The Testing Room

My worst possible fears played out before my eyes. My wife, GraceAnna, and I were in the delivery room for the birth of our fifth child. But this delivery would be different from the others. Our previous deliveries were relatively smooth. Textbook deliveries, you might say. Speaking of textbooks, when our second child, Evangeline, was born, I even studied for a Greek exam for seminary while we were in the delivery room (only in the early stages, I promise)!  

Nothing would be textbook about this delivery. Our son had been breech, and there had been discussions about a possible scheduled c-section. However, he ended up turning into the head-down position on his own, and GraceAnna went into labor naturally at about 2 AM on a Sunday morning. Even though this was our fifth child, once we checked into the hospital, we were never able to truly relax. Maybe it was because we were older. Maybe it was because GraceAnna went into labor a week early. Maybe it was because it was our first delivery in North Carolina. But it didn’t feel like the previous deliveries. It never would.

After GraceAnna’s water broke, something disturbing begin to happen. Every time she had a contraction the baby’s heart rate would dip on the monitor. The first time it happened, it alerted the nurses and the doctor. That had my attention. “What could be causing the heart rate drop?” I thought. The doctor, seemingly reading my mind, explained that the umbilical cord could be compressed during contractions. So she asked the nurses to move my wife into different labor positions to see if the situation would resolve itself. Through all this, I thought to myself, “Should we just go ahead and ask them for a c-section? After all, I would rather be safe than go through a risky delivery.”

Code Green

Sometime later, the doctor came in and told GraceAnna, “I wasn’t comfortable with that last heart rate dip. We need to move you again.” When the nurses started to move her, GraceAnna suddenly felt very lightheaded. She told the doctor, nurses, and me that she was about to pass out. The doctor quickly asked for some meds to be given through her IV, which helped stabilize her. At this point, the doctor noticed that GraceAnna was bleeding significantly. Almost simultaneously, the baby’s heart rate plunged on the monitor and didn’t bounce back up. Everything seemed to be going wrong at the same time. 

What was I doing during this time? I wish I could say I was sitting at GraceAnna’s side, calmly reassuring her. But instead, I was pacing the room, praying out loud. How could this be happening?

The next thing I knew the doctor initiated a “Code Green,” which is an “all hands on deck” signal for an emergency c-section. GraceAnna told me later that the doctor had told her, “Everything is about to happen really fast. But we need to get him out.” When she issued the Code Green, seven or eight nurses hurriedly entered the room and began unplugging the IV and all the other electrical cords. Though I didn’t know what a Code Green was at the time, I knew enough that it must mean an emergency c-section. The Marine in me kicked into gear, and I started moving all obstacles that stood between the hospital bed and the door. The doctor then came to me and said, “Everything is going to be alright.” I didn’t know if the doctor was just telling me that to try to reassure me or if it was because she meant it. I have seen too many war movies to know that sometimes you tell someone it will be ‘alright’ to calm their fears, even though nothing is right! There was no time to explain more. They then rushed her out of the room. It happened so fast that I quickly moved GraceAnna’s leg as she was going through the door so it wouldn’t hit the door frame. I knew we were in a serious moment.

The Testing Room

I sat down in the chair in the now empty delivery room and began to pray, but before I could pray for more than a minute, a nurse came and asked me to follow her. She took me to a very small room down the hall. It was so small it was almost a closet. There was a small sofa on one wall, and it faced a television maybe five feet away on the other wall. Underneath a small table was a mini-fridge filled with drinks. Against another wall was a locker filled with medical scrubs for dads to scrub up (apparently to go into c-section surgery). I realized that this little room was, as I have jokingly called it, “the daddy timeout room.” It is the room where they take dads awaiting news or needing to change to go into surgery. But since GraceAnna was having an emergency c-section, I would not be allowed into the surgery room. I would need to sit here, on this little sofa, and await the fate of my wife and son. This was my testing room.

