Part 2: God of the Valleys
Four days after hearing our child’s 152bpm heart beat we found out our little Musick notes gender.
July 2, at 16 weeks and 6 days pregnant, I woke up around 2:30am cramping on my left side of my uterus and the left side of my lower back. Had no clue what was going on, but tried going back to sleep. After 2 hours of tossing and turning, I woke up again at 4:36am and went to the bathroom. I called my midwife’s pager about 10 minutes later and she called me back. Asked about bleeding, pain explanations, suggested constipation or gas pains, but nothing really sounded extreme though it sounded strange. I wasn’t bleeding, I wasn’t constipated. And the pain was tolerable, but too uncomfortable to sleep. She suggested taking a warm epsom salt bath and drinking lots of water… so I did that for an hour and a half when I got out at 6:30am to get ready for my prenatal chiropractic appointment. All the while, Mason was sleeping up a storm. He was sleeping so well, he hadn’t noticed I wasn’t in bed with him most of the night so when he woke up to me fully dressed, he was mildly surprised. Mind you, I didn’t wake him up; I felt no need to.
Fast-forward throughout the day. I went home from work just after noon. I’d had a headache that I could easily explain away by a combination of a lack of sleep and soaking in the dead sea… I mean, my epsom salt for an hour and a half, so it could’ve been my body pleading for a second 40oz bottle of water. Either way, I was deemed useless at work so I went home. We’d had friends living with us for a month so they got home and I had just woken up from nap to start working on work stuff from home in bed… cause that’s the best idea ever for productivity. I eventually go out and we order dinner–Hallelu! Panera delivers! I go back to use the bathroom cause I’m starting to feel uncomfortable again. It’s about 6:30pm. By 7:19pm I’m spotting and cramping again. By 7:37pm I’m feeling like I’m in labor and have started timing. These “cramps” are every 5-6 minutes. Every 8 minutes. Back to every 5-6 minutes. I text Mason and tell him I feel like I’m in labor. He comes back to our room. I text my midwife the same and she calls immediately. Told her the timing of my cramps and she agreed it sounds like I’m in labor.
And life began to change.
She told us we needed to get dressed and head to the Emergency Room. So we did. “I don’t understand Your ways. Oh, but I will give You my song. I’ll give You all of my praise. You hold on to all my pain. And with it You are all pulling me closer, pulling me in to Your ways. And around every corner and up every mountain, I’m not looking for crowns or the water from fountains. I’m desperately seeking and I’m frantic believing, that the sight of Your face is all that I’m needing. And I will say to You, it’s gonna be worth it. It’s gonna be worth it. It’s gonna be worth it all. I believe this…” I sat singing between breaths through the contractions with Mas by my side. Then I had to use the restroom. And there in the waiting room restroom, I began to deliver our child. Instant agony. I screamed and called Mason and tried to give him directions to where I was. And like the super hero he is to me, he slid under the bathroom stall door, grabbed my face, and simply told me to breathe with him and that everything was gonna be okay, but that he needed to go get help. So I sat there on the toilet. Crying. Not knowing where this night came from or what the rest of this night would hold. All I knew, was that I as badly as I wanted to stop the contractions, to stop the labor button, there was no stopping what my body was created to do. I had to breathe. I had to loosen my lips. I had to cry.
“God, I trust You.”
He came back with ER Security and an ER nurse with a wheelchair. I panic hearing a toilet flush in the adjacent stall and frantically ask Mason if the toilets flush automatically. He assures me they don’t, that it’s okay. The nurse looked between my legs and said, “Okay, we need to get you to a room. We have one ready, but we need you to get in this wheelchair.” They help me get in to the wheel chair and rush me to a room.
“God, I trust You.”
Mason saw more than I could, but all I could see was his eyes. He was so focused on making sure I was breathing. There was something so instinctual in him, just the love in his eyes for me… there was no birthing class to practice. There was nothing that could have prepared him for this moment. I’ll spare you the details of how awful the Emergency Room was, but these are the moments I’m astounded by the man God gave me. This was marriage. This was love. This was strength. In a moment our world as we knew was changing. One moment, this ER doctor was talking to me about what the plans were and what needed to be done and blah-blah-blah and I’m having contractions and then… I delivered our child.
“God, I don’t know why this is happening, my heart is hurting, but I trust You.”
I wouldn’t find out for at least 30 minutes when the OBGYN on-call got to me that I had given birth to our little boy–Zadok Wendel-Lee Musick–weighing 4.6 ounces and 8 inches long. He looked as peaceful as he could be. Such a painful time in our life was somehow being encapsulated by the most beautiful moment delivering the placenta like my body was created, watching Mason cut the umbilical cord, then holding Zadok for the first time. I laid there on this hospital bed, connected to all these cords, holding my son next his daddy, and my heart was taken. The first thing Mason said was, “Well, he has your nose!” And he did! His sweet face was adorned with my nose and lips and his daddy’s chin. He had my feet, but his daddy’s big toe. He laid there in my hands with his arms across his chest, the most beautiful, perfect human we’d ever seen. How one little person could have stolen our hearts though we never got to know him is beyond us. At a day shy of being 17 weeks gestation, he was the most beautiful combination of us… and his PaPa Musick’s height.
“God, our son is already with You and we don’t know why, but we trust You.”
We eventually were moved to Labor & Delivery thanks to Dr. Twombly, the OBGYN on-call, and they made the experience overall less traumatic than how traumatic it already was. They treated our son like the little baby he was. They did his handprints and footprints and gave him his first bath. They made a memorial box for us with hand molds and foot molds and 2 little scrapbooks with pictures they took of him and a tiny quilted cradle and hat for him. And then… we kissed our son goodbye. That’s such a simple sentence, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Say goodbye to your child who had your heart who you didn’t get to hold long enough. We got to hold him and spend time with him for about 6 hours. Six terribly short hours.
We got home just after 4:00am and our sweet friends had picked up the house, picked up our room, lit candles, and pulled back our bed for us. Practical love is a beautiful thing. We crawled in bed and Mason held me as I cried myself to sleep.
July 2, 2018 started atop the hill. And God was with us.
July 3, 2018 started deep in the valley. And God’s been with us.
I cannot imagine if we would not have shared our joy with our world when we did cause I cannot imagine not having our world to share our pain when they did.
This journey through grief started somewhere between the hospital and on our way home without our son. The single most life changing event we’ve ever experienced. And from the moment it began, God had us surrounded. Surrounded with love. Surrounded with support. Surrounded with strength. Surrounded with family and framily and friends and people who were angry on our behalf. Surrounded with people hoping for us while our hope was hurting. Surrounded with listeners and huggers and shoulders to cry on. God had surrounded us with Himself through the hearts and lives and hands and feet of the people He placed in our lives at the right time in the right place. He’s good like that.
“God. It hurts more than anything’s hurt before. I don’t understand You right now or why You let this happen. But I’m trusting You.”
Grief is a perplexing conundrum… it’s an adventure on it’s own, my friends.
To be continued…
Zadok Wendel-Lee Musick
Righteous & just, named after Zadok, the high priest. And after his grandpas.
July 2, 2018
4.6 ounces | 8 inches
16wks 6days gestational age
Mommy & Daddy’s piece of heaven