The Tiny Light

We arrived at the hospital at 5:45 Friday night.  I had been having contractions all afternoon and I was eager to see if our sweet bundle of joy would make her appearance early.  Patiently I waited until after work before grabbing the bags I'd had packed for months and heading to labor and delivery.  When we arrived, I made Dave leave our things in the car because I didn't want to "jinx it".  I was nervous, excited and anxious.

Because I was still 3 weeks from my due date and intending only to be monitored for contractions, we had Eleanor in tow.  Dave's sisters were to meet us after dinner.  I changed into the unflattering hospital gown which made E giggle and I climbed into bed.  She was lost in a game on her iPad by the time the nurse found her way back to hook me up.

I was strapped first to something that tracks contractions and then she began to search for the heartbeat.  As she struggled to find it, I poked at my belly and made some uncomfortable joke about the baby hiding from her.  She moved the cold plastic transmitter lower, then to the left, then to the right, back to the left, back to the right... and then I saw it.  For the first of what has become countless times I saw someone's heart sink.  I searched her face in vain hoping I read it wrong.  She immediately masked her fear and stumbled through an excuse about being new and notoriously bad at finding heartbeats, but I could see in her eyes the truth.  I looked at the clock -- 6:05.  Another nurse came in, more uncomfortable searching and again the look -- 6:12.

I can't bring myself to speak of the minutes following 6:12 just yet but I can account for each one.  Every moment seemed to form as a heavy cloud; filling the room.  I could breathe less as each one ticked by.  My doctor and nurses filtered into and out of the room and I watched the sadness take hold of each of them.

But at 6:38 the room transformed.  Eleanor, who had been at some point whisked out to wait with her sweet aunts, tiptoed to my bedside.  She cocked her head to the side, studied my face and smiled with compassion I have never before seen.  As she stood there, every bit an angel, the clouds of sadness filling the room lifted and I could see clearly the face of God in her little eyes.  She reached for me.  I held her close and cried.  "It's ok, Mama," she reassured me, "You can keep my bug-a-boo tonight."  She laid her most precious possession down to keep me safe through the long, dark night and left.  I clung tight to that lovie and stopped counting minutes; I accepted God's plan.

The night was long and very very dark, but there was a tiny light of hope that I wouldn't let satan snuff out.  I'm still carrying it. I know if I nurture it, believe in it, trust the path I'm on that someday that tiny light will burn so brightly I won't be able to see the heartbreak any longer, only the joy.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12