A Different Kind of Pregnancy

Spring is always a time of remembrance for me. I start walking back through the timeline of the last 1/3 of my pregnancy. Bedrest in March, first at home, then in the hospital. The entire months of April & May were inpatient at Northside Hospital. The delivery in late May, the ICU for me for 1 week, 5 weeks of NICU...a July release.

All of this occurred 19 years ago, and yet the rhythm and timing today is strangely similar. Waiting with anticipation for college decisions here in March. Hopeful, concerned, and trying to make sense of bad news mixed with good. Instead of weekly ultrasounds on Tuesdays, we have decisions in portals on Fridays. Information that will shape and change our lives, but yet we have no real control over what is happening internally. We simply wait to be told.

We deliver in May--then into the world as infants and now as baby adults.

So here in March I start to feel the contractions. The babies are getting crowded. There is the urge to push--but questions linger about their readiness. Anxiety lurks about how radically all our lives will change.  The difference? My ability to be present and wide awake in it now. I am not ill and on the sidelines, honestly concerned I may not survive to see them grow up. Those prayers were answered. Praise the Lord, for that.

There is a perspective I lacked before. God is sovereign. He can be trusted. His Will be done. I couldn't help but think about Romans 8. I particularly love the plain-speak of the Message translation.

^19-21 Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

^22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

^26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Three versions of delivery--2004, 2023, and God's eternal way--and in all three, my heart is very much involved. 

Searching

It is a long story, but as I type it appears C is barefoot, penniless and without phone or ID on the streets of Atlanta.

She was committed to an involuntary psychiatric hold last Friday to a place in south Atlanta. Once her 72 hours were up and she was "stable" she was allowed to sign herself out. The staff from the facility took her to a downtown shelter Tuesday night with the two paper sacks of belongings she had and dropped her off.

Because of a complicated history that it would not be appropriate to share here, some instability in her was triggered at the shelter. She acted out in a disruptive way and was threatened with expulsion. The last contact we had with her was when she called my friend, Gretta, who runs the group home in a panic and said, "Please come get me before I am turned out, alone, onto the streets of downtown Atlanta."

Gretta was able to compel the staff to show mercy and C spent Tuesday night at the shelter. Wednesday morning, Gretta received a call that C had been unstable and disorderly again that morning and had been escorted from the premises by police. She was not arrested, just forced to leave.

In her confused state, she left behind her two bags of clothes and her shoes. She walked away barefoot with nothing (literally) but the clothes on her back. It has been 24 hours with no word from her.

I am angry at a system that has let this young woman down and literally dropped a fragile life off in an unsafe area to fend for herself.
I fear that she is in mental crisis somewhere unable to recall our phone numbers.
I pray no one has taken advantage of her in this vulnerable state.
I hope we find her today.
I believe nothing is without hope and anything can be restored.

I have been so 'confused at' God. Not mad. Just sad. Not really doubting, but so unable to reconcile why there are lives like this precious young woman's who, like Job, are marked by so much pain--while I get to live a life of relative blessing and ease.

Every homeless person I have passed on the street this week has been a stark reminder that they, too, were once 19. Many of them had a point in their early 20s where their mental illness or addiction seemed to take over their lives and leave them wrecked and on the streets. Many of them almost certainly had families and/or friends who loved them and whose hearts were broken as it happened.

I have found that in the difficult chapters of life I can find peace without having all the answers. I have learned that trust and faith means not being dependent on the knowledge of how it is all going to turn out. I am trying to center my efforts instead on what I can learn today. I have been searching for some lesson from all this--some reminder of the Gospel and God's Grace.

Yesterday, I got a glimpse as an army of facebook friends and volunteers from various homeless and street ministries aligned to get C's picture distributed in the areas of downtown Atlanta where she may turn up. Last night I had 13 e-mail from concerned people, many of whom I have never met, who had been canvassing the streets in search of this sweet girl.

C has no family to speak of, but she literally had dozens of people working to rescue her... and she has no idea.

