My grandmother was a labor and delivery nurse at Grandview Hospital in Sellersville, PA, for about 40 years. She helped delivered thousands of babies in the Sellersville-Souderton-Telford area. Many of the mothers stayed in contact with her and remembered her with great affection.
When I was grown and my husband and I would visit her, we liked to take her to do her shopping. This was often quite a challenge, as she was constantly being stopped by women whose babies and grandbabies she had delivered. They wanted to thank her for her care and show her the ‘fruit of her labors.’
I recently came across this passage that my grandmother wrote about one delivery and how God intervened in the life of this family.
A Song of Deliverance, by Mildred Boaman, R.N.
The morning sun had just peeped over the hills surrounding the hospital. And inside its corridors the busy activities of the day had begun. Already one patient in mild labor had been admitted to the obstetrical unit.
She was accompanied by her husband who had returned home from a combat zone. He had been discharged from the Army just in the nick of time to be present with her for this important happening. Both of them avowedly wanted children and now the expectation of their dreams were being fulfilled. Their future looked bright.
Labor for the woman progressed normally, and within a short time she was place on a litter and transferred to the delivery room. At 12:30 pm the blessed event occurred and both parents rejoiced over the birth of a sweet baby girl. The doll-like infant was wrapped in a piece of swaddling cloth and put into a heated crib where she received the routine infant care.
Shortly thereafter, a serious crisis arose; the mother had developed a complication and her joy was followed by hours of stress and strain. Due to a hemorrhage in a cul-de-sac, an issue of blood flowed freely from its hidden source. And the administration of oxytocic drugs, the bio-manual compression of the uterus and the ligating of veins did not stem the flood-tide.
It raged on like a storm out of control. The patient went into a deep state of shock, and death seemed inevitable until the power and might of God flooded that delivery room. Then the flow of blood ceased as suddenly as it started.
Twenty-six years have passed since that almost fateful day, but its memory lingers on. Each year she visits me in my home, bringing along a tangible gift. A prayer of praise and Thanksgiving for her miraculous recovery wells up in my heart. It is my gift to her.
But God, the giver of all good gifts, gave her the most priceless on–Life. He compassed her about with a song of deliverance.
“Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.” Psalm 32:7
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Susan's Reflections 