On Tuesday morning, I stopped by the maternity ward at Living Room’s Hospital in Eldoret to check on a patient and was told by our nurse, Judy, that a pregnant mama had just arrived and was ready to deliver. Within minutes, the sound of her crying echoed into the hallway immediately followed by that of her baby.

 

I stepped into the room and saw Judy in the corner beside the incubator, resuscitating the tiny newborn. Another nurse’s voice could be heard just beyond the closed curtain as she was attending to the mama, and with great surprise, alarmingly said:“There’s another one. She is having another baby.”

The mama hadn’t known she was pregnant with twins.

 

I opened the curtain to find the feet of the baby coming out first. I donned gloves and was handed a green towel to receive the second newborn. Each of the beautiful baby girls weighed just over two pounds.

 

Perfectly formed but needing more time than they were given to grow within their mama. Our team worked hastily to support the babies while consulting with the pediatrician at the nearby NICU.

 

As we prepared to transport the twins and their mama by ambulance, the mom’s eyes began filling with tears. A nurse lovingly encouraged her: “Be strong, mama. Your babies need you.”

Fast forward 24-hours, and it was my turn to switch roles once again from health-care provider to the mama in search of my own strength to sit alongside suffering. To choke back tears as I whispered into the night; “I hate this disease.”

 

Our beloved Alice had woken up with crushing chest pain from a terrifying complication of sickle cell disease. Brother and sister sat wide-eyed in the dark, rightly troubled as they listened to Alice’s sobbing.

“Mom, you have to take her to the hospital,” Ella cried, 

“You must take her to the hospital now.” 

“It’s going to be okay,” I said to one and all. “It’s going to be okay,” I repeated trying to comfort and console my little ones.

 

“Is it?” Ella whispered into my ear.  

 

I don’t know.

 

I heard the nurse’s words from the morning once more: “Be strong, mama. Your babies need you.”

Like KJ Ramsey courageously writes from her hospital bed, I’ve prayed a similar prayer over the past 10 days. Perhaps, you're needing to pray them too:

 

“We come to trust

That there is no hour of our lives

That is lived outside of God’s care

--real, present, tender, kind, consistent, wild,

Surprising, not what we expect, harder than we hope,

infuriating, yet undeniably real –

as we attest together

and practice being honest  together

that being human is often hard as hell

and we can’t hold the weight alone...

Every I go, there you are.”

 

This week, I’ve been reminded again that God loves us like an unrelenting mother. In tangible and tender ways. Unable to forget. Unwilling to give up. Ready to go to any length. And to anywhere. All for the sake of love.

**Update: Mama & twins remain in the NICU but are growing well. Alice was released from the hospital on Saturday and is recovering at home.