Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul

  The baby was to be released on Sunday. The birth mother wanted to spend time with her daughter. Everyone thought this wasn’t a good idea because she would certainly change her mind. I thought it was such a small request for what she was allowing us to do for the rest of our lives.

  The birth mother cried, held and loved the baby that weekend. At one point, she called the head nurse in to talk. We were told this was a sure sign that she wanted to raise the baby herself. The birth mother and the head nurse spoke for what seemed like hours.

  The birth mother never wavered in her decision. On Sunday afternoon, my mom, Mike and I walked slowly out of the hospital and a nurse handed us our daughter. What an incredibly joyous moment!

  Mike and I have been parents for over six years now. We never knew how much our hearts would be filled with love for a child. Being parents is a most fulfilling way to live. We never forget the love that sent us on our parental journey—the love of a birth mother for her daughter that allowed us to become parents. We thank her in prayer and a story that we share with our daughter about her birth. Birth mothers are truly the most courageous, loving individuals that we know. There’s one in particular that we hold in highest esteem.

  Judy Ryan

  Letting Go

  Only mothers can think of the future, because they give birth to it in their children.

  Maxim Gorky

  When I found out I was going to have twins, my husband and I were thrilled. We felt that God had answered our prayers. So when I started to go into labor at only twenty-four weeks along, I was devastated. I threw myself into cocooning around the two too-small children. I obeyed every doctor’s order. I stayed in bed twenty-four hours a day. When I was hospitalized, I prayed every day. I tried to meditate myself into a state of peacefulness that the babies would respond to, and perhaps slow down their rush into the world. I was determined to prevent these children from making the mistake of coming into the world too soon.

  So when it became clear that labor was inevitable, that nothing I could do would prevent the babies from coming, I was thrown into a panic. My body shook with the pain of guilt and regret. I blamed myself. How could I care for them as children when my body had failed to care for them as fetuses? How could I create an environment for them where they wouldn’t be hurt, where they would be safe always?

  I dozed on and off throughout the early part of labor. I dreamed of a visitor who came in and out of my room. The visitor held my hand, stroked my forehead and spoke to me. I felt tears stinging my eyes as the visitor spoke, but I immediately recognized the truth of what was said. I woke to find myself alone in the room, the monitors pinging away as they counted the twin beats of my babies’ hearts.

  I grabbed my journal and quickly began to write a letter to my soon-to-be-born sons. Right then and there, I gave them their freedom to do whatever they needed to do. I told them that I loved them, that I hoped they would want to stay near us, and that I would do whatever I could to help them through their lives. Tears flowed freely as I read the letter out loud to them. I told them, in a rush of words, that life was in their hands now, not mine. I released them from my needs, my hopes and my dreams for them. They could choose what to do. I was heartbroken and exhilarated as I spoke, anxious to see them, terrified to lose them. But it was their choice.

  A strange peace settled over me as I finished speaking. My hands fluttered softly over my swollen belly as I said good-bye to the little ones that I had carried for seven months. “It’s okay, whatever you choose is okay. I love you. I love you.”

  Moments later, an intense contraction hit, sweeping over me in a wave of pure energy. The force of the labor pains crescendoed, and I knew there was no turning back. I felt the silent visitor near me again, holding me, helping me as nurses came and went. My husband arrived, and stayed near me, silent and grim. “Honey,” I said, “It’s okay, it’s up to them now.” He nodded, not really understanding, and gripped my hand tighter.

  The boys were whisked quickly into intensive care upon their arrival into the world. They stayed there, fighting for life, for two months. I helped them, I cheered them on, I loved them. I sat for hours, telling them what life might be like with us, here on earth. I hoped they listened. I prayed they listened. But it was clear, even then, that they were their own men. All I could do was wait and watch the drama of their lives unfold.

  As I write this, I am again faced with the pain of letting them go. Of course, the exhilaration is there, too. I am glad for my silent guide’s comforting presence as I watch my now six-foot sons stand to accept their high school diplomas. Tears flow freely as I wonder if they are ready, if I have done enough to prepare them for their lives. Michael is preparing to do community service work in Fiji. Will he be all right? Jack is going on to study music; he has been playing classical guitar since he was five. Will he ever find a job? My husband squeezes my hand. He’s read my mind. He leans in and whispers to me, “Honey, it’s okay, it’s up to them now.” I nod, not really understanding, and grip his hand tighter.

  They march past me, laughing and whispering to each other in the way that only twins can. Finally, I catch their attention. “Hi, Mom,” Michael says, raising his diploma in celebration. “Did you ever think we’d make it?” Jack laughs and grabs his shoulder as they go out to join their classmates.

  “Yes,” I think. “Oh, yes. I always knew you’d make it.”

  Kate Andrus

  6

  SMALL

  MIRACLES

  Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries

  Sister Corita Kent

  Blessed Laughter

  Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”

  Genesis 21:6

  It had been an unusually quiet evening in our obstetrics unit. After weeks of numerous deliveries and nonstop busyness, the last of our postpartum patients and their newborns had been discharged. With no patients, our nurse aides had floated to other areas where they were needed, and me and Karen, the other scheduled nurse, were all that remained in our department.

