There has been several times I didn’t understand what God was doing in my life or if He could actually understand what was going on. One particular time always reminds me how Awesome He is, even when we don’t see it.
It was March 2002. I was pregnant with my first living child and I was showing a great deal. My husband was working at a Dredging company nearby (where he worked for nearly 20 years). We were making good money and we had just moved into our home. Life was going well. My husband often worked on the dredges days or months at a time so I was use to having him gone. We were a little nervous about me having so many issues and being pregnant and due a few months later, but we prayed about it and believed that this would be a good time for us to make some extra money. Everything was as normal as the next. I went over to my in-laws house because I was having night sweats anud small cramps and I just wanted to be near humans. My husbands dredge was going to go up the atlantic in to Delaware, drop off it’s load and then travel down to the Atlantic near North Carolina before coming back home to Virginia. I would talk to him the next morning and he would tell me how beautiful the sunrise was and about the birds following the barge and tug. We have a saying, one of us says, “May the Lord bless you and keep you” and the other one says, “may His face shine upon you, I love you always and forever”. We said this, but something felt off about this day. In a few hours the pains I had been feeling became more intense and my mother-in-law and I would walk up and down the road for a few hours until I called the doctor. She told me that they were just braxton and hicks and normal about this time in my pregnancy. Convinced I hung up, but the pains became more intense. My inlaws and I walked up and down the road for 9 hours and we would contact the doctor several more times. She told us that when the pains became closer together (about 2min together) then I needed to go to the hospital right away. They started out being 1/2 hour apart for the first 5 or 6 hours. Then they were 15 min apart and about 9 hours later they became 2 min apart. The doctor said that she was the only one on call and she had already delivered 2 other premature babies and she didn’t want a third one. My in-laws were able to get the CEO of the dredging company to go get my husband off the barge and bring him home because we were all convinced this baby was coming 2 months early.
At the hospital, they checked me and realized that I was 3 cm dilated and the baby was 98% effaced and my pubic bone had broken in half. We were all just waiting for my water to break because no matter what, this baby was on her way. I prayed that God would help us right now, help the baby who was coming too soon, help her daddy who was trying to quickly get here in time and help me, as I was scared out of my mind! My husband came safely and he came into the room and laid his hand on our baby and asked God to protect her and to give me peace. The hospital recorded how many contractions I had and I had just had a huge one before he came in. Then, the monitor became quiet and all activity ceased. My body stopped having contractions, the baby’s heart was no longer stressed, it was as if she knew her daddy was there and she went right to sleep. They kept me over night to monitor the baby and me and my husband slept in the chair next to me. The next day I went home.
Only two hours after we had gotten home my husband had received a phone call. He was told that while we were in the hospital almost having a baby, the tug driver got drunk and rammed the bridge into a bridge. Only two people on the dredge survived and we needed to drive the two wives to Delaware to see their husbands. Sixteen people lost their lives and my husband would have been on the lower level of the badge sleeping if he was not with me. Sixteen families would wake up learning about the deaths of their sons, husbands, fathers, or friends. I would ride in the back seat with one of these women (one got a ride with her brother), she was only told she would see her husband because she wasn’t even told if he was dead or alive. We talked about the birth pains and about how her husband was’t there for her first baby but he made it a point to be there for the next one. We discussed the love we have for our husbands and how we had wished they had a different job then working on the barges and how we both wished we could find them another job. We prayed together and wondered what Delaware was like and why we had to go up there, why not somewhere near us. It felt like a LONG trip even though it was only a few hours. Once we got there we saw news people, cameras and monitors and the hospital staff and police pushed us past everyone wanting to know what had just happened. Thankfully, both the wives were welcomed by husbands that were alive, because of some miracle. We were told about how the others perished and a young boy even died as he jumped in to save his father. I felt guilty being excited that our daughter wasn’t born yet and her daddy was still alive.
As the many years have transpired since then, we have kept up with a few of the families that lost someone that day. It still amazes me when I think of the pain I felt from nearly having a baby and the pain of trying to walk with a broken bone. God was there, He used my baby in His perfect plan to save the daddy she loves so much.
We learned that it may not make sense to us, but God, will use one way or the other to create a miracle.