Micah's Birth - Before

I have a baby lying asleep across my lap. He is my precious Micah. He was promised to me three years ago and in March of 2014, God gave me his name: Micah James Levi. Two miscarriages later, I fell pregnant and Micah was finally with me. This is the story of his birth.

Before

I actually thought I would have an early labour (my trust in gut feelings lets me down sometimes) and was counting down to 37 weeks pregnant, rather than 40 weeks, in order to stay sane. I was thrilled when I made it to 37 because that was the cut-off date for being allowed a home birth, which I desperately wanted.

I was physically forced to finish work at 35 weeks pregnant and spent the next five weeks resting with more and more need to lie down during the day and inability to walk around and do anything. Late pregnancy was really hard.

My blood pressure had seemed high at midwife appointments which stressed me out so incredibly much. One of my fears had been high blood pressure in pregnancy. Also blood clots and blood sugar issues. But God had declared for me a home birth so I stood on that promise and chose to believe my blood pressure would work out fine. I argued with the midwife, "but God has promised me a home birth so it must be fine!" Then we finally borrowed a blood pressure monitor and it always measured normal at home on my own. Massive relief! 

Forty weeks pregnant came and went and we were still preparing. We inflated the big blue birth pool from the birth centre. We stored it in the hallway because it smelled like plastic. If visitors came it was moved to the lounge and they would give it silent glances ;-) We packed a hospital bag although I was certain we wouldn't need it! 

I remember one day I just had to put the washing away even though I could barely move. My nesting instinct was strong.

I began to get signs that I might have a baby soon. I also, however, realised what the date and month were. End of July. Early August. Exactly this time last year I was waiting for my first miscarriage to occur.

I waited two weeks from the day of the ultrasound that brought bad news. I waited two weeks for the pregnancy to end and to bury my precious tiny unformed baby. Now I was waiting for another labour and birth exactly a year later and this was awfully familiar.

Again I rested at home waiting. Again I cancelled teaching and waited. Again life stopped for a time. Again my husband stayed home from work to give me emotional space and comfort.

Now grief came and I sat in it, cried in it, bathed in it for awhile. She was my precious baby. I wanted to keep her. I had thought I was definitely over it and would never feel strongly again but here I was, feeling all over again.

Suddenly I didn't want this pregnancy to end. Would it feel like last time? Would I feel empty? I wanted to keep him inside for longer and feel his bony limbs wriggling and trying to burst out of my skin. I wanted to keep him that close and that safe and that loved.

But I needed to let go of him so that he could come out. He needed to come out into the world. 

So I grieved and then I let go. You can come out now Micah. A renewed peace came and I felt okay with the looming birth.

I knew labour wouldn't begin until I was ready in the head and the heart. I had learned that lesson when my miscarriage finally happened a few hours after I found peace.

I was feeling stressed by the expectation of my husband going to work each day. I was struggling with knowing he would leave me alone at home again. I needed everything to be over.

On Thursday, the day after our due date. we decided my husband would finish up at work and stay home for a week or two until Micah was born.

I began to get quite stressed about not being in labour yet. I would lie awake at night worried that I would never feel calm enough for my body to start labour.

God told me three movies in a row. The Matrix was first, with the slow motion fighting and the red and blue pills. There was a scene from Divergent with the super brave people dangerously jumping from the train. There was a scene from The Edge of Tomorrow with the guy training to fight the aliens by practice fighting those big metallic whirling things. 

All those movies were about defying human nature and being bigger and better and above human ability. God told me I didn't have to be a super-human. He said I could just be myself and that was enough. He would cover me.

By Monday, everything was completely ready for Micah to come. By Monday people also started asking questions. "When are you due?!" "Is the induction booked??" "Does the midwife use forceps and give stitches??" "I'm concerned you might not get an induction!"

I didn't answer. I hated all the questions threatening to bring all my fear back. I wanted people to stop saying things because I had finally found peace about the birth starting when it was time! God told me not to try to get labour started. I was following his lead. I felt to distract myself from waiting. That day we played board games and I watched YouTube. It was a special day of rest for my husband and I together.  

