She will only see the baby

The first time I stepped into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit I was bombarded with sound.  Sound from everywhere!  Monitors going off, ventilators breathing for babies, nurses and doctors talking and moving.  And tears.  Not crying, just silent terrified tears.  I am amazed that silence can sometimes be the loudest sound in the room.  My first day I looked into the eyes of another mother standing beside the plastic box that held her baby.  Her silent tears held every one of those sounds.  Her child would die 7 months later, having only left the hospital to die at home.  Her tears are still the sound in my heart when I remember.

Then the light. The babies actually had to improve enough to go into an isolette.  They stayed on the open table until they were stable enough for the little boxes, then, they covered their isolettes with blankets to block some of the light.  Can you imagine growing in lights and sounds when you should have been warm and dark in your momma?  I felt assaulted by everything going on.  So much information, such tiny babies, such real fear. 

I also felt so sorry that my girls had to live that way.  I felt guilty that I couldn't do better for them.  I hated that my body didn't hold them and I ached because my arms couldn't hold them.  They had to go through it alone.  I wanted to somehow take it for them, but I couldn't.  I watched as they were stuck, poked, scanned, medicated, breathed for, and felt helpless.  I willed them to live and would have done anything to make that happen.  It was a selfish desire to want that at any cost, because it cost them everything. 

There is a weight in that unit.  So many parents and babies, afraid and sick.  There is an unspoken terror of death.  Losing a child is so unnatural.  There is no way to prepare for it.  It felt completely wrong, like a sin to even think of the possibility, but it was always there with us.  Every night we would leave the hospital to sleep and dread that middle of the night call saying something was wrong.  We began to look for the parents and babies in the morning to see who was still there.

The social worker asked us early on about bringing Hannah to see the girls.  I couldn't imagine it.  I felt so overwhelmed in there, I thought it would terrify Hannah to see her sisters that way.  The social worker told us not to worry and then said something I will never forget: "Trust me, she will only see the babies.  Children don't see the tubes and wires, they see the baby because they are looking for a baby." 

Hannah walked into the nursery and saw the baby.  She had no expectations of perfect.  She had no idea that every baby wasn't born that way.  She hadn't dreamed them and felt them move inside of her.  She didn't know the feeling of overwhelming sorrow for all they were going through.  She could walk in and be genuinely excited because she was a big sister.  Children are amazing.  I wanted that childlike heart too.  I wanted to see my babies, just them.  It was hard for me to do that, but a few times I think I did.  This is a picture of Emily the first time I saw her whole face.  She had been extubated (breathing tube removed) for just a few minutes and I snapped a quick picture. 

I guess the point isn't seeing them when the tubes are removed, but being able to see past all of that.  Being able to look at that mess of tangled wires and sounds forcing life into them and seeing a child.  A real living breathing human with a future and filled with potential and love.  I wonder if God looks down at me like that.  Does he see the tubes and tangles I make in life?  Does he look at me and see my mistakes and insecurities; the artificial things I reach for to force life into myself?  I know he deals with that mess I am, but I also believe he looks past all of that and sees his child.

As I was writing this today, I could feel God asking "You know I see you, but how do you see me?  Do you see me as complicated and confusing?  Do you wonder about my answers and my care?"

Wow.  Can I look past all of the sorrow of the world, the insecurities in myself, the necessity of provision and see his face?  Do I see everything that complicates that relationship with him, or I can I come to him with a childlike innocence; without expectation and the weight of loss and regret and see a king who created me?  His arms ache to hold me, just as I ached to hold my girls.  To comfort as I desired to comfort.  That and immeasurably more.  Can you trust me Andrea?  Can you allow me to work in you that which is pleasing to me?   Can you trust your girls to me? 

That is the desire of my heart.  To trust him completely.  To walk with Jesus daily, to fill with his word.  Looking at that new terrified mommy up there gently touching her sick baby, I can't believe the person he has molded today.  Faith is a choice I have to make every single day, it is a verb--an action that requires moving forward when I want to stand still.  Most of all, it is reaching up and taking his hand, or some days crawling into his lap and allowing the Prince of Peace, the Living Water to fill in the holes of a sometimes very painful life.