by Leah
I was a chaplain at a children's hospital for a year and cared for a lot of babies and children born with heart defects. I wrote this poem last November, thinking about all those what-ifs as I was preparing to get the ultrasound for Little Bit. I'm posting it here because it echoes a lot of the sentiments Anna had about labor and delivery: all of the fear and anxiety of the unknown and how we deal with those feelings, since they'll probably be around as long as we're parents!
When something is unbearably painful for me or others, I ask Jesus to show up and be present because ostensibly Jesus has been through that same pain; likewise, bringing into the room the spirit of those who had faced the worst re: ultrasound results helped me on this.
I was a chaplain at a children's hospital for a year and cared for a lot of babies and children born with heart defects. I wrote this poem last November, thinking about all those what-ifs as I was preparing to get the ultrasound for Little Bit. I'm posting it here because it echoes a lot of the sentiments Anna had about labor and delivery: all of the fear and anxiety of the unknown and how we deal with those feelings, since they'll probably be around as long as we're parents!
When something is unbearably painful for me or others, I ask Jesus to show up and be present because ostensibly Jesus has been through that same pain; likewise, bringing into the room the spirit of those who had faced the worst re: ultrasound results helped me on this.
"On Fearing the Ultrasound"
A blogger whose writing I love recently posted an entry entitled
“On Fearing the Ultrasound.” She mused
On the unknowns, the unwanted discoveries--
The uncharted trails that wrench ankles and lose unsuspecting hikers
With seeming gleeful abandon.
She hit on a truth:
Pregnancy is stalked by myriad fears lurking in the
Shadowy forests of our mother-imaginations.
“Was there a defect they didn’t catch? Will my baby
Be born too early--or equally as dangerous,
Too late? Will I wake up one morning and feel a dead weight in my belly
In place of this vivid kicking?”
That’s why I brought you with me into the imaging room.
I officiated your funeral not all that long ago; you didn’t last
Nearly long enough to satiate the ache of love in your parents’ hearts.
You and your friends--all the babies and children I cared for who died too young--
I called on you to surround me with your company,
A host of accidental cherubim
To brandish my fear as we watched, waited together
For the tech to discern spine, kidneys, heart--
Anything, nothing.
I felt your presence, your spirits, around me
Stronger than in life.
Thank you, thank you for being there with me.
You have gone as far down those winding, stumbling paths
As it is possible to go. With you at my side,
I knew that someone else had traveled this terra incognita
Before me, and that made all the difference.
A blogger whose writing I love recently posted an entry entitled
“On Fearing the Ultrasound.” She mused
On the unknowns, the unwanted discoveries--
The uncharted trails that wrench ankles and lose unsuspecting hikers
With seeming gleeful abandon.
She hit on a truth:
Pregnancy is stalked by myriad fears lurking in the
Shadowy forests of our mother-imaginations.
“Was there a defect they didn’t catch? Will my baby
Be born too early--or equally as dangerous,
Too late? Will I wake up one morning and feel a dead weight in my belly
In place of this vivid kicking?”
That’s why I brought you with me into the imaging room.
I officiated your funeral not all that long ago; you didn’t last
Nearly long enough to satiate the ache of love in your parents’ hearts.
You and your friends--all the babies and children I cared for who died too young--
I called on you to surround me with your company,
A host of accidental cherubim
To brandish my fear as we watched, waited together
For the tech to discern spine, kidneys, heart--
Anything, nothing.
I felt your presence, your spirits, around me
Stronger than in life.
Thank you, thank you for being there with me.
You have gone as far down those winding, stumbling paths
As it is possible to go. With you at my side,
I knew that someone else had traveled this terra incognita
Before me, and that made all the difference.