On December 24, 1990, I went in for a routine prenatal exam at a clinic attached to our local maternity hospital. Given the volume of births in that part of the world at the time, pregnant women were put on a “team” for prenatal care and were run in and out of these checkups at warp speed.
I was eight and a half months pregnant, and the obstetrician was concerned when I mentioned there seemed to be a steady decline in fetal activity in recent months. Being that this was my first child, I had thought this was normal as the delivery date approached.
After examining me, the obstetrician told me I had 15 minutes to go home and pack my bags to return to the hospital for the baby’s delivery. I contacted my husband, and he left work immediately and met me at our flat.
It was a very difficult time. My husband’s company had transferred him to the United Arab Emirates. I had given up my teaching job in Canada to follow him. We were in our late twenties—young, inexperienced, and without family nearby to support us. The world was on edge after watching the invasion of neighboring Kuwait unfold, and at that moment, Allied troops were flooding our area in preparation for Operation Desert Storm, the American-led liberation of Kuwait.
My husband was the general manager of a business that was languishing due to the unrest in the Middle East, and travel advisories urged foreign citizens to leave the area and return home. He was also acting in an official capacity as a Canadian “warden,” which was a de facto ambassadorial role. Now, an evacuation was imminent, and he was expected to oversee the execution of that plan on behalf of Canadians in the region if it became necessary. Our local maternity hospital, the very place I was scheduled to deliver our child, had been designated to receive incoming wounded if necessary. It was an overwhelming time. And now our baby’s life seemed in peril.
I was a relatively new student of Christian Science, and before heading to the hospital I called a Christian Science practitioner for metaphysical treatment. The practitioner suggested that we ponder the words of a poem by Mary Baker Eddy called “Mother’s Evening Prayer.” I clung to the comforting words of that poem, especially the first verse:
O gentle presence, peace and joy and
power;
O Life divine, that owns each
waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling’s
faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward
wing tonight.
(Poems, p. 4)
These words reveal the peace and joy and power of God’s ever-presence, which dissolves their opposite: unrest, fear, doubt, hatred, loss, and pain—all the things that swirled around us at that time in our experience. Every time the suggestion came to me that we could lose our baby—and it came often—I turned to this poem for reassurance that God, Life, was there holding us all up; that God hadn’t abandoned us, despite the terrible human circumstances we found ourselves in; that He loved our budding little family; that His power was enough to restore our peace and joy; and that we could trust Him to care for all of us. This helped to assuage the fear my husband and I were feeling at that time.
With the loving support and prayers of the Christian Science practitioner, our daughter arrived safe and sound on Christmas Day. We were very grateful for this evidence of God’s care and protection, as we only learned at the delivery that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around our daughter’s neck. Divine Love does indeed keep all of us “on upward wing.”
The war lasted only a short time. A sense of normalcy returned and businesses started to prosper once again. My husband received a citation from the Canadian government for his services in assuring the safety of Canadian citizens during that time of great trepidation. Our little family had an amazing and life-altering experience living in the UAE for several more years before we returned to Canada, stronger and more spiritually robust because of this testing time.
Catherine de Jocas
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
