Toward the end of our Lamaz class, they allowed us to tour the hospital. The tour happened toward the dinner hour so we watched as couples walked to the special “candlelight dinner” room for their final meal before taking home their babies. The mothers walked slowly, most of them carrying a pillow for comfort. They all walked as if they had been sitting on bowling balls for the past two days and their eyes had a look of panic. The husbands, on the other hand, looked dazed and confused. In their brief moments of lucidity, they looked penitent.
As we watched the couples walking to their final free meal, we laughed. “I promise you,” I said, “when we get to this point, I will be laughing and making you chase me down the hall to that meal!” If I could go back to any moment from that decade and change it, it would be this moment that I would return to and I would approach those couples with compassion and prayer.
We had just left the doctor’s office and were on the way to the hospital. My blood pressure had skyrocketed and the doctor insisted I get to the hospital immediately to be placed on monitors and medication. My mom and grandma were on their way to stay with Scott but would not arrive until the next day. My heart broke as we handed Scott over to one of our best friends for the night. It was the first time I would be away from him since he arrived and I knew when I returned, all would be different.
After lying in a hospital bed for a day, the doctor felt he needed to perform an emergency C-section. At this point, I didn’t care if I had to give up natural childbirth—I just wanted to come through this whole pregnancy alive. I felt fat, frumpy and all-around awful. My head hurt, my legs hurts, my whole body hurt!
Finally, the time came. I was given a general anesthetic and when I woke up, I had a beautiful baby girl added to my family. Sarah Michelle became the fourth and final member of our immediate family on June 27, 1986—exactly four months after her brother Scott was born. She was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed fireball—exactly opposite in every way to her brother at home.
Two days later it was time for our final free meal—the candlelight dinner. My mind went back to those couples I had laughed at when we were on our hospital tour and I knew the first thing I would eat were those words I said to Michael.
I was shuffling across the hospital floor with a pillow against my belly when all of the sudden for no reason at all I started sobbing. Not a quiet, classy type of crying that a lot of women have mastered, but the all out, loud sobbing of a woman lost in helplessness.
“What’s wrong with you?” Michael asked incredulously. At that moment, I have to admit what I was thinking—‘Oh my Gosh, Marcia is right—he isn’t nurturing at all!’
“I don’t know,” I sobbed. “I just feel so sad!”
He put his arm around me gently. “Here, let me help you, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
The next day, we took Sarah home. It was a little different than bringing home a 3-month old from the airport. She cried a lot! The first night, she was in bed with us. She was crying, I was crying and Michael was close. Mom opened our door a crack, “Can I help?” We gladly handed Sarah over to her.
The puzzle picture was complete now. It was a beautiful picture—but not the picture we expected. It would take many years to understand the picture—but understanding is a process that happens with your family. As I look back on my family, I see how only God could have brought it all together for good and I see how I am SO blessed!
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