The following day, Tuesday, I felt to focus on the impending birth and not to distract myself. I sang and prayed and declared over the birth. I felt ready. I wondered if labour would begin tonight and sensed Holy Spirit saying yes, it would. "Really God? Am I really hearing that?" I asked. Yes, I was.

Why I cancelled my ultrasound

I had been struggling for weeks deciding whether to have a 19 week ultrasound. Normally I make decisions pretty easily, so I wondered why I couldn't sort this one out.

Weeks earlier, when the doctor had mentioned an ultrasound, my immediate response had been, "I feel like God is saying i can have it." I wasn't sure if God meant I should, or could. I wasn't sure if I wanted it or not.

I felt that God would keep Micah safe, but i didn't know what needed to happen or what God really wanted.

Hence the indecision began.

I talked it through with so many friends over weeks, which is something I don't normally do.

Right from the beginning I had felt that if I had the scan it would be to give me peace; to give me more security in trusting for a safe, healthy birth. I felt that God was giving me a way to have more peace because I had been struggling so much with fear. But I had always wanted to avoid scans in pregnancy because of the health risks to the baby and I was having trouble putting that desire down.

I wished I could have that wonderful experience of avoiding the ultrasound and trusting God fully with the health of my baby and pregnancy. It seemed like I wasn't allowed that though, because I had a few nutritional issues. Also because I struggled with fear.

I was sometimes afraid that God wanted me to have a scan because something was going to show up wrong. I was also afraid that if I didn't have a scan I would be going against God's wishes and when it came to the birth I wouldn't have enough peace to get through the process.

I decided I would have the scan, thinking that if I just made a choice, peace about it would come. The next day I had doubts again! I booked the ultrasound and felt okay about it but very nervous for it. I did think it was what God wanted... probably. I wasn't at peace with myself though. I knew I might always be disappointed that I had an ultrasound.

One day God showed me an image of my midwife working alongside God, as if God was in charge and she was just his servant. In the same moment God showed me that the ultrasound technician would just be showing me the great things that God was doing inside of me. The technician had no power. People had no power over my pregnancy. God was in charge.

After i had an appointment with my midwife and heard Micah's heartbeat, I started to feel unsure about my decision again! I read some data and statistics and realised the ultrasound was unlikely to have much benefit to us and was opening up a lot of opportunity for concern or fear or a snowball of interventions. God had already given us peace about Micah being healthy and the birth being safe.

I talked to my husband about maybe not having a scan after all. My spirit rose up and thought, "You know, I could actually just go by faith. Maybe god doesn't need the scan after all."

When I started to think like that, the fear suddenly left my body and I felt powerful and peaceful. I said "Jesus doesn't need to use a scan to give me peace! He can give me peace through the Holy Spirit!"

I saw that relying on the scan for peace was just buying into the battle I had been through lately with wanting knowledge and understanding in all areas of health and pregnancy. I had been struggling with 'wanting to know' so I could have more peace but now it was time to rise above that and to say "I don't need to know everything. God will tell us what to do when he needs to. I surrender to him." My husband had peace about not having a scan and I decided to trust that what I was believing and feeling was from Holy Spirit and that my doubts were the voice of fear. I cancelled the ultrasound.

I believe I had a break through that day. The break through was bigger than the decision about the ultra sound. It was a big step in overcoming fear and a lesson in God's true desires.

I haven't once regretted my final decision and have had total peace about it since.



A little later I felt God saying to me quite sternly, "Come on, stop being so wrapped up in little things. They don't matter as much as you think! I want to use you and I can't because you are so caught up in worrying and focusing on every little decision. Put on your kingdom perspective and focus on building my kingdom in the world."

I sensed how God sees such a bigger picture and is focused on the entire world and his eternal plan. It truly felt like God was pulling me into line, but the way your best friend might say, "Hey, seriously, you need to do this. I'm telling you because I love you." It wasn't in a condemning or angry way but it was more intense than God had spoken to me in a long time. I was glad of it though! I really took notice.

Was the cross weak or strong?

On Good Friday I was sitting in church watching a dramatic and artsy depiction of Jesus before and on the cross (booming baroque playing organ and all). I was watching through the lense of a question I had been pondering - was the whole cross event weak or strong?

