is going to be, but this is part two of our conversation about little children and babies and things like that. And I talked to you last time about... the loss of one of our grandchildren, Keith William. And I think it was even made more difficult because Keith was named after both grandparents.

Keith is the paternal grandfather. William, me, is the maternal grandfather. And not in a bad, difficult way, in an absolutely beautiful... wrenching sort of way. And I wanted to start today on the podcast by just praying a prayer. And I pray the prayer for all of you out there who have experienced the loss of a baby in utero. And I want to pray, Lord, have mercy. Lord, be your comfort. Lord, be your encouragement. God, please enter into those spaces and be the presence.

of the kindness you are, the affection you are. I'm so grateful that we don't have to have all the answers. But we can trust your presence and your goodness and your kindness. And for all that, we say thank you. Amen. So I wanted to continue this conversation. In the background, I've got this, you know, this part in which Jesus is like, let the little children come to me when people in the culture didn't want, you know, the rabbi, the...

teacher to be bothered by the children was, yeah, let them come to me. For such are those who are part of the kingdom of heaven. And it doesn't matter what culture you're from. That those who are like children, open, expectant, living in the present, that's what it means to be part of the kingdom of love, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of kindness, the kingdom of joy.

And, you know, we're going to talk a whole lot more about that. But this episode, I want to talk to you about another friend. And she's a grandmother. So she has been in the middle of this experience. And there's a couple things that really, really impacted me about my companioning with them, with her particularly. She has a son named Connor.

Kara is her daughter-in-law. And starting back in January, her daughter, who was pregnant, in January, she was not quite 21 weeks when Kara started leaking amniotic fluid. I was in the hospital for two nights. At that point, there was a 70% chance to lose the babies. Twins. Twins. She was carrying twins. All things considered, it turned out to be the best case scenario at the time. The doctors said that Kara could go home. She spent two nights at the hospital. Kara could go home and stay on.

100% bed rest. And if she could make it to the following Saturday, because at this point she was 21 weeks pregnant. And if she could make it for a week, they would probably check her into the hospital and keep her low-key until the babies would come. The chances, as most of you probably know, that the longer you can keep a baby... in the womb the better their chances are the safer they are so the ultrasound was confirmed this all happened in january first part of january and uh

So everybody's praying. Everybody is involved that knows them. They had... They had to, in Oregon, you have to, it requires that if the babies are past 20 weeks, you have to have a birth certificate and a death certificate in case the babies don't make it. And if past 20 weeks. So, I mean, that's a wrenching thing. They had to name the babies. They found out it was two little girls that were in utero. And so Connor says, you know, the ultrasound went well.

Fluid levels looking good. Doctor saying best case scenario. And which was the first time that the doctor had said that after seeing the ultrasound. And so it continued in February. Katie, who's my friend, gets a call from the hospital. And they were prepping Kara for emergency C-section. And there wasn't a lot of information. And the babies were 24. weeks plus some days. They were delivered naturally, not without a C-section. Katie was at the hospital. Connor came out, she gave him a big hug.

Didn't know what the weights were for the babies, but everything sounded positively. Well, the babies were born, two little girls. One of the girls was one pound, three ounces. That's 545 grams. And the other girl was one pound, 12 and a half ounces. That's 810 grams. And so you know that they were incredibly fragile. Matilda.

who was the one-pound, three-ounce baby. On last Saturday, because this has been happening since early part of February, last Saturday, Matilda... needed to have surgery because there was a tear in her intestines and they were planning to discharge Kara from the hospital but things just turned difficult. Matilda entered into surgery. Connor reports to Katie that he's there in the NICU with Kara. He had been sick. He cleared the COVID test.

They hold off on discharging Kara. They then said that the surgery went really well, that there were no brain issues, and they were getting ready to bring her back into NICU. Now, if you see a picture of these two tiny little babies, it is absolutely amazing. So incredibly tiny. And then Katie sends me this picture yesterday. And right now, I'm recording this the day after Valentine's Day. And you're going to hear this, if you listen to the podcast in March, you'll hear about this in March.

But there is this picture that Katie takes and it's the first time that Kara gets to hold one of her little daughters and and and she gets to hold Matilda the larger of the two. But I'm looking at this photo, and you see this fragile little baby laying on her mom's chest. And then an arm reaches up and the fingers touch her mom. And Kara has a smile on her face. This is her daughter.

And if you look, the arm of this baby is not much more around than Kara's thumb. And the fist of this baby... about as big as a couple of the fingernails if you put them together and this this fragile little weak human being reaches for connection And I'm just awestruck by it. And so every day now, that was on February 8th that that photo was taken.

And every day now, it's like, what is the word? What is the word? What is the word? And at that point, you have to then curb your imagination. You cannot allow your imagination. to control how you are looking at this. I call that future tripping, creating imaginations that when wedded to fear are always traumatic and they don't allow you to stay present. They don't allow you to stay...

And we can do that, you know, when Malcolm, who is Renee and Nico, Nico, the one who's helping with the podcast, when their son died in utero. It was again a wrenching thing. And their loss was earlier than Josh and Lexi's, which was just last September. So this is episode number two. There's going to be at least one more in this series, just because it's so on my heart. At this point, Amy is still waiting. We're all still waiting for the birth of the little boy.

Uriah Story Hughes. Story is a family name, her mother-in-law's name, and Uriah Story. Very, very strong names. And we're waiting for this child to emerge so that we can see and hear and touch this. Amazing, miraculous creation. You know, I was thinking, final comment with regard to all this. Women save the world. Women save the world. Right from the Genesis story, it will be your seed, your offspring, who will crush the accusation that God is not good.

And throughout history, it's women who have bonded with children, who have saved children. And one of the things we think is one of the most egregious acts that a person can do is a woman who turns on their own child. You know, we have a sense that men can do it because they're disassociated from their emotional life, generally speaking. They have turned to the ground in the works of their hands for identity and worth.

But women have found it in relationship, which is not always a good thing. And we'll talk about that at some point. But at least it's relational. And I'm amazed. I look at my daughters. Went through the births that we have. We have six kids. And I'm utterly amazed at what happens in terms of what takes place at the birth of a child. So... As I'm sitting here overwhelmed by the miraculous nature of this all, we end podcast number three and look forward to seeing you later. Bye.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to connect with us with inquiries comments suggestions stories and more. please go to paulyoungpodcast.com. There you're going to find resources and any notes related to any particular podcast. Today, participate with love, do the next right thing. and trust the ripples.