Conquerors

Conqueror – one who gains by force of arms; to get the better of: overcome

One of my all-time favorite songs is “Conquerors” from the Kirk Franklin & the Family album Whatcha Lookin’ 4 released in 1996. It speaks to me in ways that few people can relate to, and it seems like every time I sing along with it on CD, radio, or Spotify, I tear up. Keep in mind those tears come from an extremely difficult place in addition to all we have endured as a new family. Prayer and this blog have been the two constants throughout the 146 days of Caeli Elise’s lifetime. Without the former, we wouldn’t be here today as conquerors – and sans the latter, no one would truly believe everything Chastity and I have gone through nor watch the transformation from a micro preemie some would consider too early to live outside of the womb to a bouncing beautiful baby girl busting out of newborn clothing and into the hearts of so many souls near and far.

The storms we deal with are here for a season; for us, it seemed like an eternity. Imagine having to visit your only child at the hospital daily for months and riding the roller coaster of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and one day, her condition has improved enough to bring her home. Then, trade the hours of worry in for the euphoric moment when her pediatrician says “she can be discharged for home.” From what I’ve read recently in the Bible, the closest thing that can parallel those words is when Jesus says “well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Because of Christ, now we can say that we are conquerors.

This is not to say that every day has been a cakewalk. Far from it. We’ve both made extremely difficult decisions that ultimately have been best for Caeli’s health as well as our own. I do apologize to the people who saw zombies at the Department of Health and Rineco because there were many, many days which we did not know if we were coming or going as a result of being so tired. Day after day, test after test, bill after bill yet we managed to give each day a fighting chance. Even in the days when it would’ve been easier to stay at home, we kept running our race and fighting for our daughter. Through the resuscitation and transfusions, intubations, self-extubations (done twice), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), surgery, scans, and all of the IVs and foot pricks to check blood gases, we still carried our cross for what was right not as her parents but also as practicing Christians. Our sole promise is a critical one:  that one Caeli made it here and through every battle imaginable, the three bears would become living embodiments of Joshua 24:15. If you haven’t read it, here it is:

Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for ME and MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD. Joshua 24:15 #conquerors #CaeliStrong

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) July 18, 2015

In the upcoming days, we will have more than a truckload of doctor’s appointments as par for the course with newborns and still have to provide safe care for our angel. Caeli will catch up and exceed our wildest dreams and highest expectations because of what she has already encountered in the last five months. She will keep growing and being beautiful like her mother, and one day she’ll understand our love story.

Because that’s what being a conqueror is all about.

Standing in the face of fear, not knowing that our baby would make it through the night in those early days of life, all we had was an unwavering faith that indeed did question both God and the medical staff. Don’t get it twisted:  when I questioned God, it was why us? I’ll follow you to the end, please take care of Caeli. How do we manage postpartum depression with a baby nineteen miles away in an incubator and wife not only healing from an emergency Cesarean section but also trying to recollect the details from her labor? What about my ostracism from the operating room to just outside the door in which two lives hung in the balance? Damn the fact I did not get to cut the umbilical cord. What would I have done had I lost both my wife and daughter on those wee hours of February 13? Then what?

With babies, every day is a brand new day.

Our journey to today did not begin on February 13 in the NICU – it started about a year and a half ago when we made the decision to finally start a family after much prayer and deliberation. Weeks in fertility clinics of becoming hot potatoes for the specialists we saw, mounting medical bills that insurance companies refused to cover, and the emotional challenges that accompanied it all not limited to those well-intentioned barbs (what’s taking so long?/Ya shootin’ blanks?/all you need is some Levert and some candles/try the “baby in a bottle” pills/etc.) that made it hard work. For one to understand what the past nineteen months have been like he or she must acknowledge that not all transitions are smooth and painless nor are they rife with spiritual or emotional aches too great to bear. One must linger, to build ebenezers – stones set on one another to mark a place of great transformation, a liminal place of having met or reintroduced to God and seeing His rescue.

We are more than conquerors. We’re also Caeli Elise’s parents.