  We were enjoying the quiet for a change when the phone rang.

  “That was Cindy in ER,” Karen said, as she hung up the phone. “She says they’re sending someone back who may be in labor.” She paused, grinning slightly.

  “What?” I pressed.

  “Well, Cindy said the woman and her husband didn’t even know they were pregnant!”

  I raised my eyebrows quizzically, but before I found words to respond, the maternity room doors burst open. An emergency room stretcher, carrying a heavy-set woman in her mid-forties, pushed by a harried ER nurse, barreled down the hallway toward us. An older man was trotting alongside, holding her hand. Both were red-faced and panting heavily, she to delay giving birth, he in an attempt to keep up.

  We sprang into action and quickly moved her to a labor bed while the ER nurse beat a hasty retreat. A quick check of the woman proved that she was indeed very pregnant and very much in labor. She had labored to the point of being fully dilated and was already feeling the strong urge to push. Not having known she was pregnant, she had no obstetrician. So, while I finished prepping her and instructing her on breathing techniques, Karen called emergency to borrow one of their resident doctors to deliver her. Otherwise, we would soon be performing the honor ourselves!

  Less than half an hour later, the woman gave birth to a vigorous, yowling, though very small, baby girl.

  After the infant had been pronounced healthy by the resident doctor, I cleaned and diapered her. Then the swaddled baby was returned to her parents, and Karen and I finally had time to find out how the mother could have missed that she was pregnant. This was Ellen and Jake’s story:

  She and Jake had gone bowling that evening. While she was taking her turn with the ball, she suddenly experienced what she described as “intense abdominal cramping.” She tried to ignore it at first, but it increased in intensity, persis
ting to the point that she was convinced she was having a gallbladder attack.

  Similar symptoms had appeared to a lesser degree over the past several months. At first, her doctor felt it was heartburn. Later, he considered other digestive problems; she was prescribed antacids and urged to watch her stress levels and cut down on fatty foods. Finally, her doctor attributed the recurring problem to gallstones.

  “But why wasn’t pregnancy ever considered?” Karen asked boldly.

  Ellen laughed through her tears, tenderly stroking the cherub cheek of her brand new daughter. “We’ve tried for over fifteen years. Every test there is, I’ve had. So has Jake. We were simply told it was impossible, that we couldn’t have babies.”

  Her balding husband, still in shock and speechless, just shook his head and grinned as he caressed the soft strawberry blonde hair on his daughter’s tiny head with his big leathery knuckle.

  “And then,” she went on, “when my monthlies stopped, I figured, well, The Change, you know. After all, I am old enough for that. My doctor thought so, too. And Jake and I finally accepted that it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  Ellen’s eyes brightened as she gently rocked her baby, then bent to kiss her daughter’s sweet-smelling head. “Oh Lord, thank you, thank you! How we’ve so wanted a baby all these years, and now you’ve blessed us with one!” She looked up at her husband. “Jake, we have a baby! And look how beautiful she is!”

  The rest of that shift, Karen and I laughed and cried with the new parents, sharing in their unexpected joy. This was over twenty years ago, yet I can still hear Jake and Ellen’s joyful laughter. I can still hear their heartfelt thanks to the Lord for his most blessed gift of love to them.

  Like an earthly father, with a twinkle in his eye, who delighted in surprising his children with a very special gift, so God had surprised this humble couple with this most extraordinary one.

  And, since that evening, besides believing more than ever that God still performs miracles, I also wholeheartedly believe this: God most definitely has a sense of humor. After all, Ellen and Jake just thought they were going out for a night of bowling!

  Susanna Burkett Chenoweth

  Grandpa’s Precious Gift

  I wanted a baby with all my heart, but I was not getting pregnant. I waited, I prayed, I cried and I went to my parents when I could not find any more courage inside myself. With their love and support, I carried on . . . through tests, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and life in general.

  Over four years passed. Then, on March 8, 1997, a day I will never forget, my loving father passed away. He was our leader. He believed in us more than we did. He believed in miracles. Our family felt lost without him. My mom, my siblings and I all struggled, trying to keep our spirits up without Dad by our side. All the while, I kept trying for a baby, to no avail. I finally surrendered all my trust over to God’s hands in order to find some peace in my heart. On a television show, my mom saw a speaker who suggested writing a letter to your deceased love one to help heal your wounds. Unbeknownst to me, she tried it and it seemed to help her immensely.

  After five long years of trying to conceive, it finally happened. I was pregnant! My baby’s due date was the day before my dad’s birthday. Yet, that day came and went. My baby girl, Samantha, decided to be born right on her grandpa’s sixty-first birthday! What an extra wonderful surprise. When it seemed like one door closed in my life, somehow it was opened right back up.

  When Samantha was about six months old, I continued to marvel at the miracle of hope I had been given from heaven. It was then that my mom told me about her letter to dad. Here is the part she wrote about me. “Sharon and Ron still have had no luck on having a little one. Maybe you can ask God to give them some help!” That letter was written two months before I got pregnant.

