A Child Is Born

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

"Hey, I know you!" I stared at the woman trying to make a connection. She looked vaguely familiar to me, standing in the booking area of the police station with handcuffs about her wrists, but I couldn’t place her face. "You delivered my baby," she said as the arresting officer removed the cuffs. "Six months ago in the elevator? Remember?"

And suddenly I did remember. Oh, how I remembered…

The house was cluttered. Dingy and hot. A drunk, heavyset male lay passed out on the living room floor. She lay by his side in the middle of the room cursing, her knees apart, her swollen belly exposed. "How far along are you?" I asked kneeling to begin my assessment.

"Don’t touch me," she shouted. "Just take me to the hospital!"

"Relax, I’m only here to help."

"Well I don’t want your help, I just want a ride!"

Her face drew up tight. She took a breath and held it. Her cheeks turned red. And then suddenly, as if releasing the energy of an internal explosion, a loud cry burst forth. She moaned and screamed and panted and cried until the contraction eased. Then she sat there panting, angry and belligerent. And the rest of the call was pretty much the same. She griped and complained all the way to the hospital, fussing about her treatment in life and all of the bad things people had done to her. "I deserve better," and on, and on, and on.

I ignored her vulgar language and pulled together the equipment for a complicated delivery, all the time praying for the baby yet to be born. We backed into the ambulance bay. My partner opened the doors. We wheeled her inside the hospital and entered the elevator that would take us upstairs to Labor & Delivery. Another contraction gripped her. Tore her at the seams. "It’s coming," she screamed as the elevator began to rise. "Oh God, it’s out!"

I lifted the sheet and saw a small baby boy lying on the stretcher between her legs—small and blue and slippery looking…and still.

I picked him up and toweled him off and suctioned his mouth and nose, then vigorously rubbed his tiny back to stimulate respiration. He gasped and took a breath, then began to cry and pink up. I felt an excitement one can only understand upon having witnessed the arrival of new life. But my heart sank a few moments later. The doctor told me the mother had confessed to smoking crack—that night! Well no wonder he’s premature, I thought, so small, depressed, and unprepared for life.

I left the hospital with a sick feeling in my stomach. "That poor child," I said. "He doesn’t have a chance."

*

I can’t help but wonder: what kind of life will he have? Will he delve into alcohol and drugs like his mother? Join a gang? Kill or be killed? Well when I think of his birth, and the circumstances surrounding his untimely delivery, I am reminded of another poor baby born in a lonely stable in Bethlehem, before hospitals, before medical care. I mean, who would have thought he had a chance? And yet on that first Christmas morning two thousand years ago, with cattle lowing and shepherds keeping watch, a wonderful event occurred: A child was born, and unto us a son was given.

I believe in Christmas, the day eternal life entered the world. In Christmas I find hope, for the lowly, for the down and out, and for those born under the worst possible conditions. So please join me in praying for a baby boy who was born in an elevator six-months ago this week. In the eyes of the world, he doesn’t have much of a chance. But then, this is Christmas. And unto that small baby boy, a savior was born—Jesus Christ. The Lord.

***