already learning from Luciana Andrea

Luciana Andrea Johnson was born at 1:00am this morning, December 2, 2012. She weighed 6lbs, 4oz. Kerrie is doing great. She was amazing... and Luciana is precious!!

We arrived at the hospital (small clinic) in Antigua around 10:30pm last night. We had been calling our doctor since before 9pm but he was not answering his phone. An empty clinic greeted us, with only a security guard to let us in. But not until we moved our car over 2 spaces in the empty lot since the front one needed to be left open for "emergencies". Apparently "woman having baby" didn't qualify.

There seemed to be no one around. Finally a young intern-looking nurse guy led us to a room and told us to wait. After about 5-10 minutes, I started walking around the place looking for someone to help us. Kerrie was having strong contractions about every 3 minutes at this point, and I was slightly frustrated that no one was interested.

I finally found a nurse, and explained that my wife was going into labor, and no one was helping us. She put us in another room and said a doctor would arrive shortly. You guessed it, a few minutes later, in comes the nurse kid...

I'm sure my eyebrows crinkled up as i immediately asked, "how old are you?" I could tell by his reaction that he thought my direct question was rude. He didn't even answer. So I continued, "you're too young to be a doctor - how old are you?" He said he was 26 and just finished medical school. Oh boy, going to be a long night...

After that, our nurses came in and gave Kerrie an IV. They were sweet, but made me nervous! I didn't want to judge... but they just didn't seem "qualified." One nurse timed the solution drops with her own watch, while another looked on from a distance as if she was watching all of this for the first time.

Doctor-boy came back in and took a plastic-glove exam as i cringed and prayed for God to supernaturally warp his credentials ahead 10 years (in which case he would still be the youngest OBGYN by another 10 years that I had ever met).

As I paced the floor and cussed our doctor and his so-called "emergency cell phone number" that he had given us, Kerrie made a comment to me that made my world stand still. "Babe, calm down. It's not like our trust is in doctors."

Up until this point, she had been the one worried about the doctor, the clinic, and "delivery day" in general. I had been the solid one, assuring her that it would all work out. Man, how quickly that had changed...

Her words hit me somewhere deep. Here she is, managing intense labor contractions in a small, guatemalan clinic, where we have every reason in the world to be "concerned" - and she exudes peace and confidence. Not in herself. Certainly not in me. But in Jesus.

It was exactly as we had prayed just an hour or so earlier as we left the house. We asked God to comfort Kerrie, and to give her peace. In the hour to follow, as I was getting more and more frazzled, God was answering that very prayer.

From that point, everything changed. The women who up until that point I had been calling our "indigenous nurses" suddenly seemed totally qualified. The young doctor proved himself to be capable and knowledgeable. I became an encourager and supporter to Kerrie instead of a pessimistic complainer.

Our doc soon showed up, apologizing that he had been called into an emergency surgery at another hospital. I prayed silently to myself, "God forgive me for, among other things, cussing this good man."

Before we knew it, Luciana Andrea joined our family in the same way that Madi, Brooke, and Jake had before. Sure, I can probably count 50 differences throughout the process. But none were the fault of the nurses or doctors.

Traditions, customs, and resources easily explain why this delivery was so different then the past ones. Interestingly, and as it typically does, the situation also exposed to us the unnecessary excess that we had grown accustomed to in the USA as well.

But we praise God for where we are today. What a journey we have been on so far. Each step forcing us to trust more and more in Jesus, and less and less in ourselves.

Thank you for praying for Kerrie and for Luciana Andrea. We witnessed God answering your prayers.