I Will Praise You

"For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well."

- Psalm 139:13-14

[A newborn exam: Within a few hours of a baby's birth, the midwife does a newborn exam, a complete physical examination, to make sure everything is normal, that the babe is healthy, and on the lookout for problems or abnormalities. Over the last few weeks, I have learned to do these myself, and it is now one of my favourite jobs. Every time I get to do one, I am reminded of how amazing our God is! Each part of the new baby is specifically designed for his life right now. Every intricate detail, down to the creases on his feet or the pulses in his femoral arteries.]

Hard bones, wet hair, soft grooves between the bones. The little head is designed in such a way that the bones won't fuse together until he is a few years old, so that now as he must squeeze through the birth canal, the flat bones can slide over or under each other to make room.

"You knit me together in my mothers womb,
you knit me together in my mothers womb.
I praise you, I praise you.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb."

My stethoscope on his little chest, babump, babump, babump. Open, fill with blood, squeeze, open, fill....144 times in a minutes.His little heart will beat 150,000 more times today, 35 million times this year, 2.5 billion times before it finally stops, never taking a rest, never missing a beat until then.

"You knit me together in my mothers womb,
you knit me together in my mothers womb.
I praise You, I praise You.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb."

His small chest rises and falls, sometimes evenly, sometimes irregular, each breath getting easier - the hardest breath he'll ever take is his very first, as his lungs stretch out for the first time.

"Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made
I praise You, I praise You
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

He cries, and he doesn't even realize that in his distress and discomfort, every deep breath fills his little body with oxygen, and he visibly turns a bit more pink.

"I praise you, I praise you.
You knit me together in my mothers womb."

- Steve Green
 

When I stroke my fingers across his palm, he squeezes down tightly - the Palmer Reflex - our Father designed him with this, so he will instinctively cling to his mama. Then if I startle him a little he flares out at first, then pulls his little arms and legs in tight - the Moro Reflex - again an instinct to cling to his mother. This also tells me that his nervous system developed properly. The Moro reflex requires complex control from his brain stem, and therefore proves that it is working as it should.

A straight spine, a soft abdomen, a lovely nose, a strong suck...
Someone once said "You cannot buy happiness, happiness is born."
They were right.