Some might say Jesus was weak hanging there half dead, blood everywhere and in total agony. Some might say that of course it was strong - the death of Jesus conquered the enemy completely! You might say Jesus chose to be weak, where he could have been stronger in resisting death. And in that moment of weakness there was a lot of strength to save humanity.

So what is at the root of my question?

Well I have been pondering childbirth lately. It is fairly imminent and I had a moment this week of "There is a baby inside me and he has to come out!" There is no option about this - it is the most certain thing!

I have been wondering whether the surrender during childbirth is strong, or weak. You are submitting to your body. You are surrendering your physical self to god, and probably your emotional/spiritual self too. It is like falling face down on the floor and not moving. Weakness. Surrender. (I know people don't give birth face down on the floor, that was an analogy ;-) )

Is that just weakness? A good type of weakness? Or is there strength in it?

What if you wanted to get up? But God wanted you to stay there? You had a choice. You could pull yourself up with your muscles and it would look strong. It would feel strong. But there would also be strength in choosing to stay down. How hard would that be? It depends how much you desperately wanted to get up.

I watched Jesus in the garden of gethsemane:

Gethsemane

 36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”

Jesus says he is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death and moves away to pray alone... 

 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” ... being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Now he goes back to the desciples and finds them asleep...

“Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”  

And here I saw the paradox. The desciples can't stay awake even though Jesus asked them to. We have to assume that they wanted to, but they couldn't do it! "The spirit is willing but the body is weak."

But Jesus... 

42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”  

Jesus is sitting there saying "God have your way, do your will, I will do this if it is the only way." Jesus can choose. Jesus has the strength in God to choose and eventually to follow through. The humans are still failing though...

43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy.

I asked God again as I sang, "was Jesus on the cross weak or strong?"

"When you are weak I am strong. My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness," whispered Holy Spirit. 

That brought tears to my eyes because the cross was such a beautiful sacrifice for all the weakness of our humanity.

And what have I decided about childbirth?

Let's go back to the lying on the floor analogy. Staying down takes a mighty lot of will-power and choice to surrender. I see, magnified through the repeated failure of the disciples to stay awake, that I may not have the strength in me to do it. None of us do. But in our weakness God is strong and He can make us able.

So, I have decided that letting God take over my body during birth is strength. The strength of choosing and following through. It is fleshly weak and soul-strong, but through the power of God.

Fleshly weak and soul-strong.

As was Jesus, letting himself be nailed to a cross and the last breath be taken from him.

   *      *      *      *      *

My husband and I are pleased to share a freshly recorded version of 'Jesus Won' - a song I wrote for Easter last year. 

http://noisetrade.com/kgrayston/2014-originals

"In a Garden before God, Jesus said, "Not my will but yours, Father take this cup from me." But on his knees he knew he had won."

I was wrong.

A couple of weeks after my second miscarriage, I see signs of implantation.

"Whoa!"

I know what it looks like. I freak out a bit and go back to sleep.

I'm up the next morning and Holy Spirit says, "You're pregnant, you're pregnant, you're pregnant!" It is such a strong word of knowledge that I cannot possibly dispute it. It goes on for hours.

Over the next few days I have clear symptoms and I tell a few people I am pregnant again. I am only three weeks pregnant but I am swimming in pregnancy hormones.

This time it feels totally different to the other times. I have peace and joy and I believe this is my baby to keep. I think it is the baby whose name God gave me in March, eight months earlier. Micah. God shows me that the baby and I are in a protective bubble.

After the last miscarriage God said, "Next time you are pregnant you can be happy and peaceful." I truly am.

Then my best friend reminds me not to assume anything. I remember what God taught me the first time. I have to stand on who God is, not on what I think is going to happen. I realise I don't know what will happen. But I know that God is loving and faithful. I can stand on that.

When I ask God which baby this is he keeps telling me the song Oceans.

"You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown, where feet may fail. And there I'll find you in the mystery, in oceans deep, my faith will stand."

"I will call upon your name, keep my eyes above the waves, when oceans rise, my soul will rest in your embrace, for I am yours, and you are mine."

