The gift

I found a dusty plastic storage container tucked in the back of my garage that I thought contained my husband’s stuff, only to open it and find mine.

 

I found my high school yearbooks, small gifts given to me by friends and family, letters, journals, the Bible I used as a teenager and a few childhood pictures. But the best surprise I found was the large white gift box nestled all the way in the bottom.

 

Caleb’s newborn outfit

Inside the box was the newborn outfit we brought our son, Caleb home in. I was beyond excited to find it because for years I thought I had lost it or given it away by accident. So it was a huge relief to know I still had it, since it’s very special to me.

 

You see, my pregnancy (and my labor and delivery) with Caleb didn’t go as planned. It certainly didn’t fit neatly into the pages of my What to Expect When Your Expecting book. There were so many unexpected in my pregnancy that I could’ve written my own version of the book.

 

Feeling unprepared

It’s probably why I felt so unprepared, not only for the delivery but to be a mom as well. Everything happened so fast.  Just as I was getting adjusted to being pregnant, Caleb decided he was ready to be born at 24 weeks. We successfully deterred him. And even though we knew his arrival would be imminent, we thought we could make it to full-term. Or at least that was what my husband and I were hoping, anyway.

 

So much so, that when I went to the hospital at 34 weeks neither one of us expected to come home with a baby. We thought the doctor would check me out and send me home because this was my normal since Caleb first attempted his breakout. 

 

In fact, go to hospital, get checked by doctor, come home:  Was my weekly routine. I was such a frequent visitor that my husband and I were hospital experts. 

 

That’s why we didn’t think this trip would be any different than the countless other times I was told to go to the hospital. And why wouldn’t it be? I wasn’t in pain or feeling any discomfort or any of the other indicators of labor as described in my What to Expect When Your Expecting book.

 

So both my husband and I were shocked when the doctor told us that I was 6 centimeters dilated and in labor. And that’s how a routine hospital visit turned us into first-time parents. 

 

Panic in the hospital room

After Caleb was born there was a lot of hullabaloo in our hospital room between doctors examining him and visitors coming and going. So it was a confusing, hectic time for us. Our primary concern was getting Caleb home. His care team still hadn’t made a decision if he could get discharged with me or if he needed to spend some more time in the hospital. Meanwhile, my doctor tried to delay my discharge as late as he could until we heard something. 

 

When we finally got the news that Caleb could come home with us, we were so elated! But our joy turned into panic when the nurse told us to get the baby dressed to go home. It was at this moment that my husband and I remembered we brought no clothes for the baby. After all, we had no intention of staying overnight, let alone having a baby. So we didn’t bring anything with us to the hospital! 

 

Worse yet, it was past 11:00 at night and the hospital gift shop was closed. This meant we needed to find a store that was still open and sold baby clothes and was close to the hospital so my husband could grab the stuff and get back in time. My husband was frantically trying to figure it all out (this was before the smartphone era). 

 

The gift bag

It was then that I saw the gift. It was given to us by my husband’s aunt and uncle when they came to visit. There were so many other pressing issues on my plate at the time that I had set it aside and promptly forgot about it. But inside the box, all wrapped in tissue paper was a baby blue preemie outfit, complete with hat and socks. And I was blown away at how amazing God is! Even before we knew we had a need, God had already provided.