the crawford family

This is a story about life and death, but it’s not Ben’s birth story. Hang with me.

When you go through trauma—gosh, when you go through life!—you pick up on acute coincidences, divine dealings of our God who cares and is involved in it all. In our everyday, here and now. I know and believe His Holy Spirit is always teaching, showing, and molding those who follow Him. Also comforting, loving, watching.

In his grace, He sanctifies us—yes, even through a birth story like Ben’s.

And the only appropriate response I can give, the one required of me, is to look for those mercies, those graces, and recognize them, learn from them and share them.

So, here’s what I have learned and here’s what I will share. I’m going deep to write about Jesus and the gospel—because I’m utterly compelled and can’t not write this down.

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**Disclaimer: I report what I remember as I remember it. I was, however, in lots of pain and heavily drugged.**

I am not educated on how the body perceives pain. I know I didn’t feel the pain at the spot it apparently occurred, my former C-section incision site. A nurse told me when you experience acute pain, your body just knows to respond with feel pain! You could feel it anywhere. I felt the pain of rupture higher in my abdomen.

I also had a vivid experience, and saw two growing arcs of pain, that climbed and climbed then met at a point at the top. And at the top, they broke. I keep trying to explain this to people, but it’s hard because, like the buzzing in my ears, I admit it’s bizarre.

The rupturing, which likely simultaneously caused the placental abruption, did actually almost feel like a contraction, but it outperformed any contractions I have known. It was a pain where you have to holler. One additional event followed, with arcs of pain that built and met then broke. I screamed. And then I knew something had ripped. I reported it as a pop to the nurse, though, and also that I’d gone a little numb. These were of high interest to her; she had me repeat what I said, her eyes wide. She was afraid now, and I knew it.

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**Disclaimer: I report what I remember as I remember it. I was, however, in lots of pain and heavily drugged.**

It was a Thursday. When I woke up that morning, my baby was still in my womb, healthy and moving. My body was still intact, functioning as a safe place. My life was still giving life to my little one. And my mind was still calm, unprepared for what comes next.

Whether it began that day or over the weeks and years before, I’m not sure. But on March 28, 2019—my womb, my body—everything started to expire. The hours were numbered.

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**Disclaimer: I report what I remember as I remember it. I was, however, in lots of pain and heavily drugged.**

Birth is such an interesting phenomenon. People seem to universally agree. And just when we want to think of the phenomenon in the traditional sense, it’s hard to downplay the marvels of medicine—we must admit that surgeries, too, not just vaginal deliveries, qualify as phenomenal in the end. Just ask a woman from the 18th century. Or me, who has now had 50% childbirth, 50% emergency C-sections.

All my births wrapped into one make up my personal “phenomenon.” They weave together in sometimes pleasant, sometimes painful ways. They never start and end the same.

And this, my latest and last pregnancy—the one where my uterus ruptures along a scar and we almost die—actually begins with my first.

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