Angel fetching baby

by Elvira Bothma
(Garsfontein, Pretoria, South Africa)

It was 01h20 on the 13th March 1973 when I gave birth to our son. It was a quick and easy birth but the placenta did not release and I had to get a morphine injection so that the doctor could take it out with his hand.

After that, I was washed and cleaned and pushed out of the delivery room. My husband was with me all the time during the delivery and he stayed with me for about another hour and we were very excited about our little boy.

After he left I could not fall asleep. I was just lying there thinking of the birth and our son. All of a sudden a very larger than life angel appeared right in front of my bed, hanging over the end of the bed. She had beautiful, white shimmering wings that stood out at the back of her shoulders right down past her waist. I was not scared but I did not know what was happening.

I just looked and the angel said to me : I am coming to fetch the Botha baby. I was shocked and pointed my right hand at her and said I am not Botha, my surname is Bothma. The next moment she just went up right through the ceiling.

I was so confused at that moment and kept on asking the nursing staff if our baby was okay. They kept on assuring me that he was fine. After a long while I must have fallen asleep and when I woke up the next morning the first thing on my mind was the angel. I asked the staff if I could see my baby now and they said they will bring him in a little while.

I was waiting quite a long time and decided to get up and go and see him for myself, because all the newborn babies were kept in a special baby room. I knocked on the window and the nurse showed me where he was. He was lying fast asleep.

I turned around and felt very faint and horrible. A nurse helped me back to my bed. She said I am not supposed to get up because I lost a lot of blood during the birth. I told her that they keep on promising me that they would bring the baby and they didn't and that was why I got up to see if he was okay. She said they will be bringing the babies soon, they are just a bit busy at the moment, the priest and doctors are with a woman and her husband in the room next to mine, because their baby was stillborn the previous night.

I could not believe it. Then the angel made sense to me. From that day on I will always believe that an angel fetch you when you die.

Two and a half years after that incident with the angel, my father passed away. After the funeral I walked in the graveyard and came across a child gravestone with the inscription : Baby Botha. Born 13/3/1973 and passed away 13/3/1973.