Perfect Timing

Eleven years ago, we decided Sunday, September 27 would be the worst day for our youngest daughter’s birth. My husband had to preach and friends who could watch our other children would be out of town. God, please—any day but the 27th.

Sure enough—labor started at 2:00 a.m. on the 27th. God, I complained, This is no skin off your nose, but it’s a lot of skin off mine. Why today?

We found someone to stay with our younger children and dashed to the hospital. Thank goodness Keith could drive like a maniac in the middle of the night.

“Great,” Keith groaned. “We’re being pulled over.”

As another contraction gripped my body, I knew every second counted. “We don’t have time to stop,” I said.

Keith jumped from the van and yelled at the police officer. “My wife’s in labor.” Thankfully he believed Keith and waved us on.

I’d assumed frantic hospital dashes with laboring women were products of Hollywood’s imagination. I’d had six babies before without rushing to the hospital. The shortest labor so far was four hours. Apparently it wasn’t in my genes to spit out babies.

Or so I thought. I breathed through another contraction and looked at my two scared daughters Kiah and Erica, ages nine and seven, and knew if I delivered in the van, they’d never want children. “You’d better drive faster.”

“I’m going 70.”

Another contraction tightened, close on the heels of the last one. As the vise grip eased, I gasped, “Go faster.”

Sioux Center Hospital was 45 minutes from home. Would we get there in time? I breathed a prayer of thanks when we arrived.

Drats, the maternity ward was on the second floor. My friend was born on a hospital elevator. I didn’t want that experience, so with the logic of a woman in transition, I took the stairs.

I stopped for another contraction and noticed the time: 4 a.m. A nurse whisked me to a room. She quickly and efficiently dressed me in an indecent hospital gown.

My midwife, Belinda, rushed into the room. After a quick check, she calmly pronounced the baby breech and paged a doctor.

I looked at Belinda in panic. Breech babies usually meant Caesarean births and I didn’t want one. Some doctors deliver breech babies naturally—would she? “What do I do?”

“Calm down and push.”

That I could do. Before the doctor could get his gloves on, I pushed out a beautiful baby girl.

The clock read 4:17 a.m.

Thank God for a breech baby. I’m convinced that’s all that kept her in until we reached the hospital. Because things went so fast, Keith was still able to preach that morning.

Lani could have been born any other day, but God wanted us to rely on Him. He is not confined by our schedules, fears, or limitations. He knows our needs and is in control.

We chose where to have her, but God chose how and when.


Happy 11th Birthday, Lani Renee Vik

The mind of man plans His ways, but the Lord directs His steps. – Proverbs 16:9