When life is painful. . .

Seventeen years ago, I was hospitalized at 23 weeks pregnant. The placenta was beginning to detach, even though it was not a placenta previa.  It was early November, and my one-and-a-half-year-old child was at home with his dad.  At first, it was hard to take seriously the idea that we could lose this baby, but as the days went by and all the measures were worsening, we took in the reality that there wasn’t likely to be a full-term healthy baby coming.

After three weeks in the hospital, it wasn’t possible to keep the little one inside anymore.  My dear daughter was born at 26 weeks’ gestation, 1 pound 9 ounces.  That’s 710 grams.  For the bakers out there, that’s 3 packages of cream cheese.  She was 13 inches long, skinnier than anything, visibly not fully formed.  She skipped the entire third month of gestation. 

The hospital gave us a short book of their statistics.  They clearly highlighted that their stats were better than the average hospital, but also introduced us to the realities of micro-prematurity.  My second child had an 80% chance of life.  That 80% included possibly living with major complications.

I could now go home to my son, but would have to travel the 30 minutes to the hospital daily to see my tiny daughter.

By the time Christmas came, she was almost a month old, and I had been allowed to hold her only twice.  Each time, they only let me hold her for about 10 minutes.  She was intubated and had an IV, so they didn’t want her jostled around or introduced to bacteria.  Just removing her from her incubator was a big deal as they had to disconnect and reconnect tubes and wires.

My best gift ever was the nurse announcing to me that since it was Christmas Day, she would let me hold my daughter for 30 minutes.  It still makes me cry to think of it.  Thirty minutes of peacefully holding the tiny human that should have been inside of me.

I can still remember the searing edge of the pain while driving to and from the hospital.  I remember desperately hoping that there is a heaven because I needed to believe that at some point in time, somewhere, there would be anything good that could equal the depth of my pain.  I couldn’t imagine finding anything in all the earth that would ever be as good as this was bad.

Christmas.  We call it a magical time, and it is.  Somehow, Christmas magically draws us back to our pain, disappointment, disconnection, sorrow.  It’s a time of joy and gathering.  It’s equally a time of grief and sadness.  I don’t know why.  Yet, I do believe that we actually need it to be this way.

We stand together in the dark with candles and sing Silent Night.  We celebrate 4 days after the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, and we decorate with lights all over trees and homes.  We instinctively mix dark and light, grief and joy, family and friends.

Those three months of my daughter’s hospitalization were punctuated by getting to hold her.  As she grew, she cried when I wasn’t with her.  I would walk into her room and start singing to her as I washed my hands.  She would stop crying as soon as she heard me.  There was the pain of separation and the calming wonder of togetherness.

Isn’t this all of life?  Isn’t all of life a messy mix of dark and light, hard and soft, difficult giving way to ease?

I want to say that we’re better for it, but I pause there.  Are we a better family because my daughter’s first residence was the Children’s Hospital?  Am I a better mother because of it?  Did that serve her in any way?  What messy questions!  If I had the option, I would opt for the full-term birth.  I would choose that for all of us.

Pain is part of our human reality.  Pain is.  We all have pain.  Pain has a need.  Pain needs hope.  It needs joy to come and mingle with it.  Pain needs for us to gather.  To be connected.  Especially when it’s messy.

I don’t think that either pain or joy were meant to be alone.  I think they actually go together.  We’re uncomfortable with that, and it’s okay that we’re uncomfortable with that.  It’s even okay that we really don’t know how to put those together.  Pain and joy somehow have a tendency to come together on their own if we allow it.

Shall we take a moment to look at Christmas itself?  The Christian story features a very young woman who is pregnant before marriage.  She travels to a town where her fiancée’s entire family was present in a culture known for its hospitality, but she gives birth alone in a barn.  That wasn’t a mistake, a mere lack of a reservation at the inn.  That was deliberate shaming.  There’s a baby, who is King of the Jews, visited by both poor shepherds and rich wise men.  A couple of years later, all of the baby boys ages 2 and under were killed in an effort to kill baby Jesus, who came to save the world.

The story is known for its juxtaposition of splendor and squalor, a king born in a stable.  It is full of joy, hope, shame, and heart-wrenching grief.  We don’t know this story for its shame and murder.  We have so much trouble telling stories of life as they actually were and are.  We like some parts so much better than others.  That’s fair, and it’s also problematic.

When we think that everything is supposed to be clear, pure, and happy, we think that we don’t fit.  We think that our experience of messiness is what’s off.  It’s not.  Messy is the norm.

If you’re thinking that your dear counsellor sailed through this hospitalization with peace and grace, then I’ve led you astray.  That experience caused me to question everything.  I still had some PTSD-type symptoms several months after she had come home.  It even led to ending some of my friendships.  It was super messy!

So we all come to Christmas.  We enter December with our expectations and griefs.  We think that there’s something wrong with us because we have both.  Even Jesus and Mary had both!  Every one of us carries a full variety of emotions and memories, both hopes and fears.  We come together, and we bring all of it with us.  I think that’s just how it’s supposed to be.

I don’t mean to leave you hanging and wondering.  Yes, my daughter is fine now.  She had a rough start: two surgeries, 5 months on oxygen, refused to eat solid food until she was fully one year old.  And now she’s fine.  When she was about a year and a half, she used to say, “I’m amazing!”  It was super cute.  If you told her anything else, “You’re a girl.”  Or “You’re one year old.” She would say, “No.  I’m amazing!”  She still is.

And aren’t we all amazing?  Just like this.