“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12 NIV
Seventeen years ago on the 31st December 1997 at approximately 8.30am Leah Alanna Whyte was born in Altnagelvin Hospital, weighing 9lbs 3oz. Her sister Rachel, was three and a half years old.
We hadn’t chosen for the gap to be this big. Leah was conceived while we were having investigations for secondary infertility.
Leah was what the Bible calls “a longing fulfilled“.
If she had been a boy she would have been named Samuel, after the Old Testament story of Hannah, who had longed and prayed for a baby.
I have always adored babies. As a child growing up I imagined that I would be married by the age of twenty five and then I would have six children. When they had grown up, I imagined that I would become a foster parent, to ensure that my house was always filled with children.
Hmmmm………..somewhere along the way, reality set in.
For starters, by the time I was twenty five, I was conspicuously single. I had just come out of a three and a half year relationship with the man I had thought I was going to marry. My dreams lay in tatters on the floor.
It is good to have plans.
It is good to dream dreams.
However the Bible says
“Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21 NIV
Many years on, I hope that I’m learning to be more like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, when she said:
“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38 NKJV
Having one child did not lessen my desire for another baby. If anything it intensified it – now I really knew how wonderful it was to be a parent.
I was so excited about being the mother of two children. When we used to pack the car for our regular trips to stay with my mother in Co. Meath, she used to tell me on the phone “I can’t wait to see your girls.”
I used to savour that word “girls” – how I loved the fact that it was plural. I used to gaze in wonder at the two child seats in the back of our car and I felt as if my heart was going to burst with joy.
Six months later I was happily pregnant with baby number three – Simon.
A few years later along came a very pleasant surprise – Miriam.
When Chris De Burgh’s daughter Rosanna was born he wrote this beautiful song about her.
It sums up how I felt this day seventeen years ago and indeed how I feel about each one of my “babies”.
“For Rosanna”
This is for Rosanna, sweet girl of mine,
A song for the baby who changed my life,
I’ll never forget when I saw you first,
I thought that my heart would burst,
With the love that I have;
As I watch you sleeping in here tonight,
And I hear your breathing so soft and light,
I cannot believe all the things that I feel,
When I hold you next to me,
It’s the love that I have;
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how this heart is shining through,
With the love that I have;
And as you are growing from baby to child,
I share the wonders that are in your eyes,
And I am amazed at the way you change,
All according to the plan,
And the love that I have;
And when you are older you will go away,
You’ll see injustice and you’ll see pain,
But never forget that I’m always there,
Like a shadow by your side,
With the love that I have;
Oh my love, you have your mother’s eyes,
And when I see you laugh, you have your mother’s smile,
And you are mine all of my life,
You are mine, all of my love,
You are mine, blood of my blood,
You are mine;
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining,
Oh how my heart it is shining through,
With the love that I have.
My Journey: 