I do somehow know for sure that this baby is a boy.

Otherwise I feel strongly that God doesn't want me to know what is going to happen. He wants me to learn to trust without knowing. To walk blindly but calmly. Not trusting for a certain outcome, but trusting in who God is. This is a deeper level of faith for the girl who normally hears Holy Spirit's wisdom pretty clearly and tends to know what will happen. This is hard.

I feel a strong connection to this baby. I pray for him, I love him, I sense his presence. A week after I realised I was pregnant, something changes. The connection snaps. I see blood. I think it is over.

"Say goodbye baby," I tell my husband when he leaves for work the next day, as if the baby is still happily alive in my belly. I want to believe this baby is still okay.

"Bye baby," he says grinning. But it feels so wrong to me. Incredibly wrong. I don't think the baby is here anymore.

For the next week I don't feel anywhere near as pregnant. Physically. Sometimes I forget I am pregnant. I grieve and then I accept that this is another miscarriage. Pregnancy and miscarriage has become strangely normal. This is the third time in four months.

God gives me three names for this pregnancy. Joseph, Isaiah, Josiah. None of them stand out Any more than the others. I wonder which is the baby's name.

Joseph in the prison waiting for God to bring forth blessing. Isaiah for Isaiah 62 I had prophecied to me that week. Both Joseph and Isaiah mean "God will add/increase."

Josiah feels like a promise for the future. I look it up and it means, "God has healed." I love the name Josiah.

Later that day more names come: Matthew, Malachi, Luke. Gift from God, God's messenger, light. Why are there so many names? Why do none of them feel like they are the baby's actual name?

A couple of times I have a strong sense flash into me that 'Micah' is with me but I'm not sure whether it is true.

I don't talk about the pregnancy this week. I just stay quiet and I wait. I wait for the miscarriage to begin but 'four weeks pregnant' comes and goes. I am still pregnant.

A few days later I wake in the night and everything hits me. I don't feel okay emotionally anymore. All the thoughts come. I can't face another miscarriage. I can't face the physical side of it so soon. Three miscarriages means something must be wrong with my body doesn't it? For the first time ever I doubt God's promise for me to have a baby soon.

We visit a church. The sermon is about prayer. God says to me, "You are powerful."

I have been feeling a bit helpless and surrendered to whatever occurs. God says i am not powerless, I can pray. I can pray and claim the things of the kingdom - peace, healing, all the things of God.

A couple of women pray for me. They are speaking so much positivity and life. It feels good.

That night a friend calls me. God has given her a verse for me:

"Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table." (Psalms 128:3 NLT) My faith in God's promise for a baby in 2015 is restored.

God has also given her a picture of red, ripe coffee cherries. She feels strongly that God wants me to believe for this baby, to speak and act like the pregnancy is going to come to full term.

Really?

"I have a name..." she says. "It is Josiah."

That's the name God gave me! Josiah. Not Micah. Josiah.

I am still confused and I don't really know what is reality. Could I possibly have a life growing within me still? Is it possible there were two babies? Could Micah be here? It doesn't feel like he is.

I do realise I have been speaking death over my body and my womb. All week.

I see that God wants me to learn to speak life. Of course he wants me to speak life and hope. I imagine how healing it will be to learn to speak the things of God in faith, rather than speak according to what I see in the natural or what I know in my mind.

I could speak health and healing into my body. I could have more physical healing.

The next morning  I ask God if the baby is inside my womb, or in heaven. God shows me a scene in my mind of a little boy running around in a field of grass. He is so happy. I really sense his Joy. I assume the grassy field is in heaven and that the boy is Josiah and he is not inside me anymore.

I realise perhaps God actually wants me to speak prophetically. I speak life and health into my womb. I speak prophetically into the baby I will carry to full term, whenever that occurs. God wants me to speak into the full ripeness of coffee cherries as a prophecy, as a promise, as the desire of God. He does not want me to speak death even if that is what I see.

Finally I take an actual pregnancy test. I want to have something to keep. It is positive. In that moment I have so much peace and joy even knowing I have another child in heaven. How can I feel sad seeing that Josiah is so incredibly happy?