I quickly texted GraceAnna’s parents, Carl and Audrey Broggi, in South Carolina and asked them to pray. I then texted my parents, Preston and Susan Abbott in Texas, asking them to pray. I was shaken. My heart was pounding in my chest. At this point, I genuinely thought that my son would be lost. The last thing I saw was his heart rate plunging on the monitor. The thought crossed my mind that even if he were saved, he could face potentially debilitating health issues for the rest of his life. Worst-case scenarios played out in my mind. If GraceAnna was bleeding internally, as the doctor had said, I could even lose her, my best friend and ministry partner. My whole family could be devastated and forever changed in this moment. And here I was in this “daddy timeout room,” unable to do anything about it! It was at that moment, playing out worst-case scenarios in my mind, that I realized that I needed to regain my composure. I had to practice what I preached. My faith was being tested, and I needed to look to the Lord. I needed to pass the test in the testing room.

I did what I knew to do—what I have done before in times of trial. I turned to Scripture. I quoted Psalm 16:8 in my mind, “I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand I will not be shaken.” I thought about that. The Lord is with me. He had not abandoned me. He had not abandoned GraceAnna or our son. God is sovereign. He put me in this closet. He had put GraceAnna in the surgery room. He had prepared us for this moment. And He was with us.

I then quoted Psalm 27:1,

The LORD is my life and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” I then thought about the end of the Psalm. “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:13, 14)

I realized that all I could do in this moment was to “wait for the Lord.” He must act. Whatever seemed good to Him would be right. His will for GraceAnna, our son, for me, and our family was all that mattered. I physically opened my hands in front of me as an expression of my soul. My wife and son belonged to Him. I prayed for God to spare their lives and restore them, but I also prayed that His will would be done. This moment seemed to last an eternity. But my heart was now at peace. I had hidden myself in the “Rock of my salvation.”

Your Son is Waiting for You

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. A nurse entered the room and said, “Your son is waiting for you?” “He’s okay?” I hurriedly asked. “Yes, and you can come to see him now,” she replied. “And what about my wife?” I asked. “Is she okay?” She explained that she was still in surgery but that, so far, the surgery had been successful.

She led me out of the room to a large room where my son was lying on one of the small baby hospital carts. He was near a machine, which was obviously used to measure the baby’s vital signs. Now, at this point, I was in shock that he was completely fine, there on that table waiting for me. The son, who I thought had been lost, was perfectly fine and crying his lungs out in front of me! I had immense joy when the nurse handed him to me, but it was a different experience than I had had with the other four. GraceAnna was not there to share it with me, and even though the doctors said she would be fine, I still prayed for her.  

I held him in my arms, and he stopped crying. I snapped some pictures of him and sent them to my parents and GraceAnna’s parents so they would know that he was here and their prayers had been answered. It seemed like forever that I held him, praying over him and the life that lay before him—a life that, if the Lord tarries, could extend into the twenty-second century. Finally, the doctors wheeled GraceAnna into the room. She was waking up from the anesthesia and still was a little out of it. I realized that she did not know the fate of her son. I quickly stood up and approached the bed. “He’s fine. He’s doing just fine. Perfectly healthy,” I assured her. She eventually took him in her arms. Tears of joy and love flowed down her cheeks. It was the moment of God’s gracious rescue. It was a moment of glory. We named our son Truman Carl Castleberry. We gave him this name because of our desire that he be a “true man,” following and being formed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Truman had also been my great-grandfather’s name. We named him Carl after GraceAnna’s father, a faithful pastor, expositor of the Word, and to this day, the greatest evangelist I have ever met.

That Night I Worshipped

Eventually, we returned to a recovery room, where we would spend the next few days. After we were settled, I grabbed my Reformation Study Bible from my bag, which I am using this year to do the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan (the Bible reading plan I have used for the past six years). I love this study Bible because I can check cross references and read helpful geographical and historical explanatory notes as I work through each daily reading. My reading for that day included Psalm 145, “A SONG OF PRAISE. OF DAVID.” As I was reading Psalm 145, I came to verses fourteen to twenty-one:

The LORD upholds all who are falling
And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you,
And you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand;
You satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all his ways
And kind in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call on him,
To all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
He also hears their cry and saves them.
The LORD preserves all who love him,
But all the wicked he will destroy.
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD,
And let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

God was speaking to me through His Word. He had heard my prayer. He had delivered. He had preserved the lives of my wife and son. He had worked kindly towards GraceAnna and me. He had been near when I called upon Him. All that was left to do was to declare His praise! This time, instead of opening my hands in front of me, I lifted my hands above my head. And I praised and gave glory to Yahweh, the living God, who had heard my prayer. I will “bless his holy name forever and ever.”