The Road to Mercy (35 page)

On her way to the kitchen, Beth detoured to open the living room draperies. A brilliant rush of color greeted her when she pushed the fabric aside. What had been muted yellow and brown bushes only yesterday were now vibrant sheaves of gold Forsythia blooms. The massive, nine-foot stems that represented little more than overgrown hedges fifty weeks of the year, had come into their own. The warm, spring weather had transformed them into beads of liquid sunshine.

As Bethany stared in awe, the child inside punched her back into the moment. “Settle down,” she said, rubbing her tummy. “Ouch! Hey, stop it,” Beth playfully chastised.

Without warning, she had the feeling of losing her stomach, like that of dropping inside a speeding elevator. That sensation was followed by a stream of water trickling down her legs.

Her water had broken, and it wasn’t time.

After calling Josh, Beth phoned Dr. Myers’s office.

Alisha put her on hold while she spoke briefly to the doctor. “According to our records your pregnancy is a week short of term. Dr. Myers wants you to check into the hospital immediately.”

“Okay.” Beth took a seat on the kitchen bench to digest the news. “Is my baby in trouble?”

“We don’t know that.” The nurse reassured her. “But the best place for you is under a doctor’s care. I will call Davidson County Medical Center and have everything ready for you to check in. Can you be there within the hour?”

“Yes,” Beth said. “I’m waiting for my husband to come home. He will drive me.”

“That’s great. You don’t need to be driving right now.” Alisha cautioned. “Lie down and wait for him. Take it easy until Dr. Myers can see you.”

Beth’s final call was to Alex, who dropped what she was doing to help Beth pack. Within a few minutes she had Beth’s bag ready to go. Ten minutes later, Josh raced through the front door. He picked up the bag and almost swept Beth off the sofa.

“Let’s go,” he said. His face looked drawn and tight. Only ten days ago, he had been in the hospital.

“Honey, relax. I’m okay.”

Although she said the words, Beth couldn’t completely convince herself all was well. Something pricked at her spirit. Was
God telling her she had more of a faith trial ahead? She prayed for the strength to put her baby’s life into his hands. To believe everything would work out.

Please, God, take care of my child
.

Her contractions had started by the time they arrived at the Davidson County Medical Center. Within the hour, Dr. Myers completed her exam. The doctor removed her stethoscope and sat on the edge of Beth’s hospital bed. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“A little,” Beth said, biting her lip. “But I can tolerate it.”

“You’re having premature labor pains,” the doctor told her. “I’m hoping your body will slow down and give us more time. There’s a chance it will, and if that’s the case we’ll have to watch you for infection. You’re where you need to be, kiddo,” Dr. Myers patted Beth on the arm. “We’re going to keep a close watch on you. I’ll be monitoring your blood pressure, the baby’s vital signs, and your dilations.”

“Is everything okay?” Beth asked.

“It is right now. Of course, premature is never optimum.”

Beth nodded.

“How are you holding up?”

“Okay.” Beth wiped a tear from her eye.

“Isn’t that your husband standing in the hall?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let’s invite him in. I’d like to share everything with him too.”

A few minutes later, Josh stood beside the bed, rubbing Beth’s shoulders, while Dr. Myers discussed Beth’s and the baby’s risks.

“We’ll take it an hour at a time,” she said.

Twenty-four hours later, Josh walked into the midst of chaos. Beth’s room was filled with medical staff. Her blood pressure had skyrocketed. Nurses were prepping her for surgery.

“We can’t wait any longer or we’ll be putting Bethany and the baby at risk,” Dr. Myers told him on her way out of the room. “I’m scheduling a C-section immediately.”

Josh tried to stay out of the way, while staying close enough to reassure his wife. In the end, it was Beth who reassured him.

“Everything will be okay,” she insisted, smiling up at him from her bed. “God has been with us from the beginning. That first morning when I came to the hospital, he knew we had a child on the way. He knew her then, and he knows her now. Soon, we will know her.”

“Her?” The word caught in Josh’s throat. “Why do you say that?”

“I have a feeling. Just like I believe everything will be okay.”

He caressed her forehead with his lips. “You’re warm.”

“She has a slight fever,” the nurse working next to him said. “It’s another sign of toxemia.”

“So there’s a name for what’s happening?”

She nodded, preoccupied with her work.

“Oh!” Beth screamed.

“Excuse me.” The nurse pushed Josh aside. “What is it, dear?”

