The Loss of Duncan after his Unassisted Birth

Copyright © 1999 Shannon D. McNear

Part 1 - The Journey Begins

While browsing the saved posts from my homeschooling message board, I ran across this prayer of Tuesday, July 13, 1999....

Thank you for the precious life you have given in Duncan. We ask You for a miracle, and we say "not my will, but Thine be done." Thank you for your perfect peace and perfect love for this precious family that you have created.

This was just the closing paragraph ... the Lord answered all that was in her prayer and then some.

Some of you know already that we received our miracle before Duncan quietly slipped away. In actuality, the miracle began even before the birth, as the Lord set in place a framework of prayer warriors to stand around us. Just two days before, at least five people called or emailed me to tell me that the Lord had laid it on their hearts to pray strongly for me and the baby. I shared with some how the entire pregnancy was difficult, and the last few weeks I had to deal with things that had been said by others and felt by even myself ... will I ever know if I could have made things turn out differently by more warfare? Either way, it's past now, and under the Blood.

Nothing, not even the start of labor, was clear with this pregnancy. I had Braxton-Hicks contractions for two months and was "sure" I was in labor at least twice before I really was. My husband Troy and I felt I would go early, and the weird thing was I really stressed over it until my "due" date actually came and went. Hadn't I gone "over" with four of the five previous ones? And wasn't that date just based on an average, anyway? One week passed, then two ... finally I was sixteen days (more or less) "past due." It was a Wednesday evening, and Troy turned to me and announced that the reason I hadn't gone into labor yet was because we hadn't agreed on middle names. Ridiculous! I thought, and said so. He insisted, however, and since we hadn't settled on that yet, we went ahead. I didn't care for his choice of a girl's middle name, which made us even, I suppose, since he didn't like my choice for a first name. But we did eventually agree ... and immediately I had a pretty strong contraction. "See?" he said.

I had them off and on all evening and the next day. As had been their pattern for weeks, they were fairly strong and regular (promising, anyway) until mid-afternoon, when they would slack off and not begin again until late evening. This time they awoke me around 1 AM. I got up, did a few household things, but wound up having to go lie down a couple of times since my toddler awakened and needed me to settle her back to sleep. During these times I dozed off and would have strong contractions in my sleep. I also remember dreaming about spiritual warfare, rebuking and binding all fear while actually sleeping! By the time I was awakened the second (third?) time with VERY REAL contractions, the fear was not an issue. I posted a prayer request to my homeschooling message board, contemplated calling my mother and a couple of local people for prayer support but decided against it, and walked the floor, concentrating on praise and thanksgiving. "THANK YOU, LORD, FOR THIS BABY!!!" And I could finally, really, mean it!

I awakened Troy around 5 AM, after fixing him his coffee. (This has become a ritual for us, and somewhat of a joke ... me in labor, but doing coffee ...) I already had to "vocalize" through contractions (read, moaning, and later yelling! J ). Duncan was born at 7:37 AM, so I had less than three hours of very intense labor. I did a LOT of praying Scripture and pure praise; the last stretch (30-45 minutes?) I spent in the shower with the water running over my back-the only thing which seemed to help this time. As I passed through transition and felt the pushing urge increase, I could sense a resistance somewhere, whether in the spirit or in the flesh I couldn't tell, and I beat my fists on the shower wall in frustration.

The hot water finally ran out, and the pushing urge was increasing, so I climbed out of the tub and sat on the potty just for a minute or two-until the next contraction hit. My scream/yell brought Troy running. I stood up between the toilet and tub, leaning on the side of the tub, and looked down at the floor to see a few drops of bright red blood. A chill gripped me and I asked Troy to start praying. He misunderstood my intent-thinking I meant against fear, since that was my battle in the past two labors-and I told him, no, against the bleeding. He did so, and says that after that point there was no more bleeding until after the birth.

The baby's head descended quickly: total pushing stage was less than 15 minutes-the minimum time it would have taken to prepare for a "crash" c-section had we been in the hospital. My waters broke as the head came, and Troy said the fluid was completely clear-a confirmation of no distress till the actual birth, since Duncan would have passed meconium had he been oxygen-deprived during labor. After the head was born, Troy announced that the cord was around the baby's neck, with no slack to pull it free. I reached down to feel for myself and I can attest to the fact that it was too tight to even clamp and cut, which is the usual procedure at such a time. Troy could see that the baby was struggling at that point and urged me to push with everything I had ..... I screamed, I cried out to the Lord, for it felt like pushing against a brick wall and I didn't feel I had it in me to complete the task. Not even Breanna's birth, with her hand up by her face, or Ian's, with his shoulder stuck, was so difficult. When the body slid free, Troy cried out in praise; and I turned to look at our new little one .....

