Today is a special day, for it is the day of my first daughter’s birth, June 27. I’m sharing an excerpt from my book re-telling the story.

I must apologize for those terrible pants, they didn’t seem bad at the time!

At about age 11 or 12. She loved doing things with her Daddy.

 

At age 18. Isn’t she gorgeous?!

Meeting her to-be-husband, 1995.

One of the last photos with her dad. That’s baby Annabel, now age 12.

Three generations. Emily at age 8

Four generations of Rudberg women

A daughter is just a little girl who grows

up to be your best friend!—

Joanne Fink, creator of Zenspirations

The nursery was complete, down to the taffeta which draped the old-fashioned, yellow wicker bassinet. Each of Mom Rudberg’s
babies had slept in that bassinet and we had continued the tradition
with Todd, who was now five. I arranged the long skirt flowing
from bassinet to floor—turquoise because we didn’t know if the
new baby would be a boy or girl. I painted the dresser peach with
yellow daisies framing white drawer knobs. For the remainder of
the nine months, I crossed my fingers. I loved my boy but wanted
a girl.

I was determined I would stay home for this baby, as I hadn’t
been able to with Todd. We’d purchased our first little home in
Vancouver where, as luck would have it, a neighboring street
revealed a view of snowy Mount Hood outside our front window.
Rhododendrons bloomed in the backyard all spring and Bill had
cleared a garden for me to tend and harvest.
Monday, June 26 was a hot summer day. I cleaned the house,
drove to the library to find books for my hospital stay, and rode
bikes with Todd to a nearby store for milk. He pedaled double-time,
working hard to keep up with me on his twenty-inch bike. Even
at five years old, he was competitive and made every effort to keep
up with his very awkward, pregnant mother. Those extra eight
days after the due date had dragged on. Were the mild twinges of
pressure on my belly early labor contractions?

“We’re just checking to see if that baby is here yet!” Betsy said
as she breezed into the house with her best friend. She’d brought
ice cream bars for all of us.

After we finished the cool treats, the mild twinges turned into
more earnest, painful pressure. At the hospital only two hours later,
the baby arrived.

I was exhausted but giddy. “What is it?”

“It’s a girl!”

My heart leaped with joy, but then I felt a pang of fear. The
room was strangely quiet. There was no lusty newborn cry. The
baby was the color of chalk.

In my dreamlike state, I watched as if from a distance, knowing
the medical staff would take care of her. After all, this was the largest
birthing center in Oregon.

Little did I know that my baby’s life was hanging by a thread.
After five minutes—a long time to be without oxygen—she began to
breathe. And yet it may have been better that Erika did not breathe
right away. Meconium had been present in the amniotic fluid, a
substance dangerous to newborns if breathed into tender lungs.
The labor nurse quickly wrapped my baby in a warm blanket
and alerted the doctor. They worked in one corner of the delivery
room as I lay on the table. At last, I could hear low voices. “She’s
breathing now; let’s get her up to the nursery.” In those days they
didn’t have an ICU for newborns as they do now. They whisked her
off where I could not see her for hours, unable to touch or nuzzle
her, to nurse her, or examine her tiny fingers and toes.
Bill came into the recovery room. “Should I call the prayer
chain at church?”

“Yes,” I said feebly. I was beginning to come out of my high and
wonder if our baby would be all right. Later in my room, a tech
began to take blood samples.

For nearly twelve hours, there was no diagnosis for our baby.
Finally, the pediatrician announced, “Your baby girl lost seventy-five percent of her blood during that precipitous delivery. Somehow
it transfused back into your bloodstream. It’s a good thing you
have a different type of blood because it helped us discover the
problem.” Although in serious condition, the baby was a fighter.
They administered a “super cell” blood transfusion and hoped for
the best.

In the next three days, she improved. We named her Erika,
choosing the Swedish spelling of the name to match her Swedish
last name. Her middle name, Ann, was also my mother’s. The first
four days, my only connection with baby Erika was through the
nursery window. I just wanted to hold her.

A woman wearing a hot pink volunteer jacket pushed a cart
into my room. “Would you like to choose a book?”
“Oh, thank you, but I’ve brought some of my own.” She turned
away, wheeling the cart down the hall before I stopped her with
my voice. “Wait a minute! Let me see what you have.” I picked up
a thick, paperback Bible. “I’ll take this.”

Although I’d been a Christian for many years and Bill and I were
regular churchgoers, I usually opened my Bible only on Sundays. I
was ashamed by the realization that I rarely called on God except
in trouble. Was I was one of those Christians who used God just
for “fire insurance” for eternity without taking the time to know
Him? I was selfishly living my life on my own terms, expecting it to
be smooth and surprised when it wasn’t problem-free. Right now,
I needed to get back in touch with God.
I opened the Bible to a favorite passage in Romans 8.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble,
or hardship . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I felt peace. I knew Erika was in God’s hands and whatever
happened to her would not be a surprise to Him. God was very
real to me again and I remembered that He had always been there.
It was I who had moved away.

On that fourth evening after Erika’s birth, the nurse came in
briskly and said, “Are you ready to hold your baby girl?”
“Oh yes!” We walked to the nursery where I sat in the rocking
chair, trembling with joy as she placed Erika in my arms. At first,
she seemed to belong to them, not me. But a few moments later, I
was filled with love and awe and knew she was mine. I opened her
blanket and examined her little body. She made soft baby noises as
I lifted her to my shoulder and patted her back. I kissed her and
breathed in her sweet smell.

“Your baby seems to be stabilizing, though there may be brain
damage from the lack of oxygen,” the doctor said. “Time will tell.”
To me, she seemed fine except for the shaved portion on the left
side of her head where she’d had the blood transfusion—the sign
that there had been problems. She was our miracle baby.
On Saturday morning, Bill and Todd picked me up from the
hospital. Our baby had to stay and I reluctantly left her under the
nurses’ care. Returning home, I walked into the empty nursery
amidst all that peach and turquoise. What would I have done if she
hadn’t survived? Next morning, the hospital called and told us we
could come and pick up baby Erika.

I began to read my Bible. All the scriptures seemed to open
up and become real to me. No longer did I read out of duty, but
because I wanted to……

For more on this story and more of mine, go to the book page and order the book, Beyond Second Chances: Heartbreak to Joy. https://www.redemption-press.com/shop/beyond-second-chances-heartbreak-to-joy/