“My contractions. They’re worse.”

“Get Dr. Myers on the line, stat,” she barked to her assistant.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The younger woman snatched the phone from the bedside table and dialed a series of numbers while her supervisor checked Beth’s vitals. Then she timed her contractions.

“Mr. Harrison, if you don’t mind, would you please step across the room. I need to check your wife’s dilation.”

Within minutes, the assistant passed the phone to the nurse in charge. “It’s Dr. Myers.”

“Bethany Harrison’s contractions are increasing rapidly,” the supervisor told the doctor. “She’s already at six centimeters.”

Josh heard Dr. Myers on the other end of the phone shouting orders.

“Yes, doctor. We’ll prepare her.”

Slamming down the phone, the older woman announced to her subordinate, “We’re preparing for vaginal delivery.”

“What happened?” Josh asked.

“Things are moving faster than we expected. We think the baby is too far into the canal for a C-section.”

Soon, the birthing room technicians arrived. They worked quickly, double-checking paperwork with Beth’s wristband, unplugging monitors, and re-hanging medical dispensers. Within a few minutes they had Beth ready to move, beckoning Josh to follow as they wheeled his wife’s bed out of the room, down the hallway, and into the elevator.

He had many questions. But the look of urgency on the attendants’ faces told him everything he didn’t want to know.

Josh shivered as he looked around the surgical suite. The large, monochrome cube—white floors, white walls, and white ceiling tiles—was devoid of human warmth. Cold, sterile-looking equipment clung to the edges of the well-lit space. Two powerful examination lights hung from the ceiling, focusing on the surgical cot in the center of the room where Beth lay.

What must be millions of dollars worth of medical technology—and almost a dozen, highly trained doctors, nurses, and surgical assistants—attended to his wife. But he knew his reliance had to be on God.

Josh stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shuffled to the side of the room.

“Sir, please take a seat,” a technician in green scrubs instructed as he rushed by.

Josh obeyed without thinking, still concentrating on his allegiance to a higher power. The Lord had brought them to this moment. Not only physically, but spiritually. Despite Josh’s many concerns over the past eight months, God had moved them safely to this point in their journey.

The crooked had become straight. The rutted road smooth.

He remembered the words God had given him in the midst of the bus wreck.
Peace, be still
.

Beth’s screams of pain interrupted his thoughts.

He saw Dr. Myers’s staff gather around her and heard muffled fragments of their conversation.

“I don’t know how much she can help us.”

“I agree.”

“Dilation is ten centimeters, doctor.”

“The baby isn’t moving,” someone else said.

“Get Dr. Abrams on the phone,” Dr. Myers ordered. “I’m concerned about that dissected artery. I know it’s healed, but too much pressure and she could still be in trouble.”

“BP is up another two points systolic.”

“I can see the top of the head—”

“I don’t have a choice at this point,” Dr. Myers shouted. “Prepare the vacuum extraction pump. She has to have help. I don’t want to lose them both.”

Pain and sedation obscured Beth’s senses. If pressed, she could, perhaps, remember being wheeled into the delivery room. She had memories of having complete confidence that Dr. Myers and the hospital staff would take good care of her baby. And of Josh hovering around the room, watching and waiting.

But now exhaustion consumed her. She needed help. She was ready to get this done.

Snippets of the conversation penetrated her reality, even though she had no concept of time. Or fear.

Until she heard the whine of the surgical vacuum.

She fought the straps that held her to the cot, but she couldn’t move.

Why had Dr. Myers deceived her? Had she decided it was Beth’s life or the baby’s?

Old memories rushed back, convincing Beth of impending betrayal.

“No—save my baby—not me. Please . . . save my baby.”

God, please. Take me, not my child
.

The words of Micah 6:8 came to mind.
To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God
. Josh knew that mercy had been given freely, although hard earned, to both him and Beth. They had revisited the altar of God, laying their faith and fears upon it, and God had been faithful and generous.

At seven twenty-three in the evening, Beth gave birth to a baby girl. Elizabeth Rose Harrison came into the world praising God at the top of her lungs. Her mother, while still groggy, was doing fine.

The baby’s great-grandmother, Elizabeth Randall, received a phone call from Beth’s mother, Liz McKinney, about an hour after the birth, announcing the arrival of her namesake. And Josh had no doubt that little Rose’s paternal grandmother, Rose Harrison, had special knowledge of the baby girl who had been born today by God’s grace, for her name had been called by him even before she was conceived.