I thought of all the times in life when I have felt alone, forgotten and abandoned and how God was at work on my behalf--I just didn't know it. And as e-mails, texts and calls rolled in from people whose hearts are burdened for this young woman they've never met, I thought, THIS is the love of God. This is godly compassion. This is the body caring for 'the least of these.'

I am going today to look for her. I confess that it is as much for myself as it is for her. I want desperately to find her and get her the help she needs to stabilize her mental health--and I want to hug her and tell her that she was never alone or forgotten. People were burdened and searching and caring--even when she had no idea.

Every life matters--the broken, the sick, the victimized, the lost, the sad. Every. single. one.

Heart Walk 2009: Before

As I type this it is pouring rain with more intense thunderstorms on their way. Our area is under a flood watch. It is the type of Saturday morning where a warm cup of coffee and lounging clothes are in order.

Yet, in an hour I will be surrounded by family and friends celebrating the miracle God did in our lives by healing my very sick heart in May 2004.

I have been wrestling with what to say from the podium. How do I capture all that my now healthy heart has pondered regarding my humility, awe and gratitude at being spared? With an hour to go, I am still not sure. Frankly, I think it is impossible. I am trying to just be prayerful and submit my mouth to God.

As I listen to my children's excited chatter--(and R asking if they can wear their bicycle helmets today if it hails) I think: What if I had missed this?

As I think about my Monday night girls and my friends who have pledged to walk, I find it hard to comprehend that had I not been spared I would have never known them. These people who love my family enough to show up in the most dismal weather of the year...who prayed, who brought us meals for months, who have walked beside us faithfully since. How can I express the gratitude my heart feels?

As I think about standing next to my husband....my precious, faithful husband, (I had to stop here for a minute) I cannot help but think about what his life would have been like as a widower with three small children.

I remember my family and closest friends at my bedside in the darkest hours of the ICU and I am overcome with joy and thankfulness at the great faithfulness God has displayed in my life. He is good. He is the divine Healer. He is faithful.

If you happen to read this before 9:40 EST will you pray for my words today?

Heart Walks and Circus Tricks

This morning we participated in our community's annual heart walk in support friends of ours whose son had congenital cardiac defects. For the last several weeks as I thought about the approaching walk, I realized that I still had some unresolved emotional baggage. Of all things, the thought of that red survivor cap was more than I could bear.

Yesterday morning I was telling the children about our weekend plans. Of course, they wanted me to explain a Heart Walk. I told them it was a way to celebrate people who had been very sick, but were healed and healthy now. Hoping to alleviate some of the questions on 'the big day,' I explained that I would be wearing a red hat to signify our gratefulness that God had healed my very sick heart.

This led to my first ever attempt to explain to them how sick I was following their birth. I kept it very simple, but as my voice cracked and my eyes filled with tears, their eyes were the size of golf balls and marked by concern.
"Ma, you don't have to wear a red hat if it makes you sad," R offered.
"You can jus' wear the hat you wear at da beach," K continued.
Those sweet, precious children!

This morning I spent a great deal of time quietly talking it out with God. I wanted it to be a celebration of the health of our friends' child and NOT about me. I really thought God and I had sorted it out, until we turned down the block to the location of the walk and my heart started doing flip flops and I felt like jumping out of the moving car and running somewhere to hide.

As I explained to my husband, it is one thing to write about my story from behind a computer screen, it is another thing to wear a label as I interact with people face to face. I still cannot exactly describe why it was so emotional, but for the reality of 'what if' (which was more than a bit overwhelming.)

I also think my situation is complicated by the fact that I was 'out of it' during the most serious parts of my illness. Even when I was 'with it' I was unaware of the severity of my condition. So, rather than grieve it as it was happening, life just had to go on. There were three little people in the NICU demanding our attention.

Once we arrived at the walk site, there were cold children to deal with, people to greet and no time for tears. I donned my hat and joyfully walked the walk.

