Eusebia, Angelica, and Leslie go to Mary Washington Hospital 

Thursday, June 3rd, 2004, 11:30

Leslie had been working out in the yard working for just a few minutes when her phone began to ring. I was inside doing some paperwork, and had a little trouble finding the phone. By the time I got it to her, the call had ended. Neither of us recognized the number. We hit send to call the number back, and Angelica, one of the women we’d met through the Healthy Beginnings classes, answered. Leslie recognized who it was and asked me to ask if it was ‘the baby’ – Eusebia was due to give birth to her baby the next day. I asked, and Angelica passed the phone to Eusebia. I asked her if she was having labor pains. She said she was. She sounded very calm, almost nonchalant in her responses. I asked her how long she’d been having them.

“Since last night, about 6:30.”

I asked her where she needed to go, hoping she’d say Tappahannock, meaning the hospital just across the river, 20 minutes away.

“Fredericksburg.” A little over an hour away.

Leslie and I looked at each other.

“How far apart are the contractions?”

“5 minutes.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Leslie got off the phone and said, “I have to go right now!”

She dropped the rake she’d been working with, threw off her gloves, and ran inside to wash off the dirt and gather a few things: a large plastic bowl, towels, and some water bottles. Meanwhile, I went and began to clear out the car. She came out and tossed the things she’d collected on the middle seat and grabbed a few of the things that were still inside and threw them on the ground. We were low on gas, so I handed her what money was in my wallet to put in the tank. We stood for a minute facing each other, holding hands, and said a prayer – asking God’s presence and care for the trip ahead.

‘Go be Jesus’.

She sped off. A minute later, my phone rang. She was stopping at the gas station just up the road, but realized she needed the blue plastic tarp, just in case.

I threw it in the back of the other car and met her coming out of the gas station, handed off the tarp, and came back.

A few minutes later, she called. She’d picked up both Eusebia and Angelica, another woman who was expecting, and lived in the same house with Eusebia and another couple. They were on their way to the clinic in Montross, which was on the way to Fredericksburg. She let me know that when she got to the house, Eusebia told her that the contractions had been 5 minutes apart since 9 O’clock that morning.

They pulled into the clinic, got out of the car, and went inside. There was no one there. They were all at lunch. A woman came to the desk, and Leslie explained the situation. The woman asked her to wait a moment, walked back to the back, and came back after a couple of minutes to tell her that if the contractions were 5 minutes apart that she DID need to go on to the hospital.

As they walked back out to the parking lot, Eusebia told Leslie that she was going to be sick. Leslie helped her over to the side and then ran to the car to get a washcloth and wet it. When she was done, they climbed back in the car and headed up route 3. She called to ask me how to get to Mary Washington hospital, and I explained the simplest way I knew, via route 17 to Hwy 1. As the trip progressed, the contractions kept getting worse. Leslie realized Eusebia wasn’t breathing through them and coached her through that. We had worked on relaxation breathing with each of our 3 kids.

Before they set out, Leslie turned to Eusebia and said, “This is REALLY important: if you feel like you have to have a bowel movement, TELL ME, because that means the baby is coming.” Eusebia looked at her blankly. She didn’t understand ‘bowel movement.’ Leslie tried to explain again, “poop” no go. Finally, she said ‘If you have to go to the bathroom REALLY BAD” that got through,

“I’ll have to stop, and you’ll have the baby in the car. I HOPE that won’t happen, but if it does, we’ll just trust God to get us through it, and … well … WE’RE ALL WOMEN. WE CAN DO THIS!”

As she got into the outskirts of Fredericksburg, she realized that getting to the hospital wasn’t turning out to be as easy as she thought it was going to be. She got on the phone again and called our friend Soozin Mullin, who confirmed for her that there was only one hospital in Fredericksburg, so if they just followed the blue ‘H’ signs, they should be able to get there without too much trouble.

Angelica, who speaks no English, was assigned the task of finding the signs. As they began to make their way through town, Angelica would spot a sign, point and yell ‘Hache (AH-chay)! Hache! Hache! And Leslie would turn this way or that way. She had called the hospital to let them know they were on their way in from the parking lot in Montross. The nurse who answered asked if this was Eusebia’s first baby. When Leslie told her it was, the nurse said “you’ve got plenty of time. Just bring her on in.”

They got to the hospital shortly before 2. They were in the delivery room and suddenly Eusebia sat up and said “I need to get down. I have to go to the bathroom!” Leslie looked at her and said “No, that’s the baby.” Eusebia looked at her and said “No, I REALLY need to go to the bathroom!” To which Leslie again replied,
“NO, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BABY!”

Eusebia was too far along when they arrived at the hospital to be prepped in any way. No IV, no epidural, nothing. Leslie held her foot and coached her through the pushing, which only lasted a few minutes. Jessica was born right around 2:30, healthy, with a full head of black, black hair. All 4 of them were crying. Angelica’s eyes were as big as saucers.

Nicolas, the father, had gone to work that morning with his cell phone, and when the contractions started coming more frequently, Eusebia had tried to call him, but the place where he was working was too far removed to receive the signal.

Leslie called me a few minutes after Jessica was born to let me know, and I called up to the house to see if Nicolas had checked in to give him the update. He had not, and didn’t until that afternoon late, when he got home from work. He called me on my cell phone, and I congratulated him on being a father, and let him know that both Eusebia and Jessica were doing well.

By the time she returned that evening, Leslie was understandably exhausted. She’d been asked to preach at Corrottoman church that following Sunday. She’d been preparing all week for what she would be saying. When she walked in the door, the first thing she said was “this changes everything I was going to talk about on Sunday.”

Angelica is due the first week of August, but she has a feeling her baby will come earlier.

We asked her to call us as soon as she has had the contractions for a half hour. There’s only so much excitement we can handle.

For grace in the midst of chaos, and life in the midst of everything else, we give you thanks, O God.