Face First

He had a rough start to life. He was poorly positioned in the womb so that his face wanted to come out first instead of the top part of his head. His mom pushed and pushed for hours, but he just wasn’t going to turn and come out that way, so the doctor tried to deliver with forceps. Unfortunately, that did not work either, so the baby was finally delivered by cesarean section. And when he finally came out, he looked like he had been through it. 

His little face was all red, black, and blue, swollen with open sores. His head was sorely misshapen from all the pushing and pulling, and his neck was severely hyperextended from his position in utero, so much so that the back of his head bent over and touched his back, and it was stuck that way. It looked terribly unnatural and uncomfortable, but if I tried to correct it, he would cry out in pain. 

He needed resuscitation at birth from such a traumatic and long delivery, and we worked quickly to get him breathing, heart beating, and oxygenation acceptable. Only a few hours after birth, he was settled into his isolette in our crude NICU with tubes and lines coming in and out of him all over the place - an IV, CPAP, and continuous cardiac and pulse oximetry monitoring. 

Just looking at him like that made me sigh. Even his mother didn’t want to see him, and I kind of don’t blame her. It’s probably best that she didn’t see him in that initial state. As I looked at him, all helpless and floppy, beaten and bruised, mechanical-looking with all that medical equipment, I knew some unfortunate facts. One is that face presentation babies often have other severe congenital defects. Two is that such a difficult delivery could leave this baby with neurological complications for the rest of his life. So part of me wanted him to live, and part of me thought it might be God’s grace if he didn’t.

Although I did everything I could to care for him to the best of my ability, and though I showed him love and tender care, I did not expect him to make it. 

Yet I should have realized that any baby who wants to meet the world face first has a vigorour drive for life and a reason to live. 

So two days later when I returned to work, there he was! I rubbed antibiotic ointment on his facial lacerations that were now covered in dark scabs. I weaned him off CPAP and witnessed him succeed on oxygen via nasal cannula only. I gradually repositioned his neck and watched it straighten out a little more each day. I dropped a nasogastric tube and helped him start feeding. I rejoiced over his bowel movements and gave him antibiotics through his IV while singing to him of God’s love. 

Then, one day, I walked over to his isolette with his mother and touched her shoulder as she looked at him for the first time. I brought her a chair and placed him in her lap,  and encouraged her as she breastfed him. He latched like a champ and drank so happily that he opened his swollen eyes for the first time. Then he fell peacefully asleep in his mother’s arms. As she supported his neck and he buried his face into her, you could no longer see his cuts or bruises or funny shaped head or crooked neck. He was just a normal baby, contently resting in his momma’s lap. 

It is amazing to me how resilient babies are. How bruises and wounds heal and swelling goes down. How what was misshapen takes form and what was crooked straightens. Until what I thought would never make it becomes full of living possibility. 

All this teaches me to never give up hope. To believe instead of sigh when I see the bumps and bruises in my own life and the lives of others. To know that what seems broken on the inside is actually undergoing a beautiful healing process. And to trust that was seems impossible actually has life pulsing through its veins. What is crooked can be aligned and that what is wrong can be made right again. 

We who are beaten and bruised are wanted and loved because we belong to someone, to a Father who adores us. He is not appalled by the trauma we have been through, but rather longs to hold us close and nourish us tenderly with his love until we heal and grow and open our eyes to see him and love him in return. 

He doesn’t cry anymore when I move his neck, and he is becoming more and more active everyday. Soon he will be entirely off oxygen and will be taking all his feeds without the help of an NG tube. He is on his last day of antibiotics and all the scabs have fallen off his face, leaving fresh pink baby soft skin. His cranial sutures are closing and his head doesn’t look so lumpy anymore. He’s gaining weight so well that the pediatrician calls him “fat baby” in the most affectionate way possible. And it’s only been one week. 

If this much transformation can occur in one week, there is hope for our broken places as well. For our Abba Father cares for us delicately and intensely, and he gives pulsing life and breath to what we thought could never make it. This miraculous healing process takes time, and it takes place in the inside when we are held between his arms and nestled into his chest, totally dependent on him and totally covered in his love.