Socially Awkward
You know that person? You know the one, the one who blurts out their thoughts without pause for social situation consideration? (Often it’s me…) The person who comes up mid conversation and wants to get the run down of that whole — sometimes private — conversation. The person who stares while eavesdropping. Yeah, you know the one. Well that’s what being in an open NICU is like.
First you need to know about my part of this awkward relationship: The week following Ella’s birth I stayed in the hospital in a small hotel-like room with a tiny tube TV and a connecting door to a VIP patient room that wasn’t sound proof. (By not sound proof, I mean I couldn’t rest because there was a loud talker on a phone or, worse, a man moaning so much I thought I was listening to a haunted choir. It was the worst sound to try to sleep through ever. Don’t think of me as insensitive… I figured out later after noticing the nurses refused to come check on him — even at 3 am — and hearing a doctor yell about more pain meds killing him, I understood we had a person working extremely hard for pharmaceutical refreshments. But I digress.) We would walk what seemed like a half mile to the other side of the hospital every three hours to try to feed Ella. My legs and eventually feet swelled beyond recognition… looking like dimpled tree trunks reducing me to to limited walking and eventually I had to be pushed in a wheelchair to reach my baby. I pumped milk constantly and stocked it in the tiny fridge in our room, labeling it with labels provided and would load them into a cooler bag for delivery to the nurses, all while recovering from labor and delivery. Once we arrived at the NICU, we’d buzz the door, put on a hospital gown, and then begin the two minute scrub process to avoid spreading germs to her or any of the other babies in the room.
So you can see, I was already threadbare once I reached my daughter and then I had to start the painful process of attempting to feed her which typically ended in feeding her by pushing milk through the tube running up her nose and down into her stomach. We’d watch the clock and push one milliliter every thirty seconds. If she refused to eat any of her 60 mls (which was often the case in that week) we had to push… it took a painful thirty minutes to get a whole feeding (2 ounces) down. As a type A, people pleasing, planning, and semi-OCD personality, I personally felt like a failure if she didn’t achieve progress. I understood that it wouldn’t be all at once, but failure to progress in numbers made me feel like a failure.
On the flip side of this we weren’t surrounded by the comforts of home. We heard regular beeping and alarms. We heard nurses chatting about weekend plans or sometimes the current drama of the day with a patient, doctor, or fellow nurse. We listened to a doctor with a thick accent take over our case with a new plan of treatment. We had hard plastic chairs, no privacy, and an open hallway or column to border our assigned space. Nothing about it felt familiar, peaceful, or comforting. It all felt awkward.
No one tells you to be ready in case you need to advocate for your child. When your skin is so dry, cracked, and burning from excessive washing of your arms and hands, your child is gasping for air and fighting to breathe, she’s failing to achieve any progress — causing never-ending frustrations and feelings of inadequacy as a parent, a doctor is telling you he wants to do something different or pull up a new machine, or a nurse is condescending to you about how you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to bottles or feeding or results — in these moments you don’t typically feel energized to go to bat for the gut feeling you have about your child’s care. Nope, you weep, all while feeling like you are naked on stage in front of your high school.
At one point we had been relocated to a quarantine room in the NICU with 3 other babies because of some maintenance. I was in the corner of a 10'x10' room hearing something from the doctor I didn’t want to hear about a plan of treatment, all while another mom rocked her baby to sleep 1 foot from me, another baby cried in the corner as two nurses hurriedly worked to find the medicine they needed for her, and a family about to go home went back and forth about feeding the baby they were about to take home and getting themselves situated. I felt trapped with a nurse and then a doctor behind me speaking medical jargon to the back of my head and basically telling me we’d hit a set back. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell at everyone in the room but I was frozen. I couldn’t turn around because there was nowhere to look that another human being wasn’t — other than the tiny corner where my baby sat struggling to breathe in a plastic box. I wasn’t a very good advocate in that moment. I wasn’t happy with the plan, I wasn’t understanding it either. I didn’t know why my baby couldn’t just do what her brother did when he was her age. I didn’t understand and it was really awkward. I wept silently as the doctor abruptly moved on to another patient and I saw a box of tissues come around my shoulder from the nurse. Awkward.
I go back to the first day and that line I typed — “Jesus and His Plans and His Purpose would become greater than anything I could have planned.” (Blindsided) — the plan and purpose of He who created my baby was greater than any plan I could make. As I look into the first week with Ella, I see that the same goes for feeling like a failure. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
He is greater.
I had no strength. I had no fullness. I had nothing. I was weak. I felt helpless and like a complete failure. I was in darkness and lost. I was numb to the circumstance yet feeling every prick of anger, sadness, fear, and despair. I was incapable of doing anything but walk down those sterile halls and face another failure every three hours. There is no other way to share this feeling. I can’t sugarcoat my experience because there is no sugary sparkle to this experience in the flesh.
Yet, when I look back I know that God was walking step by step with us down that half mile trip in the halls to see my girl. He sent us friends and even new acquaintances that would come alongside us and simply redirect our focus in the coming days. They pointed us to look to the one who is the strength of our heart and became the only portion we could feel satisfied in. They encouraged us to rejoice in the small things. They were sounding boards for the practical questions. They allowed us to understand that we are supposed to be weak, for in this weakness God’s strength is not only magnified, it is glorified. God reminded Paul of this very concept. He was being tormented and pleaded with God to take away the thorn tormenting him. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9–11 I can’t say for sure what Paul’s torment was like but I know that I was being tormented in small ways in those days.
He is enough.
I normally am a go-to person when a crisis hits. I am the one who flips that mental switch into a new mode when it is time to break bad news, jump to action, seek help. In this week of my life, there was a hint of that woman there… but she was grasping for a hold, she was feeling the burnoff of the anxiety rather than the energy boost, she was unclear of the direction or action needed. Weakness was ever present indeed and I begged for the torment to stop when I could even think through the fog in my head. His power, however, was perfect in those moments. I hadn’t reached the point where I would delight in my weakness or hardship, but I saw a new woman who was just as powerful in that weakness and hardship. She would advocate while weeping. She would push through fatigue and pain and walk the half mile (and eventually drive the one hour) one way to do the work she had been called to do. She would find her voice even if it would crack. She was perfectly weak so He was able to do mighty things for her and in her.
He is able.
While I’ve always prided myself on being that go-to crisis manager, I like the new woman I was becoming in those early days — aware of my weakness and shortcomings, enduring my feelings of failure, and awakening to the power of Jesus working things out for me as I pressed on one step at a time. I may have experienced failure in the flesh, my circumstances were awkward and difficult, but it was all making the way for Jesus to become my strength and my portion. When I am weak only then will I experience true strength.
