READ OR LISTEN (8:00 MINUTES)
FALL 2017
The nurse pushes my wheelchair passed spacious rooms overlooking a hillside forest
while my husband carries my boxes, full of a month’s worth of clothes, books and paints.
I must be monitored for the four weeks leading up to our scheduled premature c section. “Thirty-two weeks is the point at which your daughter is safer out than in,” the neonatologist had explained.
Bump. Bump. We cross the threshold from the new maternity wing into the old antepartum unit and roll into a tiny gray cinderblock room overlooking an AC unit and rain-stained concrete wall.
Tight chest. Set jaw.
“Thank you,” I tell the departing nurse.
Blood pressure up. Ringing ears.
“It’s not what I expected,” I tell my husband.
Controlled breathing.
Mind racing: four weeks in this room away from him, away from our three children, anticipating this high-risk birth and several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Fear. Disappointment. Pursed eyelids. Then tears. “It’s just not what I expected.”
“Ask for a better room,” he says.
“There is no better room.”
“You don’t know that. Ask.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Ask.”
Timidly I ask, “Excuse me. Do you have a different room? Maybe one that overlooks… a tree?”
She goes to check. I try not to hope.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
She pushes my wheelchair three doors down and into a bright room overlooking a courtyard with potted trees and ivy trellises and creeping rosemary and irises and bird feeders.
And I unpack my books and my paints.
WINTER 2018
I wake early. Today we bring our five-pound baby home from the hospital. After seven weeks with several wires in the NICU, our family of six will finally be united.
While making coffee, I hear a whimper. I slip into the children’s room and pass my hand over a hot forehead. “Fever.”
Furrowed brow. Sigh.
I carry my blanketed three year old to the car, trying not to breathe in her breaths. We pass the hospital on the way to the pediatrician.
Disappointment. “It’s just not what I expected,” I mumble.
It’s the flu. The flu can kill a preemie. In the worst flu season of the decade, despite vaccination, the flu is in our house on going-home day.
From the parking lot, I call the tenth friend in twenty minutes, “Our newborn can’t come home and she can’t stay in the NICU. Can she and I stay in a back bedroom for seven days? We will keep out of the way.”
“No room. Our children are home for the holidays.”
Tight chest. Tense neck.
“No room. Our in-laws are in for the holidays.”
Blood pressure up. Cold sweat.
“No room. Our house is too small.”
Quick breaths. Shaking hands.
“No. We have the flu too.”
Dizzy.
Mind racing: What if no one can host us? What if I get the flu? What if I give her the flu?
Outright wails. Hot, wet face. Rocking back and forth in the driver’s seat.
“This is not okay! I am not fine!” I shout.
“Ask for a way,” God whispers.
“There is no way!” I lament.
“Ask for help while you are still in the dark, rather than waiting to see my faithfulness in hindsight. Ask.”
I rest my forehead on the steering wheel and breathe out, “Lord, I trust you. Please provide and show me your glory.”
Relief. Stillness. Silence. Faint smile.
The phone rings.
Jenny says, “Heather, call Victoria.”
I barely know Victoria but I call and she says,
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
I drive to Victoria’s address and step into her backyard cottage under a giant oak, with fireplace and French doors and feather comforter and washer dryer and kitchenette and antique art prints and teacups.
And I unpack my diaper bag and turn on acoustic songs to dance with my girl’s head in the crook of my elbow and her tiny feet cupped in my hand.
WINTER 2020
I’m thrown like clay onto the Potter’s slab.
How did I get here? Bombarded by fear. Derided by shame. Wincing at a lineup of thoughts lopped like hand grenades on every side. I’m anxious … about… everything. I can’t get this long-past trauma out of my head. I feel alone, alone and small.
“Ask me to reshape you,” says the Potter.
I’m too broken.
“I can restore.”
I’m too dry.
“I can renew.”
I’m. It’s not important.
“You. You are very important.”
Am I?
“Ask.”
I’ll be fine.
“Ask.”
I’m afraid.
“Ask.”
Alright. Lord, will you transform me?
“Yes.”
Then
I am lifted.
I am held.
I am softened.
I am pressed out and stretched out and hollowed out.
I am smoothed, baked and then de-cor-ated.
Look at me. I am not a common vessel. I am beau-ti-ful.
Gold, not just on the outside, but inside too.
I notice His gaze. I feel His careful hands and feel how He treasures me. Yes, He has designed me for His purposes, but more than that He will always treasure me in this secret place.
I am lifted to the light and admired by the artist.
He asks me, “Well, what do you think?”
It’s. It’s just not what I expected.
I presented this piece at a creative expressions event in November 2021. For more see LESSONS FROM THE NICU. To apply these lessons in a journal entry, see Little Guides to Journal by #2.
