Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

Joyce Bryant snuggles with her baby daughter, Markita Joelle, on Tuesday in a room at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital.

Mark and Joyce Bryant are going to the hospital to have a baby.

As they cruise down Interstate 81, the scenery flashing by in the morning sun seems to nod its approval. It's 10:10 a.m.

Spring's flora sings of birth and rebirth with the sway of bell-shaped forsythia blooms, the burst of fresh green shoots and the dance of daffodils.

But it's a scriptural song -- Psalm 118:24 -- that occupies Joyce's morning mediation.

"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

Today she will give birth to her 10th child, the first by Caesarean section.

It is April 3.

The significance of the date does not escape Mark, married now for 21 years to the woman he loves.

Exactly 19 months ago -- Sept. 3, 2005 -- six of the Bryants' nine children died in a horrifying accident. Eight of their children had traveled with Joyce to her home state of Michigan for a family reunion, a Labor Day weekend tradition. Joyce, herself the youngest of 10, was especially close to her sister, Lorrie Kuchar, who always opened her home to the Bryant brood.

It was in Lorrie's home that a gas leak, quiet and stealthy as a creeping cat, ambushed the children while she and Joyce were five miles away, helping another disabled sister to bed.

Jackson, David, Martina, Joseph, Nehemiah and Rebekah, ages 2 to 19, were killed in the blast that shook Caledonia Township late in the evening. Joyce had tucked the younger ones in for the night before leaving with Lorrie for the short drive to see their sister. The older children were watching a ball game on TV.

Only Caleb, the Bryants' 14-year-old son, and Sarah, their 6-year-old daughter, survived the explosion, along with a family friend, 18-year-old Joseph Moore. All three suffered serious injuries.

The night of the explosion, Mark Bryant and daughter Kameron, 18, had stayed behind in their Giles County home so Kameron could catch up on schoolwork before heading for Michigan to join the family celebration.

The planned celebration turned into a tragedy that drew national attention.

After a memorial service in Michigan, Mark brought the six caskets holding his children back to Virginia for a funeral.

On Sept. 11, 2005, the children were buried in a private cemetery cradled by the Virginia mountains not far from the Bryants' home in Eggleston.

Back in central Michigan, where the flat land seems to stretch out forever, Joyce sat in a hospital with Caleb and Sarah.

But even though they were miles apart on that sad day, the Bryants shared a common connection:

Their faith.

Mark halts at the entrance to Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital and helps Joyce out of the car. His very pregnant wife, clutching a checkbook, cellphone and small pack of tissues, waddles inside as he hastily heads for the parking garage. Soon, he's back at her side, watching her sign her name.

"This is your consent form to release information to the insurance company," a cheerful clerk says from behind a desk. "Did they tell you how much it was?"

Now 42, Joyce always thought of herself as "the prime of what every woman wants to be in labor and delivery."

All nine of her previous children came into the world easily.

But this baby -- a little girl, the doctor says -- is breech.

So Joyce has made peace with her obstetrician's decision to intervene. Her baby's birth, she's certain, is ultimately in God's hands.

"The way I view it," she explains, "is that God has this perfect plan. We don't know what lies ahead, but we know it's a perfect plan. We get to watch it unfold."

In the months since she and Mark were faced with the tragedy of losing six children, they decided to share their story as a way to challenge other Christians. They have spoken more than 30 times, at their own Riverview Baptist Church, in two other states and in the Philippines.

Their first question to those who listen is always the same: "Are you ready for eternity?"

Their second, "Are you living without regret?"

"A lot of times the response we hear, especially from the men, is 'I just want to slow down and be with my family,' " Joyce says. "The women want to know 'How do you go on without your children?' "

That's not an easy one to answer.

"It hurts every day," Mark admits. "You get up, you go on. There's not a day you don't think of them.

"People would not blame us if we lived in despair," he adds, "but we didn't want to go there. God gives us choices. We could choose to live in the pit of despair, or we could choose to trust. We're trying to urge people to make good choices. ... We're still looking for some purpose for what God has for the rest of our lives."

This baby, both say, is a blessing from God.

Someone recently asked them if the expected child would in some way help "replace" the children they lost.

