To honor Kimberly's comment, I'm trying to be more careful with my blog titles, but I couldn't figure out a title for this blog entry!
Last night Ram was at the hospital from 9pm-1am. After we got home from church last night he returned a phone call. Then another phone call came that he should go to the hospital. This is not unusual since he has done more than 35 funerals since we moved here a little less than 6 years ago. But what was unusual was that he was asked to go to the hospital for a birth, not an ill member.
Claire Juncye was born at 10:22pm last night. This was her Mama's third c-section. They have a almost 7 year old girl and almost 5 year old boy. I won't tell the whole story, but due to some health problems they wanted more children but didn't have any after the 5 year old boy. So there is much rejoicing for their family with this baby girl. Mama was scheduled for a c-section next Tuesday, but Claire decided to come a few days early.
Claire's middle name is named after her Grandmother that Ram did the funeral for a little less than a year ago. This will be the second baptism that Ram does besides our Lambs (not counting a few grandchildren that live far away that he has baptized). Our church family is rejoicing to have Sunday School with their 3 children plus our 3 Lambs.
When Lamb 3 was born we considered having him baptized in the hospital. I was induced because he was so small and they thought something might be wrong. He was born healthy and we ended up not baptizing him in the hospital. The plan is to baptize Claire in the hospital this afternoon. She is healthy and there is no emergency to baptize her. But her parents liked the idea that she would be baptized soon. Her Mama won't have to get dressed up for the baptism when it's in the hospital. There is a lot of sickness going around (flu, whopping cough) and once they are out of the hospital, they plan to stay home as much as possible the next few weeks. When Mama is healed up and feels up to it, they will have a blessing in the church. This makes perfect sense to me and I wish more Lutherans would baptize in the hospital immediately whether there was an emergency or not. I think if we are blessed with another Lamb that we will baptize in the hospital. What is the best about this for us is we can plan our family to come for a blessing in the church when they all live so far away, but still get the baby baptized soon. I feel a little guilty that we took Lamb 3 out to eat the day after we came home from the hospital but he wasn't baptized yet. I feel even more guilty that Lamb 1 was a month old before he was baptized. So far I have had easy natural births, but we also don't know if we have more if there will be complications. I'm a little embarrassed that Ram is baptizing a member's baby in the hospital before he ever baptized one of our Lambs in the hospital. If as Lutherans we believe in infant baptism, why don't we baptize immediately whether there is an emergency or not?
We continue to keep Claire and her Mama in our prayers.
3 comments:
My mom had a pastor that insisted that every baby born in the congregation be baptized in the hospital. I think it's a good idea. We didn't with any of ours, but what you say makes a lot of sense!
Hi, Ewe! nice to make your acquaintance. EZEM, I didn't know you were here too!
Baptism is the child's entrance into the Church, so I can't imagine mandating hospital baptism. My Claire was 12 days old, and that's because our church (back in sem days) only did baptisms on certain Sundays.
Ewe, I've got three girls. You think Lamb1 can handle my 3-year-old? heh heh.
Joy, Esther and I have had the privilege of spending quality time with Rachel at some wives events before we took off and abandoned Rachel by leaving for other districts! AND Rachel has been known to bring me coffee and chocolate, which is A number one in my book!
As for the Baptisms, I really think that Baptism should not turn into a law thing...sooner is better, but I think that timing and location borders on adiaphora. Take that all with a grain of slat though, a theologian I am not...
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