I decide that Josiah's middle name will be Luke.  Luke means light. I choose it from the six names God has given me. None of the names ever jumped out strongly as our baby's names but I chose them anyway.

The next morning I wake very early and start to feel afraid. I feel to pray and claim the things of God. I claim healing for my womb and for a smooth, easy miscarriage if that is what is to occur. Jesus has already paid for my healing. I can claim it, I can expect it.

Later that morning I think the miscarriage has begun. I am relieved. Then it stops.

Still waiting. Still trusting.

I reach five weeks pregnant. I have been feeling a little more pregnant the last few days, but not like I did the first week. I am so angry and overwhelmed with all the possible outcomes in my mind.

I finally stop trying to believe I could have a baby within me still. I decide to let myself believe this is a miscarriage. I have no doubt that Josiah is in heaven and I now have three children in heaven. I will allow myself to believe Micah is coming next year.

Now I feel much more peaceful. But now I have a strong feeling that I am pregnant with Micah. It is not a logical feeling, just a feeling in the spirit that comes with much peace. I wonder, is this prophetic? Perhaps there is so much spirit going into preparing for my child that I often get confused when I feel it and think it is already happening.

Or perhaps I have a baby inside me. God doesn't want me to know yet.

One day I do ask God what is going on in my belly and he says, "A battle."



During the seventh week I run all the things God has said around in my head and I decide that maybe there could be a baby. Nothing he has said would be wrong if there was. It could have been twins. Or more likely, the names he gave me were just spoken over the pregnancy, not the baby's actual name, and Micah really was here. Maybe the little boy running in the grass joyfully wasn't a picture of my baby in heaven? Maybe it was just a picture of joy?

A couple of days later I am struggling with something and my husband is praying for me. As He prays aloud and I lay there receiving I have an incredibly strong sense come to me suddenly. It says, "There is no baby." It is crushing. It brings despair. My heart wants to say, "No, please don't be true!" but I accept it. As I feared all along, there is no baby.

I figure God had to wait for me to think there might be a baby before he could speak the opposite and have me know it was him, not my own thoughts.

Eight weeks, nine weeks, ten weeks. No sign of miscarriage. I feel so pregnant. I am firmly holding onto that voice though. "God said there is no baby. He is teaching me to stand on what he says no matter what anyone else thinks or what circumstances say."

Sometimes I pray for a miscarriage to start. But it doesn't feel right in my spirit to ask for that. So I always add, "if that is your will God."

I am getting so stressed because I am going back to work in a few weeks and I thought the miscarriage would be over in the holidays!

I have a message prepared in my head that I will send to my friends and family to announce that we have had another baby join his sisters in heaven.

I decide I need to visit the doctor. It is getting too far into the pregnancy. I tell him I don't think there is a baby there. I haven't felt pregnant enough, I say. He sends me for a scan to see what is going on.

At eleven weeks and five days pregnant we head to the scan. "I don't think there is a baby," I tell the ultrasound technician. I am saving them the stress of having to think I am devastated by a picture of an empty uterus. I am okay with it, I grieved the baby many weeks ago. I will honestly be relieved to see the proof.

"There's the baby," says the technician.

There is a baby on the screen. He wiggles.

I am totally shocked. I am happy. I grin widely and mouth to my husband, "Battle!" He can't work out what I am saying but he is really happy too. Wow. A baby!

I was wrong. There is a baby. But God said there was no baby! I think about the morning I heard that strong impression. I realise it didn't actually sound like God. It didn't have hope. It wasn't a voice of encouragement or a voice of comfort. It didn't say "unfortunately this, but yay for this!" It was full of soul crushing despair that put a lid on possibility. It was a dead end scenario. "There is no baby." Final. The enemy lied to me.

I was tricked and believed it was God. I have never heard the enemy speak so clearly in my life as he did that day. He sounded like Holy Spirit. But if I had been more wary I would have realised the character was all wrong.

The pregnancy stays "Josiah" for over a month. The promise that God will heal me. I feel that God isn't ready to reveal the baby's name yet. It isn't time. The baby is in the secret place still. He will come forth in time.

We continue to wait...