Numbness and Denial

Mother’s Day is supposed to be a day filled with love, joy and maybe a little pampering. Mother’s Day of 1999 was for me a day of numbness and denial to say the least. I had just turned 25 years old three weeks earlier, I had a 2 ½ year old son, I was buying a house, selling a house, looking for new furniture for the new house and that day gave birth to my beloved daughter who lay dying. Numbness, yes, numbness and denial, that was the day I learned why God grants us humans these two life saving things.

The pediatrician let me hold Justice before they took her to the NICU. Not the way a mother holds her newborn baby but the way you set a baby on a child’s lap. The doctor was actually holding her with a stethoscope listening to her heart and lungs as I looked at her for all of 10 seconds. I remember feeling a little put out, if you may, not really angry but confused and unhappy with the way she continued to hang on to my child and then took her away so soon. I really didn’t grasp what the scope of the medical situation was. I thought that by the time she handed her to me, everything was now fine. I think Levi did also because he later seemed hurt that he didn’t even get the brief opportunity I got to hold her. He had walked Cy to the nursery after he was born and they didn’t even ask him to take Justice. Looking back it seems easy to see why but at the time, it was very confusing and disappointing. We had so much faith in the staff and really, this kind of thing couldn’t happen to us. It happens to other people, not us.

We were asked if we wanted to have Justice baptized and we said, “we will at some point but we’ll wait.” In our minds, we were thinking, “Are they crazy? Why would we baptize her here and not in a church? No, I think we’ll wait and do it with our family around, thank you very much.” However, being the kind and understanding staff, they gently persuaded us that now was the best time and quickly called a nun who baptized her.

By morning it was apparent to every or at least the hospital staff for I wouldn’t have known any difference, that Justice really needed to be transferred to a bigger, more equipped hospital. We assumed they would bring in a helicopter to take her across the state. Her pediatrician explained to us that they had already resuscitated her a couple times and felt she would not survive a helicopter ride so she called for a plane to come pick her up. The plane was located in another state but she would ride with Justice on the plane when it arrived. Later, this would not be necessary because the staff on the plane was so qualified. However, within 12 hours of Justice being born she was taking her first plane ride. She would again be resuscitated on the plane but would make it to the bigger hospital alive. Due to the seriousness of the situation, I could not ride on the plane with her.

Usually when you leave the hospital, the hospital gives the new mother a diaper bag full of samples and coupons. I expected this. I was pleasantly surprised when they took Polaroid’s of her for me. I thought this was something new they had started; it never crossed my mind it was because these might be the only pictures we have of our child. Numbness and denial. Instead of the diaper bag, the hospital gave me a very nice traveling kit filled with a toothbrush, toothpaste, instant coffee, tea, a mug,journal,etc… If I were looking at me from someone else’s shoes, I would have said, well obviously, the travel kit? The pictures?…..How could you have been so sure she would live? I might have thought I was a bit slow to the punch but I think God was protecting me. Numbness and denial kept me moving forward. So 12 hours after giving birth, I checked myself out of the hospital, stopped by Wal-Mart for some necessary things because going home would have been an extra 2 or more hours out of the way, drove across the state and met my daughter a world I could have never imagined.