A Change

Today Michelle was moved to Abbott Hospital. Her new number is 612.863.2546, and the room number is 5481. If you go to visit, you want to find the West Elevators and go to the 5th floor.

But an even greater shift is taking place in our minds today, a vague yet overwhelming altering of mindset. This is no longer about "how long are these silly doctors going to keep Michelle strapped to her bed;" it's becoming "keep baby safe and sound in there as long as we can."

This morning after Michelle's magnesium dose was lowered, she began having contractions again. These were kind that she notices, much in the way you notice when you stub your toe in the dark against, say, a particularly heavy and immobile appliance. So they bumped the dose back up and things settled down again.

But if she doesn't come off the magnesium, she doesn't come home. In the afternoon the decision was made to move her to Abbott, where the baby would have to be cared for if it was born this early. Michelle is 23½ weeks. If she had to deliver today, the baby would have an 85% chance. At this point in the pregnancy, that number goes up literally every day.

It doesn't look as if we should be expecting that. There's every reason to believe that she will carry the baby for much longer. But it's doubtful that she will reach full term (40 weeks), and doubtful that she will be coming home before she has the baby. Yesterday, even this morning, it seemed a horrible thought that Toby and I might not have Michelle home with us for many more weeks or months. But as I said, today has brought a shift of perspective. Now we pray for Mommy to stay in the hospital with the baby in her tummy for as long as she can. And we give thanks for the doctors, and even more thanks for the nurses, who care so much and work so hard for them.

Michelle is sorrowful, of course, but at peace and still in good spirits. This rearranging that I'm utterly failing to describe has buoyed us rather than sunken us lower. Perhaps it's both at once. People are asking how I am as well. I'm doing pretty well. I'm subdued today, but at my center I'm still content and even happy with everything turning out the way it is. It's a melancholy happiness that I can't describe.

I feel like I should say, for what it's worth, that the upbeat flippancy of the past three blog posts was not a false display or coping mechanism. It is who I am. It's an honest record of how I felt and thought about things. At the core of me is a strange dichotomy of cynicism and optimism that comes out in exactly that way. And it's how I'll continue to be throughout this season of uncertainty. But I'll never hide something else underneath it, and on days when I feel like I do today, you'll read a post like this one.