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Wherever you go, there you are and God is with you.

This is true even [especially?] when you don't know he's looking out for you. So, let me share my story…

I was born.

Oh come on, I know it's not as exciting as your stories, but let me share the details.

So, my dad was in the Navy, stationed in California — particularly San Diego — and was a nuclear reactor operator on a submarine. So, it turned out that mom got pregnant and he went out on maneuvers, then when he came back he and mom were doing something together (a date, I think, maybe at Marine World Africa USA) and during the middle of this my mom started bleeding.

So, they stopped the fun time and hopped in the car and dad ran into a store to buy her some sanitary napkins, and they continued on thinking that things were fine… for a while. Mom said that it wasn't working and so they went to the hospital. Balboa Naval Hospital, to be exact.

They signed in and dad wanted a wheel chair for mom and me because walking was apparently making the bleeding worse, but the guy at the front-desk wouldn't let him have a wheelchair until he promised to bring it back — after getting my mom and following the appropriately colored line the nurses basically took charge and started examining/getting things ready/summoning doctors, while my dad left mom in their care to return the wheelchair.

As soon as my dad returned they prepped him and he got to watch the operation where I was born and in seconds I was gone: they were taking me to their specialized facilities for premature babies. Balboa hospital was, at the time, one of the (if not the) premier places for handling premature births — not only that, but I got to use the [baby-]respirator when it was still experimental — and had some of the best doctors [for that] in the world.

I was born 11 weeks early, or maybe 8 (I forget), but in either case: the beginning of the third trimester — 2lbs 13oz.
When my dad asked how my chances were the doctor said 50/50. (Dad later learned that that was after I had been somewhat stabilized; so at birth the chances were likely lower.)

So, WRT my birth, I was born:

very premature,
in a hospital that could be said to specialize in premature births,
that had equipment not available to mainstream hospitals,
with some of the best doctors for my condition,
the brunt of the expenses picked up by the Navy, (my dad would never have been able to afford the actual, full cost of my birth)

and despite all that only had a 50% chance of being born.

Well my dad prayed and said to God something to the effect of if he grows up to love you, please let him live; but if he'll grow up not-knowing/rejecting you then please take him now.* A very powerful prayer, I think, acknowledging God as sovereign over life and death and, at the same time, pleading not for my life but my eternal soul. Because, at the end of time, it would be better to be dead a child (to whom I assume Jesus still says let the little children come to me) than to live a full life, even gaining the world, only to lose the soul.

I suspect that God honored his prayer: and so that is likely the closest I came to death.

* I'm sorry, but I forget the exact words.

Uhmmmm

Wow....

Powerful story. Thanks for sharing this.

Thought you guys might like this thread, mine's at #221.

I once knew a beautiful and extremely talented girl who was blind, and the reason she was blind is that she was born prematurely and they gave her oxygen and that oxygen somehow damaged her eyes, blinding her.

She was one year older than me, and I was born in 1955.

I don’t know when you were born, but if it was in or before that time frame - and you can see - you are very lucky.

Thanks for that story.

Yes, Our Lord is at work all around us. There is no doubt of it.