Spring

There are many things I love about our apartment, but one of them is the huge old cherry tree we have in our cozy backyard. For awhile now there have been pink buds, but today it happened: they burst into heavy white bloom. The bulbs my mom buried in our ceramic pots are sprouting tulips; our onions are ready for harvesting.

I’ve looked forward this year to spring more than any year I can remember. In college I was a fall person: Virginia falls are glorious. Brilliant leaves, crisp air for weeks on end. In med school I was a winter person: unforgettable New England snows and festive lights.

But this year it’s the spring. Winters here are dreary: cold, wet, sludgy. I’m ready for sun, for outdoor walks and mild breezes. I’m ready to wear skirts and dresses rather than the pants I can’t fit into anymore. For the first time we own plants to watch wake up; we have a place to feed birds for our cats’ entertainment.

And perhaps spring seems more real because of all the changes going on inside. In the mornings I wake up and feel my belly, and think something strange is happening. There’s a taut sloping that’s entirely foreign. I’m fascinated by how my bellybutton is slowly becoming shallower, as if some invisible force is pushing against it from the other side. I imagine my tummy bursting into bloom one day: skin cracking, muscle fibers parting.

Spring is new life and mysterious changes, the promise of fullness. It’s the birds flocking to our tree, D’s hand in mine as we walk in parks, my blooming belly. Time for savoring.

Week Twenty

Taking Call

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” –Proverbs 16:9

All of my call this year is home call, taken weeks at a time. Most of the time it’s fine, but one page could mean the difference between a restful evening and a late night in the hospital. I think I meet the diagnostic criteria for pager-PTSD: I get jumpy when anything beeps, like the microwave at Starbucks after they’ve heated up a pretzel, or our shower cleanser before it sprays. I sometimes hear the pager going off in mind. I try to avoid it unconsciously by leaving it at home while running errands or taking longer showers. It sometimes decreases my ability to enjoy normal things. I definitely get annoyed: once D teased me by humming the pager beep tune, which got me almost hilariously upset.

So much of the nature of medical work is based on chance: how bad a call night is; whether or not you get called in. Medical culture is strikingly superstitious: people carrying “white clouds” or “black clouds,” avoiding the Q-word. I remember how upset someone got when I mentioned what a quiet night it was. So much of the workload does seem unfair, especially when you start comparing, and it all seems due to chance or luck.

I forget sometimes that I don’t believe in a capricious world. I believe in probability—if it snows, less patients are apt to come in—but not in luck or happenstance. I believe in a sovereign God, which imbues purpose to what happens whether I understand it or not. I believe in suffering as much as I believe in redemption, and that it is all ordered by one whose ways are higher than mine.

These are all things easier to say than to believe, when you’re the one trudging in for a night shift, hoping to catch some sleep. It’s rarely in the forefront of my mind, but at least sometimes it’s in the background, enough to give some measure of peace. I pray it now for myself, but more so for people like D who still have to take call every third night. It takes sacrifice, to lay yourself open not to chance but to whatever God brings your way. Here’s to all those who do.

Week Nineteen

It's For Real. And It's A . . .

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
-The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

The whole concept that there is something alive in there is still very surreal. Mysterious-GI-Illness has since morphed into State-of-Constant-Fatigue, but even that is wearing off now, and I’m feeling nearly normal with the exception of feeling stouter: there’s a rounding thickness to my belly and waist that feels more like being fat than being pregnant. I miss pulling on a pair of jeans and feeling slim—the rubber-band trick doesn’t quite cut it. For some reason this seems invisible to everyone else. I get weird looks when I say I’m into my fifth month. Which D tells me to be grateful for while I can.

At any rate, that’s what made yesterday’s ultrasound all the more marvelous. Despite my not showing yet, the baby was right there! And huge! The resolution of the scan was incredible. We watched the mouth open and close, the fingers curl up next to the chin, the legs kick and bend. It’s a unique window of time: later, and the bones ossify too much for sound waves to penetrate, and the baby becomes too difficult to move for various views. Right now all I had to do was cough and it flipped over. We could see each vertebrae, the cerebellum and ventricles, the stomach and kidneys, each toe. We could see the globes and lenses (score).

The amazing thing is that the baby is there, having somehow formed all its parts, without my least regard or effort. While I’ve been going about the rest of life, it was in there being transformed from a few cells to a miniature anatomical wonder. It’s a good reminder that there is nothing about this process that I own, nothing about this life that I take credit for in the deepest sense. Somehow this being has been gifted us to steward for a time, but that is all. Something I can repeat to myself fifteen years down the road.

Oh yes, and we found out: it’s a girl.

Week Eighteen