What's in a Name?

Today was not just any ordinary day. Today was May 22nd.

I spent a lot of time thinking today about our baby boy who's due to arrive literally any minute now. My contractions actually began tonight and we readied ourselves to drive to the hospital but then the doctor assured us that we still have some time and so our packed bags sit by the door and we've stopped timing my contractions so that everyone can get some rest.

I had hoped that we would meet our little boy today, but God has given us the cue once again to wait patiently on His perfect timing and so here I am sitting in our living room in the glider that I will rock our son in. Here I sit in the quiet stillness of late evening while both Dan and my mom (who's here from Florida waiting for her first grandson's arrival) sleep in the rooms just down the hall. Here I sit waiting to meet my son and thinking about what he will look like and thinking about his name. His name.

It took a lot....and I mean A LOT...of time, discussion, thought, and prayer before Dan and I decided on what we would name our firstborn son. We literally went through an ENTIRE book of baby boy names and wrote down each name we liked and paired it with a middle name and looked up the meaning of the names and then called him each name in the series for months before we came to our final decision.

Jackson Cole Blankenship.

But there's so much more to his name than just those letters that come together to form words. There's so much meaning behind those words. His middle name Cole means "peace" which is just a really great perk to a cool sounding name. And it's a bonus that his first name carries the family lineage in that it means the same as Dan's mom Janice, my mom Jean, and Dan's uncles Gene and John. But the fact that Jackson means "God is gracious" and the significance of that meaning runs deep for Dan and me. We feel so strongly the presence of God's grace in being given this baby boy to raise.

Dan and I agreed when we married in November of 2008 that we would wait one year before trying to become pregnant so that we could establish a base as a couple before adding to our family. Then unexpectedly in May of 2009, I started exhibiting every possible symptom of pregnancy although pregnancy test after pregnancy test came up negative. We eventually both knew in our hearts that we were pregnant even though First Response said otherwise. I made an appointment to see the doctor and finally the day of my appointment came. That morning, I thought my proof of a false alarm had finally come. I called the doctor to cancel the appointment, but she advised me to come see her anyways. The doctor explained that it was possible that I had miscarried though most women don't know it when they do. She thought it more likely that I had just had a "weird cycle" but in her thoroughness she ordered an ultrasound due to my mom's history of cancer just to be proactive. She also had another pregnancy test ordered.

I left her office feeling nervous about the ultrasound but I tried to play it off as no big deal. She had mentioned the M-word. Miscarriage. I hadn't been able to choke back the fear or the accompanying tears when she'd first breached the subject and I was barely holding things together now. On my way to the imaging center, the doctor called to tell me that she wanted me to come back for blood tests. The pregnancy test had come back positive. It was definitely a miscarriage.

My heart officially shattered. I had already cried thinking it was a possibility, but now the certainty of it was utterly crippling. I don't know how I drove myself around Seattle with the floodgate of tears coming down my face as I went in for blood work and then to my ultrasound appointment. The technician who did the scan was so stoic and worked wordlessly, leaving my imagination wide open to interpret the silence as proof that there was something terribly wrong with my body. Fears of never being able to have the babies Dan and I dreamed of and fears of cancer gripped my heart and choked my spirit. Too nervous to go home to be alone, I decided to go back to work where I hoped to be distracted. I sobbed the whole way back to my office as I talked to Dan on the phone. Back at the office, I pretended like nothing had happened.

That night was one of the most painful nights of my life. We had a friend visiting us and I was too emotional and broken to tell her what was going on and so I pretended like nothing was happening and I suffered in silence both emotionally and physically. I had back labor and cramps like I have never experienced before and it was so hard to choke back the sobs as I realized that my body was "getting rid of" my baby...OUR baby.

Dan was wonderful and he did his very best to comfort me that night and each day after. Though I'd never had prior confirmation of my pregnancy or felt the baby's movements inside my belly, I mourned and grieved for my child nonetheless. I struggled with it daily. Some days were easier than others. It took me weeks to get to the point where I did not cry each day. Everywhere I went, there were pregnant women or moms pushing their babies in strollers. Church was the worst as I was surrounded by newborns and toddlers there and Dan and I served in the church nursery once a month. Plus our home group which meets each Monday had three babies and two pregnant moms at the time.

