We honeymooned in Scotland, where I quoted Braveheart in a ridiculously bad accent while Travis drove us through the gorgeous countryside. Once we returned home, we went to the movies, drove Travis’s 1969 Chevelle with the windows down to and from the ice cream shop, and rode our bikes on country roads. Soon we bought a fixer-upper and began daily trips to various home improvement stores.
Five months after our wedding, I took a pregnancy test. Positive. We were thrilled and scared and all the feelings that come to first-time parents. But within the week the small baby had died, and I spent my first Mother’s Day miscarrying. In my grief I read every baby book I could get my hands on. My obstetrician’s bedside manner was lacking as I cried over the lost pregnancy, so I found myself more and more drawn to books about homebirth. The authors, midwives, and homebirth community seemed to respect life, pregnancy, babies, women’s bodies, and motherhood in a way that I had not encountered at my ob/gyn’s office. They validated my grief and the love I felt for the child I had lost. So, when I found myself pregnant again, Travis and I met with a homebirth midwife. By the end of our interview, we knew we wanted her to be the one to deliver the baby, and that we would do so from the comfort of our own home.
My pregnancy with Lydia and her homebirth were perfect, and when I found myself pregnant with Bennet, we continued with the same midwife. Travis and I enjoyed being home, eating birthday cake and watching the Jason Bourne movies together while snuggling with our babies.
Chapter 3
Gifts from God
Before I knew I was pregnant with my fourth child, I sat with my spiritual director, Father Joseph Donton, and confided in him that I never wanted to be pregnant again. After two full-term babies and one miscarriage in just three years of marriage, I was done with being open to life. Leaning back in his chair, he asked me, “If you found out today that you were pregnant, what would you say?”
I looked him in the eye and snarled, “Oh, shit!”
He laughed at my honesty and told me that we needed to work on that attitude.
Just a week later, my daughter, not yet two, played in the living room, running circles around my three-month-old son. Bennet cooed and laughed; Lydia ran and danced and sang, occasionally kissing him. It was how they usually played, when Lydia wasn’t ignoring him completely.
In the next room, I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the pregnancy test I held in my hand. I looked out the window and looked back at the test. It was positive, and while I wasn’t surprised, I was definitely … surprised. My husband, Travis, and I were so tired and so busy adjusting to life as a family of four that we didn’t feel called to do anything other than get out of bed every morning, let alone have another baby.
We were already living paycheck to paycheck. We were already getting by on less sleep than we would have liked. We were already cramming car seats into the back of a tiny two-door Chevy.
I looked out the window again and gave up. “Okay, God. I believe this baby is a gift. I believe you want this baby to exist. You’re going to have to provide.” I didn’t say “or else,” but it was implied. I wasn’t making a statement of faith; I was letting him know that I was holding him accountable.
But provide he did.
For starters, my pregnancy was super easy. There was barely any morning sickness. Mild gestational diabetes was controlled through diet; and in every other way, the baby and I were completely healthy. And the icing on the cake: I was able to nap almost every day.
Then one afternoon a gas card arrived in the mail from an anonymous sender. Soon after, someone offered to buy us a new sofa so we could get rid of the hand-me-down sinking pit that sat in our living room. Next, a friend of the family sent us a new laptop, knowing that Travis had returned to school for his master’s degree. Right after that, our midwife explained that we did not owe her $500 as we believed, but that the previous birth had been covered in full by insurance. And then there was the cash.
One month after my visit with Father Donton, I returned and told him that I had, in fact, been pregnant during our previous meeting. Remembering our last conversation, he laughed and asked me what I had said when I found out. I told him that Travis and I knew that God wanted the baby to exist, and that we were excited to find out why. I told him that we were trusting God to provide for us, and that so far he had been very generous. Father cocked his head a bit and looked at me from the other side of his desk. “It’s interesting that you say that, because I have something I need to give you,” he said. “Wait here a moment.”
He left the room, returning a few minutes later with a white envelope in hand. “A member of the congregation gave me a large sum of money,” he said. “He and his wife wanted to help someone in need, but they didn’t know who that would be. They figured that people come to church and ask for help, and that I would know when to give it out. So I’m giving half of it to you. I think the Holy Spirit wants you to have it.”
I stood there, with wide eyes and gaping mouth. I stammered out a “Thank you” as he handed me the envelope.
We confirmed our next meeting and said goodbye, and I headed to my car. After I slid behind the wheel, I peeked into the envelope. Ben Franklin was looking at me with his droopy eyes as I counted five crisp bills.
I was amazed. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money to most people, but to my family it is a lot of money. I drove home, shaking my head in grateful wonder. As I approached my house, I pulled up to the mailbox. I parked, sifted through the mail, and opened the one bill in the stack. Our biannual car insurance payment was due, and we owed $482. I broke into a huge, goofy grin. Not only did we have enough money to cover what is usually a difficult bill for us to pay, but we also had enough money left over to go out for ice cream! I was blown away by God’s obvious provision and generosity.
Chapter 4
Choosing a Name
Travis and I were still discussing baby names when I was seven months pregnant. We were waiting until birth to learn the gender, but we knew that if the baby was a girl, she would be named Teresa Elizabeth. The boy’s name, however, was undecided. I wanted to name my son Linus, but Travis strongly protested. I tried to point out that not many boys are named Linus, so the second pope was just sitting around in heaven with hardly anyone to pray for. I also explained that a boy named Linus would be sure to have a never-ending supply of blue security blankets. Travis rolled his eyes and said it wasn’t going to happen.
In the midst of this ongoing bickering, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen resurfaced in my life. As a volunteer for a local women’s ministry, I had the task of applying for a grant named after the late archbishop. My only impression of the man was still that he looked like a vampire, so I wanted to know more about him and his mission before I begged for money from people who loved him.
My husband and I knew who Fulton Sheen was in a peripheral sense. Sheen’s birthplace is twenty miles from our home, and he grew up in Peoria, very close to where we were both born and raised, and were raising our own family. We knew he had been a television personality in the 1950s. Aside from these facts, though, we knew very little of the man. Just as Nathaniel in the John’s Gospel asked whether anything good could come out of Nazareth (cf. Jn 1:46), I wondered whether anything good could come out of El Paso, Illinois — a small, simple town that is no different from thousands of other lackluster small towns across the world.
But just like Nathaniel, I would soon learn that I was wrong.
One day I sat in front of the computer, watching YouTube videos as I continued my research. Fulton Sheen had once appeared on What’s My Line, an old game show, and I called Travis over to watch with me. We were impressed by his humor and the way that everyone clearly liked him. The people on the show obviously respected Bishop Sheen and enjoyed being in his presence. We were shocked; never had we seen a Catholic figure so well received in a secular setting. Obviously, there was much more to the man than we thought.