Thirteen

Kleenex alert.  Don't act like a thirteen year old and ignore my advice. 
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Today, we Nowells have a teenager in our midst.

Our Nickels is exactly 13 years old at 10:48pm tonight.  After a 22 hour plus labor, he almost didn't make it past being born.  His apgar score was zero on delivery. 

The alerts within labor and delivery went off immediately.  Our midwife, Susan, sat between my legs waiting to deliver the placenta, saying to the other nurses in the room "It was all fine.  I don't understand."

Several people rushed into the room and went directly to the incubator, standing over our little, unresponsive first born, attending to him with oxygen, fiercely rubbing his little chest to get him moving.  One of the nurses was a black lady who kept talking to him, over the beeps and alarms and frightening situation, saying "Come on sugar."

Mike looked like he didn't know which way was up.  He didn't know if he should stand next to me or Nickels.  He opted for Nickels.

I remember looking at my Mom and saying "Is he going to be OK?";  with the worried look she often carried on her face, she honestly answered "I don't know, honey."  I started praying. 

I have never felt so helpless in my life.

Then he cried.

I thought my heart would burst into a thousand pieces in that moment and I would need another set of doctors to revive me.  I just wanted to hold him.  I think everyone is really lucky I didn't try to get off that delivery bed and run to him.

Now, thirteen years later, as I look back on that day, I see we didn't get there without God's help.

We had originally decided to use an unconventional method of delivery in an area about five minutes from the hospital.  But, that was foiled when we met Susan, who didn't have privileges there.  And though we were not happy to be in a hospital setting at the time, I see that was God's great protection for our baby.

Who knows if it all would have been alright if we hadn't been at Baylor.  But, I shudder to think that it could have been otherwise.

Now, so many years after that day, I still see God standing over us, guiding our moves, even though we still sometimes question "why?"

My "whys" these days are often desperation:  Why hormones?  Why attitudes?  Why rolling eyes?  Why backtalk?  Why refusal to use soap/shampoo?  Why that stink?

But, as with our decision to be at Baylor, God has provided so many soft places and so many amazing people that are helping Nickels along the way.  We have church leaders and coaches and teachers whom he looks up to, who give him crazy good counsel and help him in ways he refuses to allow us to.

Now that he is thirteen and has figured out his parents are dumb as dirt, and has realized that everything we say can be ignored by pretending we are Charlie Brown's teacher (Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa), and has determined that we were clearly sent to ruin his life, it is more crucial than ever to have a sea of people who work with him daily, care about his life, and whose counsel he will heed.

And, by the way, Nickels?  Even though you think we are dumb and not worth listening to, we are patient.  We know you will come around in the next 10-15 years and realize how much we really do know and how much you wish you had listened.  So, in the meantime, if we mumble something about wishing you were in your mid-twenties, we really don't mean we want to teleport you to a future time;  we just wish your teenage attitude would change.  And, that maybe, just maybe, you would use your deodorant without us prompting you.

Happiest of birthdays, sweetheart!  We can't imagine our lives without you.  And we are blessed beyond measure that we can celebrate this day as your stupid, uncool, old-as-fossils, parents.

Nickels is in good hands, thanks to you, God.  You have brought him to this point in life and have great things in store for him.  Thank you for years of loving him and watching him grow into such a fine young man.  We are blessed, in all times and in all places, to call him son.