The afternoon was a wonderful break from the seriousness of the morning as we attended the circus. What fun it was to watch the greatest show on Earth through the eyes of our children. Of course they are all convinced they can do wild acrobatic tricks now and all other career plans have been put on hold in favor of pursuing a life with the circus!

I was so thankful we had been warned to bring our own snacks, the price gouging was unlike anything I have ever seen. Lemonade was $9 and those spinning light things? $20. Miraculously, we managed to make it out of there purchasing absolutely nothing!

I am saving money for a little giveaway prize, you know? :-)

Part 3: The Diagnosis

I was transferred to the ICU where my husband stood by my bedside with the pulmonologist all night long. It was determined that I had pulmonary edema. My sweet husband could tell you all kinds of very technical things about my PH of 7.1 (very bad) and how severe my respiratory issues were, but I think you get the picture. I was quite sick and drowning in the fluid in my lungs.

My parents had literally been home for only a few minutes when they got the call the return quickly. My in-laws also returned. It was a long night. People streamed in and out of the ICU waiting room to pray. I cannot bear the thought of the people I love most in the world thinking I was dying—and that I was leaving them with three preemies. I think it is a great gift from God that I have no memory of this. I really do not think I could handle it.

My memory picks back up the next day. I can remember hearing people I loved speaking in soft, serious voices. I heard my Mom, Carol (my mother-in-law), and my husband. I could not open my eyes, speak or move. I could only hear them. I will never forget thinking: “What is going on? Where am I? Am I dead? I am not dead. Do they think I am dead?” I wanted desperately to comfort them. I wanted them to know I could hear them. At some point, I managed to move my hand or squeeze Mom’s hand or something. It took all the energy I could muster. I heard them acknowledge it, then fell back asleep. (I have since learned that when you are under the influence of anesthesia, it is common to receive your hearing back before anything else. I had been given a paralytic during the critical hours to keep me from removing my tubes.)

I am not sure when I finally “woke up.” Because of all the drugs, I was in and out. I could not speak because of the huge tube down my throat, so I wrote notes asking what was happening. My poor hubby had to explain over and over because I was out of it and could not remember what he was telling me.

A funny side note for any of you that could use some comic relief: I was constantly starving while pregnant, especially in the latter days. The dieticians kept my room fully stocked with food (including a mini fridge). The night they removed the T-pump, the nurse suggested I not eat anything in case I had to have surgery. Around 3am I woke up FAMISHED. I hobbled to the restroom and snagged a yogurt on my way back to bed, which I devoured. The next morning, the nurse flipped out when she saw the empty yogurt cup. One of the first notes I wrote to my husband as he was explaining how I ended up in the ICU was: “Was it because I ate the yogurt?”

While I was intubated, a technician came into the room to perform an echocardiogram of my heart. (Pulmonary edema is often caused by cardiac problems.) As he was leaving, I heard him comment to my nurse, “It looks like 10-15.” This meant nothing to me, but I scribbled it down to report to my husband when he returned. When he returned to my room, I showed him the note and he assured me I must have misunderstood. I insisted that was what I had overheard. These findings confirmed that I had an acute peripartum cardiomyopathy. In layman’s terms, I had heart failure which had triggered the pulmonary complications. The numbers the technician spouted out were related to my ejection fraction (EF). The normal heart functions at 55-65%. I was in the lowest range. Generally speaking, the lower the EF, the worse the prognosis. Women with Peripartum cardiomyopathies fall in 3 categories in terms of prognosis: 1/3 die, 1/3 live as 'cardiac cripples' with diminished function and 1/3 recover fully. About 20% of women with this condition have heart transplants. This is what all the grave, tired faces coming in and out of my room knew, but no one explained to me.

I was extubated later that day. I still had not seen the babies since the brief glimpses I caught after they were born. Few visitors were allowed in and it was only for brief periods. Any excitement got my heart rate racing. I had my bed adjusted with the back straight up and refused to sleep. My husband still teases me about how unbelievable it was that I was conscious despite the loads of medication I was on. The truth is, I was petrified that if I fell asleep I would not wake up again.
to be continued