Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Labor (04/19/04)
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TITLE: "And I Will Give You Rest" By Gloria Haynes 04/25/04 |
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As the wave of pressure around my abdomen ebbed, I wondered if this child who had spent the last ten months beating me up from the inside out would ever make into this side of the world. He was three weeks late, and I was as tired as if I'd spent the entire 300 days working in the fields.
Number Three, as I thought of him, had been exceptionally hard on me with physical demands I had not experienced with the first two children. And to complicate matters, his father had disappeared shortly after the rabbit's funeral, leaving me to bear this one alone.
"Don't push!"
I glared at her, wishing I had the strength to rise from my bed of labor and strangle the blond nurse with the cute, trim figure.
It was about that time I realized just why this process was called labor -- harder work did not exist.
The doctor frowned as he checked my progress and announced, "I think his head is too big. What do you think?"
I assured him that yes, I too, thought this baby's head was enormously big at that precise moment. Unfortunately, that was the last thing I thought for quite a while. A seizure overtook me and the next thing I knew, I was on the way to the operating room.
"Well," I remember thinking, "at least the labor will be over."
Famous last words. Number Three has given a whole new edge to the word "labor." His idea of childhood was to do anything that would shock, upset, or push his mother to the brink of insanity. Labor with Number Three has lasted 18 years.
About six months ago, Number Three turned his fascinating "legal" age, and the first thing he did was donate blood. When his official card came in the mail, he showed it to me. The blood type on it was wrong. It had to be. Even with the limited knowledge I have about such things, I knew that my blood type and his father's could not produce the type said to be my son's on the card.
I called a friend who knew about such things, and he confirmed my suspicion. "It's not possible," he said.
Suddenly, my world was upside down. My baby wasn't my baby. Had he been switched in the nursery? Was someone out there looking for a wild child who knew no fear? Would someone show up at my doorstep and demand their real son back?
Well, they couldn't have him! He was mine! Frogs in the pockets, screaming teachers, and dismantled appliances strewn throughout the years made him all mine! I decided at that moment that it didn't matter if there were a perfect child out there somewhere who made perfect grades and acted with perfect manners -- I wanted this kid.
With a silent promise, I swore to myself that no one else would ever know what I had discovered. God gave this boy to me. And I would keep him no matter what.
Just as I was leaving work that day, my friend called again. He had been on the phone with the Mayo Clinic. The blood type was possible, albeit very rare.
That night, as my son explained for the tenth time why he had taken my husband's tractor apart, I accepted his reasoning with an easy, happy heart. My labor -- all 18 years of it -- had been rewarded with a restful heart.