It took me a minute or two to register that he wasn't breathing. I was caught up in wonder at his beauty-and the fact that he was a HE, after I was so sure I was carrying a girl-then I realized Troy was praying and working over him, coaxing him to breathe. I sat down on the edge of the tub and Troy handed Duncan to me, and I continued to marvel even as I took my turn praying and working with him. I could feel his heart still beating, and along with the physical things like suctioning and doing gentle mouth-to-mouth, I was rebuking the spirit of death and speaking the verse which the Lord had given me during an earlier attack, "You shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." (Proverbs tells us that death and life is in the power of the tongue ... I felt the Lord told me to pray/speak this for both of us, continually, since a week or two before the birth.)

The next stretch is rather hazy to me-a cluster of details that I'm not sure I can string together in proper order. We moved from the bathroom to the bedroom, and Troy went to call one of the neighbors for prayer, then made the call to EMS. He started CPR while on the phone with the 911 operator. Duncan and I were still attached-we hadn't cut the cord yet-and I was dimly aware that I was losing more blood than I should, so I started nipple stimulation. Finally the placenta came (before EMS arrived) and I had been feeling extremely dizzy, so I lay down on the floor next to Duncan while Troy continued CPR. By this time one of the neighbor women was there with us, praying (we have some wonderful brothers and sisters in the Lord who live near us). I remember feeling so desolate-crying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" to Duncan and asking the Lord to send him back to us-and just wishing as I was lying there that the Lord would take me, too. I felt Him very gently but firmly telling me no, He wouldn't release me yet. (His voice has been so clear at times throughout this!)

EMS arrived and started doing their thing on Duncan, and they decided to send for an additional ambulance for me. I must've looked like the poster child for every home birth horror story ... lying on the floor, white as a sheet, a towel draped over my upper body and my lower body covered in blood. Yuck. They took my blood pressure and it was something like 83/40-I don't remember exactly. Even I knew the numbers weren't good and consented to an IV and transport. They never did have to give me pitocin, though-so my continued nipple stimulation must've helped-slightly embarrassing to do in front of people (though I did try to be discreet, under the blanket) but I knew also that it was needed.

At the hospital, Duncan was taken directly to the ER and I was wheeled upstairs to Labor and Delivery. My only prayer was for a female attendant. I was relieved to find that the midwife on duty was one in the practice which delivered my second and third children-she actually remembered me, though we hadn't met in over 5 years. Come to find out later, she, the nurse who cared for me in L&D, AND the doctor on call in the ER (who later came up and actually prayed with Troy and I) are all believers and attend the same church! Wow-an awesome detail from the Lord's hand.

Duncan was intubated by EMS, stabilized in the ER and then transported to the medical university children's hospital. They brought him up to my room before the transport, and I just wept over him. I did not see him again until the next day, after being released from the hospital myself, and even then I wasn't strong enough physically to spend very much time with him for the first few days. I was very grateful that Troy had the next week off from work and could be there from morning till evening.

The first day, I lay in the hospital-weak from blood loss, exhausted but too wired emotionally to sleep, my mind numb with shock at the morning's events. It was an incredible relief to have the presence of a few of our friends, and then later the pastor of the church we'd been attending for only six months. I have to say that I was probably a bit too cheerful most of the time-the effect of the shock, coupled with a determination not to place too much emphasis on the seriousness of Duncan's condition ... God could do anything, including the miracle of complete, instant restoration. Indeed, this is what we were believing for. At the least, I knew Scripture says to look at the spiritual rather than the natural-and even though what was taking place in the natural was a horrible tragedy, in the spiritual-well, who could say? Only the Lord knew what He intended to bring through it. We had the promise that He would work it all together for good. We also had the reminder that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen": i.e., Duncan's healing. What we were seeing with our eyes only led us to fear-which, as one dear friend from church put it, could be defined by the acronym False Evidence Appearing Real. So, which was the reality? What we could see, or what we knew God could do?

While these questions and more were arising, the Lord assured both Troy and I that this was HIS work.

Part 2 Walking Out My Trust

Part 3 Afterthoughts

Part 4 Photos

 

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