Let's Just Call Her "Mary"...

I just got a phone call from the woman I was at the hospital with yesterday afternoon.

Her mucus plug has come out. That means her water is going to break soon, and then it's off to the races.

I was able to get her lodging for at least a month at a place called ASAP. It is an amazing ministry run on a shoestring budget. Karen Bolden, the executive director, is a strong-willed yet loving leader and facilitator. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to meet her several weeks ago and the further opportunity to get to know her better today, while we did the intake process for the woman I am helping.

All this was possible because of a donation from a Tweep who is very special to me, but who (I think) wishes to remain anonymous. Last night, a friend and I were able to get her an inexpensive motel room and provide her with a steak dinner (he had cooked some "serious" steak on the grill the night before). We were trying to figure how to get her into safe shelter until she would be ready to go back to the hospital to deliver her newborn baby boy.

Just before bed, about 12 midnight, I checked my Facebook page and found a DM that offered some money that could be wired today.

It was exactly what was needed.

Speaking of "time", it would seem that time is running short on the baby being delivered. I was just outside on the back porch speaking with Kathleen. I mentioned that I had just received a phone call saying that the woman's mucus plug had come out and Kathleen told me that means her water will break soon.

So, I guess I'll be at the hospital soon enough, in the delivery room with her.

I have done this once before, but it was a very different situation.

It was the night my (ex)wife gave birth to our daughter, Sara.

It's really a different thing when it's you and the woman you have made a child with, when you're bringing a little mixture of the two of you into the world, and time stops, the world flips upside down...and nothing is ever the same way again.

Sara is married now (to a wonderfully loving young man), but we are having some real issues coming between us. My bout with Bipolar Disorder last year really screwed things up.

I pray that things will improve between us.

But I keep on living, because that is all I can really do.

I love her dearly. I wish she knew that.

This time it will be different in the delivery room.

I will be with a woman I have known for only a few days. The father is nowhere to be found. It is possible that she may not be able to keep the child. She is essentially alone, save for myself and a few other people she knows and can trust.

She has said to me a number of times, "There is no room at the inn."

And so it is holy. A holy birth.

All births are holy. The birth of my daughter was holy. And I wholly love her.

But this birth, this woman, so looked down upon by society, so excluded from the common definition of success, so removed from whatever it is that most people consider to be "normalcy"...

I don't know what else to say.

Oh yes, her name...

Let's just call her "Mary".

Silence.

Silent Night.