Between the Lines: a Mother’s Love
It’s never too late to do the right thing
May 6th, 2022
Chapter 3: BEFORE – The Cost of the High
Ephesians 3:20, ‘Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes you.’ (TPT)
The beeping and bleeping and constant whooshing of the machines was incessant and maddening. Impossible to block out. Shanna lay on her side, pretending to be asleep so she didn’t have to talk to anyone, but she was taking it all in. Fear and dread filled her, so much so she wished she could puke it out. What had she done?
She really couldn’t think straight; could not wrap her mind around the turn her day—and her life—and not only her life, but all their lives—had taken, just that fast. Where was Jessie, she contemplated, imagining his trepidation and perhaps anger as he rushed to find them. Shan anticipated when he’d finally arrive with hope and horror all mixed together like explosives inside of her, mini detonators waiting to be triggered. And the baby…oh, God, the baby. Shanna placed her hand on the flat of her stomach, twenty-eight weeks of baby fat hanging like a cow’s udder where just an hour ago a baby bump was. How had this even happened?! she thought guiltily. His kicks, no more, and the reminder made her incredibly empty. She knew exactly how this had happened, but she could never ever tell a soul. She’d already made a pact between her and herself, she’d never breathe a word to anyone why the baby came so fast, so early. She’d take this secret to her grave. And yeah, oh yeah, if God would just let this turn out okay, she’d never use again, not one hit, ever again. Of course, she had no factual basis her habit was why she delivered this baby three months too early but, come on, she wasn’t a lunatic. All those warnings about using drugs during pregnancy weren’t myths after all. A sob snuck out. Where was her baby now?
She tried to think back over what had happened, and like a movie, the film in her head rolled. Shanna could hear in her mind the constant knocking on the door as it increased in intensity. She had been sneaking to hide the junk, and as she stood up from the hiding spot, a gush of something wet and sticky formed a puddle at her feet. She couldn’t believe she’d peed herself! No way she was answering the door now! The humiliating thought floated around in her swimming head just as the room spun and suddenly everything went blank.
When Shanna came to, she found herself strapped to a gurney, being loaded in an ambulance, with no earthly clue how or why. Until the intense contraction grabbed her belly in a chokehold, that is. She tried to talk but nothing came out, and she heard her wailing jumbled with the scream of the sirens as her baby was being born. They took the baby no sooner than they pulled up to the EMERGENCY entrance, and now as she lay here covered in crusty, dried blood and mucus, and a warming blanket that had long since grown cold, it was as if it had never happened, as if she had never even been pregnant, her womb empty and void and the baby’s erratic moves silenced for good. A tear trickled down her cheek. What had she done, she asked for the hundredth time to no one but herself? Her mind was spinning, full of a dozen bargains with God, a God she really hadn’t given into much and wasn’t sure if she even believed in to be truthful. God was Jessie’s thing; not much hers, but right now she’d try any…
‘Shanna! Oh my god, Shan! What happened?’ At once, she felt herself scooped up in an embrace she knew and trusted, her face being devoured by sloppy kisses and wet with a torrent of tears. Jessie was for more emotional than she, but at the sight of him and the sound of his voice, she crumbled. Like dust, she was smashed, wrecked. She had one job, one job only, and that was to be a safe place for their baby to grow, a safe haven where Zachary could become. She couldn’t look Jessie in the eyes, maybe never again.
‘What happened, Shan?’ Jessie pried the blanket from around her shaking shoulders and peered at the spot where the baby used to be. It was as if she’d been wearing a prego costume and had stepped out of it, leaving her baby bump laying on the floor behind her. Jessie was crying openly now, and it dawned on her for maybe the first time ever, perhaps he wanted this baby more than she had. She was still trying to get used to him truthfully and trying on the mommy-title to see if it fit. Maybe it just didn’t fit, she thought sickly.
‘Where’s the baby, Shan?’ he asked with a truly horrified wail disguising his tone. They’d been though a lot together, but she’d yet to see him fall apart, had yet to watch him disintegrate beneath the weight of grief. ‘Is he…did he…what happened to the baby, Shanna?’ Jessie was too loud, talking at her as if she were a three-year-old or maybe retarded, slow and measured, as if she were too dumb to understand. And just at that moment something broke inside her. What if their baby, who had been healthy and perfect, were now retarded and became little more than an idiom people used to taunt another? The cost of the high was now exorbitant. She opened her mouth to talk but nothing fell out, and she felt saved by the nurse who strode through the doorway just then, not bothering to even knock. They both drew to attention, and it wasn’t lost on Shanna how this woman held their future in her hands.
‘I won’t mince words. Your baby is extremely tiny. The NICU staff are working tediously to help him hang on. He was born as you know much too early. But he is a fighter, and he is fighting to survive. These first hours are critical. You will not be able to see him, nor certainly hold him. But we will do our best to keep you updated. Any questions?’
Shanna looked at the shock scrawled across Jessie’s face like a suicide note. Questions were bombarding him, she could tell, but he had no ability to ask. She tried to make her voice work too but still nothing came.
‘If that’s all then, I’ll go,’ the nurse turned to leave, but stopped when Jessie sputtered, then demanded, ‘It…it…it’s…a…a…boy? How…how big?’ When Jessie got nervous, he couldn’t help but stutter. It had always endeared him to Shan even more, as if she could protect his ego by helping him speak fluently. Her heart beat for him; only she knew how much Zachary meant, this do-over, an opportunity to do something right, a second chance this time to get it straight. Over a dozen years spent in prison, having missed his own boy’s youth, maybe he’d been given a gift, a do-over, he called it.
‘Oh! my goodness!’ the nurse sighed, humanity returning to her face, replacing the fatigued tone she’d confronted them with. ‘You haven’t been given any details about your baby?’ They both shook their heads as tears coursed down both their cheeks. They’d never been this way before; they hadn’t known to ask, to expect answers.
‘I am so sorry. We’ve been so busy but that is no excuse.’ The nurse was digging in her pocket, and eventually tugged from its confines, a scrap of paper. ‘Let’s see, yes, a boy. 2 pounds and six ounces, barely thirteen inches long. He is so small, but boy howdy, he is cute! He will have all the girls wrapped around the details of his exciting entrance one day. Born in an ambulance, couldn’t even wait for the hospital. Couldn’t wait a couple more months to meet his momma is what I think.’ She whistled and her eyes smiled, and Shan decided to ignore the shock on Jessie’s face to giggle instead with the nurse. Right now, she’d ignore the secret she held like a fragile bird’s egg in her palms. She’d fight the come down and the niggling discomfort pulsing for just one more AHA moment. She’d pretend for just a sec that none of this had happened yet as she patted her empty tummy and grinned with a nurse she’d never met before now.
‘Let me go snap a picture so you can see your baby, and why don’t you tell me his name when I come back, how ‘bout?’
Between the Lines is based upon a true story. What does God’s faithfulness truly look like? Is it the same in every situation? He is wholly trustworthy; therefore, there is victory, even if it doesn’t resemble everything we imagined.