  I am writing this letter to my mom, dad and, of course, God as thanks for keeping my heart full of love, hope, trust and the strength to believe in miracles. Also, thanks from Samantha—Grandpa’s precious gift.

  Sharon Crismon

  My Father’s Tears

  My dad was always the strong silent type. Growing up, I rarely saw him angry, or even raise his voice in debate. He was often miserable with allergies, but didn’t take it out on us. He never told me he loved me, that just was not his way. This was difficult for me growing up.

  I remember one time I cried and cried. Finally my mother reached out and comforted me. Then my father said “the words.” When you have to put up a fuss to hear someone say “I love you,” it makes the words feel empty and of little consolation.

  Yet deeply buried and hidden inside me was the knowledge that he loved me. Even though he was hard to get to know, I remember finding the key to opening him up a little. Only when working next to him, would he talk more freely. Through all these growing up years, I never saw him cry.

  Years later, my first son, his first grandson was born. He was born in the dark, cold, early morning hours of a winter blizzard.

  Still exhausted and scared, I called my parents. With the storm still raging, they could only “try to make it” the next day.

  My husband and I were both students and very poor. We had no means to pay the hospital, so I had a very limited stay. Exhausted and numb from the emotional waves of ecstasy and despair, I longed to stay longer.

  Late in the afternoon of the next day, my roommate left for a walk and snack. I had the sleeping baby with me. I tried to sleep, but could not. I startled at the sound of light knocking. The nurse peeked in.

  “I know it isn’t visiting hours,” she said, “but, this is a special visitor,” then she disappeared.

  There was my dad, standing in the doorway and looking terribly out of place. He had a blue carnation in a small white vase tied with a blue ribbon. I guessed he picked it up at the hospital gift shop. He was still in his dirty old work coat. The dirt on his hands and face told me he came straight from work.

  He looked at me sheepishly as he crept a little way into the room. My eyes meet his.

  I saw a tear in is eye. It welled up, and gently rolled down his cheek. And then another. And another.

  I never saw my father cry before—the silent emotion was overwhelming. “See your grandson?” I blurted out trying to hide my own feeling of awkwardness. But it was useless. Tears glazed over my eyes as well.

  Then we were both in tears, as he gingerly made his way closer and handed me the carnation. He slowly stretched to peek at the baby—keeping his distance. He stayed only briefly. Then he was gone.

  Although few words were spoken that visit, it touched me deeply. I knew beyond any doubt that my father loved me, and was proud of me. Those tears will forever be in my heart.

  Robin Clifton

  Miracle of Life

  For the last few years on Mother’s Day I find myself thinking of a woman I only knew for a brief time when I was very young, but who would have a lasting impression with me and my family.

  The story goes back to when I was eleven years old. We lived in the city of Albany, New York, and at the time, my parents rented the top floor of one of those typical old three-story city houses, joined by mutual walls on both sides and forming rows of brick buildings, like cutouts or clones, on both sides of long streets. There was a “flat,” as the apartments were than called, under us and another in the basement.

  The owners lived in the basement. They were a lovely older Italian couple with a few grown children. One of their sons had recently married and he and his wife lived in the middle flat.

  My job that summer was to take care of my little brother Joey, then three years old. I could take him to the nearby park during the day, but could never stay away too long. My mother would get nervous if she didn’t see us after a couple of hours. So I would bring Joey home and let him play on his tricycle up and down the sidewalk parallel to the house where we lived.

  Many a time I was fiercely bored, but in those days of authoritarian parents and obedient kids, I knew better than to comp
lain. One thing that helped a lot was being able to spend some time with my neighbor on the second floor, now a young and happy mother-to-be.

  They called her “Catuzza” which meant, my father told me, sweet little Catherine. The “. . . uzza” was a diminutive that Italians put at the end of a name when a child was particularly sweet and it usually stuck into adulthood. And she was, indeed, sweet. She was also beautiful and I loved to be near her.

  Catuzza was well into her pregnancy that summer, and it was evident that she was often lonely. She knew very little English and during the day missed her husband a great deal. He was a shoemaker and worked long hours to provide for his budding family. She enjoyed the company of myself and Joey. My little brother had golden curls which she would twine around her fingers. Her smile would always make me feel that she was wondering about her own child, in her womb.

  Sometimes when the baby would kick, she would let me touch her stomach, and once, when Joey was close by, he, too, put his hand on her, much to her embarrassment. In those days, children weren’t supposed to know about babies being in a mother’s tummy.

  As summer came to an end, we made plans to move to another flat in another area of the city. My mother, who always got bored with where we lived, simply decided to move as she had almost every year that I could remember. I never saw Catuzza again until just a few years ago.

  My brother Joe grew up to join the U.S. Army, go to college, establish a career with the New York State Labor Department—and contract a life-threatening illness at age thirty-five. I shall never forget the day: I was restless at the university where I was working on Long Island in late 1972. I kept thinking of “home” all day and finally at 4 P.M., I picked up the phone and called my sister Rosemary. “How did you know?” she asked me. “How did I know what?” I answered.