I put my 2-year-old and my 1-day-old in their carseats, got into my car, and headed north.

Several months ago when Emily and I were out for our morning walk, the conversation drifted to pregnancy. Was this because Emily was pregnant with her sweet little Jeffrey, who is now a month old? Maybe. Or was it just because moms love to talk about pregnancy and share birth stories? Either way, at one point, she asked me if I ever had to move to a new house during pregnancy.

"Oh, I not only moved to a new house during pregnancy. I moved to a new town during delivery!" And I proceeded to tell her Eli's birth story. About halfway though, I realized that this story should really be in my blog; Emily agreed. Later, I decided that throughout 2020, in the month of each of my five children's birthdays, I would write their birth stories.

Now I know we all feel like we're living in The Twilight Zone, and that March may never actually end, but in case we're wrong about that and we really do see April, I figured I'd better tell Eli's story while it's still the month of his birth.

We were living in northern California, in a town called Rohnert Park, near Santa Rosa. We'd been there a year, and though we very much enjoyed the area, wages were no higher than anywhere else, while the cost of living was in the stratosphere! We would never be able to afford a house of our own there, so when the lease on our townhome expired, we didn't renew it. We decided I would move up to Snohomish, Washington with my three kids and stay with Gerald's mom, and Gerald would continue to work in California and seek employment somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

So in November, I packed up our kids, ages 7, 6, and 2, and moved up to Washington. I was due to give birth to Child #4 in mid-March. Gerald's mom graciously took us in, our presence creating a decided change of pace in her formerly quiet home, where she lived by herself. She never complained. As my baby's due date grew nearer, and Gerald was still working in California with no job prospects in Washington or Oregon, I grew more and more panicked. Too bad I suck at having faith in situations like this. However, about two weeks before my baby's due date, Gerald was offered a job at the Skagit Valley Herald in Mt. Vernon, Washington, a lovely little town about 60 miles north of Seattle. We were overjoyed.

But then there was the small issue of getting my baby born. You see, our insurance in California, Kaiser, only provided coverage as far north as Longview, Washington, 190 miles south of Mt. Vernon. If we didn't want to pay for this birth ourselves, I would need to deliver in Longview. Despite my woeful lack of faith, grace remained present in our circumstances. My only living grandparent at the time happened to live in a little retirement community called Ryderwood, just 28 miles from Longview. So a week before my baby's due date, Gerald's mom kept our two big kids, Gerald went up to Mt. Vernon to begin his new job, and 2-year-old Isaiah and I took up temporarily residence with my grandma in Ryderwood. We were a family divided, and I didn't love it, but desperate times and all.

All my babies come a week late. They really like Heaven, and they never want to leave. And so it was with Baby #4. For two weeks, Isaiah and I stayed in Ryderwood. We took walks with my grandma. She cooked us good food. We watched TV with her and played with her dog. And on March 13th, we went to the hospital in Longview to induce delivery. I'm not usually a fan of induction. I really prefer to wait and let labor begin naturally, but I was a week overdue, and my family was scattered everywhere, and once again, desperate times.

My mom drove up from Portland to be with Isaiah, and Gerald drove down from Mt. Vernon to attend the birth. After 10 hours of labor, Eli Erichsen Webster entered the world. His perfect face looked exactly as it does today, with round cheeks and squinty eyes. And once again, for the fourth time, we fell hopelessly in love. It's funny how that works. No matter how many kids you have, the love is always the same.

But then there was the issue of getting my newborn baby, my toddler, and me all the way back up to Mt. Vernon the following day. Gerald had left the night before; he had no time off in his new job. My mom left that morning to return to Portland, and my grandma went back home to Ryderwood. So I put my 2-year-old and my 1-day old in their carseats, got into my car, and headed north on I-5.

I thought I'd be fine. I was so strong, I thought. I could totally do this, no problem. But at some point on the freeway, I glanced back at those two precious little people, for whom I was solely responsible, and I felt woefully vulnerable and inadequate. I was suddenly so scared. Of course raging postpartum hormones played a big part in this, but it was also the practical circumstances I faced. I realized both babies had messy diapers, and I also needed to use the bathroom myself, and the combination of all that while traveling 80 mph on the freeway was just too much. The tears flowed. This was before the cell phone era, so I couldn't even call anyone.

By this point, I was near Tacoma, and I knew there was a mall right off the freeway, so I took the exit and headed there. I took Isaiah by the hand and carried Baby Eli in his carseat, and we walked into the mall to find a bathroom. I was still crying, but actually those tears were exactly the release I needed in order to "woman up" and take the next steps. I found a bathroom in the mall, changed diapers, and got right back on the freeway.

We arrived at our new home in Mt. Vernon that evening. Imagine a U-Haul containing all your possessions, dumped into the living room of a condo, with no organization. That's how it was. My couch was sitting up on end, surrounded by other furniture turned upside down amid boxes everywhere. Gerald asked what I wanted him to do.

"I want my rocking chair set up and my TV connected, so I can sit and nurse my baby. And a path from my chair to the kitchen, so I can get to the sink, with some sort of packaged food available, so I can feed Isaiah."

Gerald did all that for me before he left for work the next morning. I somehow got my two big kids off to school, and that's how we lived for three days, until my angel friend Corrie, my best friend from California, flew in to help. She set up my house, took care of my three older kids, cooked us food, and allowed me to bond with my little Eli, unburdened by much of anything else. This was an act of pure, unselfish love, and I will never forget it.

I don't recommend moving to a new town and having a baby all at the same time. It's awful. I also don't recommend being forced to come home from your mission four months early because of a viral pandemic, but both create marvelous stories to tell later.

...and that will be my next story!