November 16, 2016

God Hears & God Answers: Simon Nathaniel

p a x

He’s here!  He’s finally here!

There’s so much to say about the days and hours leading up to my son’s arrival (and a birth story is in the works).  But the one thing that keeps coming to mind every time I cradle him in my arms, nuzzle him close to my chest, or smell that intoxicating newborn scent is I’m so glad that you are here.  

I still remember, quite vividly, the night I found out I was pregnant.  I stood in the bathroom waiting for the flashing dots on the digital tests to reveal our fate.  I was having an internal conversation, my mind swirling with all the reasons why there was no way it could be positive, but everything came to a screeching halt when I looked down and read the word “Pregnant” on the screen.
I gasped.  I think I may have even said the words “Oh no” out loud.  

Unlike my previous 2 pregnancies this was not a moment filled with joy and excitement.  I burst into tears.  I was scared.  It had barely been two full months since the miscarriage and I was pregnant again.
How could I do this?

  Why would God let this happen? 
The doctor told us to wait 3 months before trying to get pregnant again… 
…did I put this child in danger because I didn’t chart correctly?  

Am I going to lose this baby too?

I’m not ready…

What if…
[insert a million different worries here]  

I walked out of the bathroom and into my husband’s arms.  His reaction was perfect.

“This child is a gift.  It’s going to be OK.”

It took me weeks to really accept the news.  I didn’t want to get too attached or too excited.  I had to protect my heart from being hurt again… Yet in those weeks of waiting to hear my son’s heartbeat for the first time, God was working on my heart.

He reminded me that this child deserved to be loved from the very beginning, just as I had opened my heart to love Alexandria & the child that we lost.  God was asking me to trust Him, to surrender all of the fear and worry over to Him.

It was a slow process, and one I struggled with even up to the moment my son was born, but this pregnancy was an exercise in surrendering my anxious heart to Christ.

Now, as I hold my son against my heart, I can’t imagine life without him.  Where there was once fear and worry, all I can think about now is how grateful I am that he is here.

I will never know why we lost our baby last December.  I will never understand why that had to happen.  But as I hold my beautiful baby boy I realize that I wouldn’t have him if we hadn’t suffered that loss first.  God said “let there be life” and here he is!

How We Chose His Name

With all of our pregnancies so far we’ve been “Team Green”, meaning we don’t find out the baby’s sex before he or she is born.  We try to come up with our top 2 boy and top 2 girl names and then wait and see which one fits the baby best.  
Getting any name on the list seemed more challenging this time around, but when we settled on the names they just felt right.  

Nathaniel is one of the names that we had on the boy list for our firstborn.  For me, the meaning of the name is what kept drawing me to it.  God has answered.  ‘Nuff said.

The name Simon, on the other hand, sort of took me by surprise.  My brother-in-law, Matthew, was visiting us in August and one night we were going through a name book that had some of the most ridiculous sounding names in it.  We were laughing at the thought of naming our child something strange like “Queezimus” and then Matthew started going through the S names and said “Simon”.  “Actually that’s not a bad name,” he said before moving on down the list.  Something about that name caught my attention, so I googled the meaning:

Simon: Hebrew origin. God has heard.  


Simon Nathaniel. God has heard & God has answered.   That’s the name.  My husband agreed, and it was the only boy name we put on our list.  About a week later I went to daily Mass on the feast of St. Bartholomew (whom I learned also goes by Nathaniel), so that was enough confirmation for me that we’d chosen the right boy name. 

What I didn’t know at the time was that the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude was October 28th, a week after my due date.  Simon Nathaniel Johnston arrived on Friday, October 28th  at 1:12am.  

Well played, Holy Spirit 🙂

I’m grateful for the many prayers for me and Simon during my pregnancy and all of the prayers that covered us during the 12 hours of labor.  I’ll share Simon’s birth story later this week, but I gotta say God’s hand was definitely all over the labor and delivery process!

St. Simon and St. Jude, pray for us!

Posted By 1 Comment

Comments

  1. Margarett Cahill Zavodny says
    November 17, 2016 at 3:59 am

    ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤!

    Reply

Speak Your Mind

*