It took a week to get my test results back and I had to go back for a few more, but the end result was that I was perfectly healthy and the doctor saw no reason why we wouldn't conceive normally in the future. There was no sign of cancer or anything else to fear. And yet fear gripped me nonetheless. I kept my pain a secret from those around me and Satan loomed ominous in that solitude. I couldn't bring myself to tell my family as I knew that they would want to be with me, not 3,300 miles away from me, during such a painful time in my life. In all honesty, I didn't want to tell anyone. EVER. It was just too hard to speak those words.

Dan wisely urged me against my initial, adamant protests to talk to a few close girlfriends about what we were experiencing so that they could support us in prayer and be there for me in a way that most likely only other females could bring comfort. The prayer support proved to be invaluable. I still couldn't bring myself to speak about my pain most days but knowing that we were being prayed over was amazing. Satan's grip of fear lost its strength quickly as prayer warriors rose up to fight on my behalf.

After losing a baby that we had not "planned" for, I felt the need to be pregnant with such an intense desperation - even if only to prove to myself that the doctor was right about my ability to conceive and carry a child. The fear of never having a baby of my own was suffocating. My body took a while to return to normal. My hormones were running WILD (my poor husband will testify to that) and my cycle had definitely gone haywire. That being the case, each month when I was late there was a glimmer of hope that "maybe we're pregnant THIS time!" But then came the unwelcome assurance that it was just another false alarm and the struggle to trust God and the perfection of His timing when it so clearly didn't align with my own desires. I wanted to desire God's timing, but I struggled to be truly patient and trusting.

I was amazed at the way God spoke to my heart and ministered to me in my pain and grief. He brought other women who had suffered similarly (and even more intensely) to bring words of encouragement and specific Scripture passages that soothed my bleeding heart as God worked to restore me by His healing power. In church one Sunday, the worship band introduced a new song whose lyrics rocked my world and shattered my self-protective shield.

Though dark my path, and sad my lot,
Let me “be still,” and murmur not,
Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
Thy will be done!

If Thou should call me to resign
What most I prize, never was mine;
I only yield Thee what is Thine;
Thy will be done!

Renew my will from day to day
Blend it with Thine and take away
All that now makes it hard to say
Thy will be done!

"Thy will be done" we sang as I surrendered my own self-seeking will to the Lord and realized that only His plan for my life and for our family would be truly good. The tears flowed freely once again as I sang such bold truth.

Then in September came the news that we were pregnant again (by now we had tossed the one year plan) and that the baby was due on May 25, 2010. The date didn't strike me as one of coincidence but rather one that was clearly God-ordained. The same week our family had lost a baby in one year could very likely be the week that we would welcome a baby into our family the next year. What a beautiful story of God's redeeming grace in turning a time of sorrow and grief into a time of great joy! That beautiful story of God's gracious redemption is where Jackson's name comes in.

"God is gracious."

Jackson isn't by any means a replacement for the baby that we will joyously meet for the first time in heaven one day. But he is most definitely an answer to our prayers. He is God's gracious gift to Dan and me.

In a rare moment of courage that was of the Lord and clearly not of my own strength, I was able to release this unborn baby boy to the Lord and say "Thy will be done" just as I had in church during Sunday morning worship just a few weeks prior when the pain was so raw and deep and oozing. In the same way that I had released my relationship with Dan during our courtship and asked God to either bless it or take it away if that be His will, I tearfully and rather fearfully asked God to either bless us with this baby or to allow me to trust Him to take him from us.

That prayer was freeing in that I recognized the powerful truth that this child belongs to Jesus, not to us. The fact that the Lord would entrust us to raise him is humbling and overwhelming and such a testimony of the grace that God extends to Dan and me in our sinful state of humanity with all of our flaws and shortfalls.

"God is gracious" indeed.

Even though I had hoped to meet Jackson today on May 22nd, this date has already been redeemed. God has already turned our mourning into dancing. We anxiously await the arrival of our son and welcome the birthday that God has hand-picked specifically for him.

We praise God for His very, very gracious gift to us named Jackson.