In her soft-spoken sincerity, Joyce explained that nothing could ever replace them.

"I used to look at all our kids as the ingredients to a recipe. Now we have a new ingredient. ... After such a tragedy, it's such a joy."

12:18 p.m.

Prepped for surgery and in her hospital gown, Joyce is taking a ride down the sixth-floor hallway in a big rolling chair.

Nurse Wallis Lott parks the chair.

"This is the hard part," he says. "Hurry up and wait."

After consulting with Neil Macdonald, an anesthesiologist, Joyce decides on a spinal anesthesia so she'll be awake during the birth.

Satisfied with her decision, she smiles as her husband begins to don the blue scrubs he is handed.

Mark walks beside Joyce as she is rolled to a recovery room directly across from the operating room where preparations are under way.

Mark is nervous, even though he has been present for the births of each of his children. He worries that he might pass out for the first time. Mark delivered David, his eighth child.

He calls Kameron on his cellphone. Now 19 and a student at Piedmont Bible College in Winston-Salem, N.C., Kameron is on her way to the hospital with Caleb and Sarah. The family arranged the plan earlier as a surprise for 7-year-old Sarah, who thinks her mom is at another doctor's appointment today.

Flipping his phone shut, Mark grins.

"She's on Elm Avenue," he tells Joyce. "She's right outside."

Dr. Lee McLennan hustles in wearing green scrubs and a plastic cap. The 53-year-old obstetrician has delivered six Bryant babies.

Joyce is special to him.

"When she came in for prenatal visits," he says, "those children would follow her like little ducklings. They were so well-behaved.

"They're just an unbelievable family," McLennan adds, gesturing at Mark and Joyce. "They exemplify faith and courage. They're an incredible witness for others."

Turning his attention to the business at hand, McLennan explains to Mark what's about to happen.

"It doesn't take very long to get the baby out," he says. "It takes a little more time to get Joyce back together."

Before he leaves to prepare himself for the surgery, he and Mark take Joyce's hands. The two men lean together, and their voices are soft as they pray.

1:13 p.m.

The fluorescent lights of the operating room throw beams on the doctors' plastic caps. Nurses pass gauze and instruments as McLennan begins his work. Macdonald checks the monitor that reads his patient's vital signs.

Joyce is awake and smiling. Mark stands on her left, peeping over the blue shield that separates him from McLennan's scalpel.

The obstetrician works methodically and confidently. Music from a Christian radio station is muffled behind the swinging doors of the operating room.

Through the oblong glass panes in the doors, the scene is one of efficiency and order.

Mark squeezes Joyce's hand.

At 1:25 p.m., a slurping sound. Suction.

Someone behind a surgical mask squeals "cute little heinie!"

"Happy birthday!" sings another.

The miracle happens at 1:26 p.m.

The baby cries. And cries. And cries.

It takes several minutes for the nurses to clean and swaddle the pink-skinned newborn. They place a tiny knitted cap on her head and gently place her in Mark's arms. He holds his 10th child close to his heart.

Joyce tilts her head back to see. A glowing smile -- and salty tears -- cover her face.

She wipes her eyes with her fingers.

4 p.m.

Joyce is in a room on the seventh floor. Nearby in the hospital nursery, nurses are attending to other babies born here in recent days.

But Markita Joelle, only a few hours old, is with her family.

Markita, Joyce says, means "little Mark" in Spanish.

Joelle means "Jehovah is Lord."

"Can we call it Joelle?" asks 7-year-old Sarah.

Caleb, 15, stands beside Joyce's bed, watching a ball game playing silently on a TV set hanging from the ceiling. Quiet and stoic, his eyes flit back and forth to his father and the bundle in his father's arms.

Kameron, a studious young woman with the gentle demeanor of her mother, takes a turn holding the baby. She touches the soft, plump cheek of her little sister.

But Sarah -- the girl who survived an explosion she doesn't remember but readily remembers her brothers and sisters "in heaven" -- can't contain her excitement.

"Can I hold it again?" she pleads, turning a plaintive face to her mother who now looks tired but tranquil.

"Her," Joyce corrects tenderly. "She's not 'it' anymore."