Waiting for Anthony

As many states across the country begin the next phase of their pandemic response, easing restrictions and allowing businesses to re-open, I'm feeling both impatient and sorrowful: impatient that it isn’t yet time to begin phase one of re-opening where we live, and sorrowful when faced with the reality that the new normal will only faintly resemble all we left behind in mid-March. The uncertainty of what will constitute daily routines as we gradually go back to work, church, sports, and school is heightened, rather than diminished, by increasing information about the procedures and policies likely to be implemented to maximize public safety while slowing the economic hemorrhage. I may have an image in my head, now, of what school might look like in the fall, of the process the rinks we skate and play hockey in might employ, but those details only add to my sense of being on the edge of a precipice, of waiting to see the impact this will have on our lives, on my children, on the way they define themselves and how they move through the world. The next year is going to look nothing like I’d imagined it a short two months ago. And the unease I feel at knowing everything has changed without yet seeing the impact, of waiting for the outcome, only grows. 

Fourteen years ago this week, I was also waiting. It was another period of disruption, when life did not go as expected. Anthony was supposed to be a June baby. A bundle of energy from the very beginning, I remember laughing as he launched himself from one side of my womb to the other performing back and forth somersaults, while also wishing he would sleep for more than a few hours at a time. It was like living with an internal circus that only stopped briefly between performances. Our life together has been a high energy ride from the very beginning, except for the few weeks before his birth in early May 2006, when we took an unexpected detour.

I hadn't been feeling well, but it's hard to know what it means to feel well when you're nearly eight months pregnant, working full-time as an Army physician, and have a two-year-old at home. For all I knew, the increasing waves of fatigue and shortness of breath I was experiencing were just a reflection of being overworked and tired. Almost passing out while driving, however, is a clear sign that something’s wrong. It seemed like a normal morning navigating rush hour traffic on the way to daycare before work until my vision went completely dark, so suddenly that I put my head down on the steering wheel and slammed the car to a stop. Fortunately for all three of us, my chattering two-year old, my cartwheel turning not-yet-born son, and myself, traffic was at its usual crawl and stopping abruptly in the road barely caused a blip in the flow. (Driving on my brakes in bumper to bumper traffic paid off for once!) The Home Depot parking lot entrance was just ahead, and I was able to pull in, park, and call for help. Everything changed in that moment.

Whatever plans I had for the birth of my second son, now lost to time and layers of other memories, took a detour. The trajectory of the next six weeks shifted. I'd naively assumed giving birth to Anthony would resemble my experience two years earlier with Alexander. Nowhere in my imaginings were high-risk obstetrics appointments, invasive testing, and a short stint of bedrest at home, followed by hospitalization to stabilize my condition, while waiting for the little acrobat's lungs time to mature. My condition continued to deteriorate until merely lifting my head from the hospital bed pillow made me almost lose consciousness. My somersault-turning little guy, snug in his home, kept frolicking — until one day he wasn't. Heart rate monitors didn't show a change and kick counts were still within the range of normal. But he was quieter, less exuberant. And in the way understanding can arrive on the intake of a breath, or across the space of a heartbeat, I knew we were running out of time.

It's easy to reflect calmly on the fear and uncertainty of an emergency induction followed by mid-wife facilitated delivery eighteen hours later, just minutes shy of the deadline for shifting to a cesarean section, when the child at the center of the story is laughing loudly upstairs using FaceTime to stay connected with his friends while we perfect the art of complying with stay-at-home orders. Walking also helps, and I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. While placing one foot in front of the other on what has become a routine circuit for miles around our neighborhood, and planning ways to make my son's fourteenth birthday festive, I've reflected on the week I spent waiting for Anthony when I had to adjust to more than the expected level of uncertainty associated with childbirth. 

We’ve all had moments that unwittingly prepared us to meet the current challenge in our lives. Just as we experience the pandemic in different ways, in the context of our own unique circumstances and stressors, times in the past when we had to maneuver around an unexpected obstacle provide tools for navigating life in these difficult times. As idyllic as many of our lives appear on the pages of social media feeds, or in the narratives we construct to explain ourselves to the world, disruption is an inherent part of being human. The old Yiddish proverb comes to mind: "Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht" (Man Plans, and God Laughs). Not that I personally believe God is laughing at us, or in any way taking delight when our plans going awry, but the saying reflects a tendency we have to plan as if all variables are known, only to find ourselves dismayed when those plans are altered by forces beyond our control. In the background of all of our lives are periods of disruption. An unexpected illness and subsequent months, or years, of treatment. A child's setback in school. The end of a marriage. The loss of a job. The death of someone dear to us. Facing our own mortality when we've spent most of our lives believing we’re immortal. In so many ways, large and small, the trajectories of our lives are repeatedly altered. Each time, our task becomes finding a path to move through the unexpected and re-ordering our lives from planning for a future that is no longer viable to accepting a new way of living with ourselves and in the world.

I wish I could go back to that week fourteen years ago and tell myself that even though things weren’t going to go as planned, I would find myself here, fourteen years later, grateful that the steady infant heart beat would continue sounding on the monitor across the long hours of the night, that it would echo through the room like a mantra until it no longer needed to be heard, that my tiny acrobat's skin was soon to be pressed against my own, and that I would watch him grow from a bundle of tightly-held toddler energy — with a tendency to shriek at highly inconvenient times — into a lanky teenager with a wide smile and an even larger heart. I would whisper to myself, in the hush of shared confidences, that his will to live would in unexpected and grace-filled ways reinforce my own. I can’t go back in time, but I’m the future self she became, and I carry her with me. 

The experience fourteen years ago waiting for Anthony taught me important lessons about faith and persistence. Faith that I can and will find my way through challenges even when the scope of their impact is unknown. The happy ending for us was not fully realized until several years and detours later when the little acrobat re-emerged and began growing into a mountain-bike riding, skateboarding, fearless young man who will always be at least one step ahead of me — unless he’s purposefully dragging his feet on a forced walk around the neighborhood with our dogs. (Being thirteen on the cusp of fourteen and stuck at home with your brother and mother for two months and counting is no one’s idea of fun!)

Persistence, the other lesson, is the one I’m trying to draw from this week. Linked with faith, for me it’s the ability to continue moving forward, eyes on the horizon, believing that each step will lead out of the darkness and closer to the breaking dawn. That I will be able to let go of the disappointment and sadness I feel about life in the spring of 2020 and will propel myself forward into whatever the summer and fall brings. That even in my moments of doubt and insecurity there is a choice to make, an action to take, that will produce forward movement — even if progress is imperceptible in any given moment.  

And so, I’m waiting again. Waiting to see how this period of disruption will end, each day trying to build on the lessons of faith and persistence learned fourteen years ago.  I’m continuing to put one foot in front of the other to navigate this new reality, striving to make the best choices given the circumstances. I’m holding on to the belief that the future we move toward will contain moments of joy in the midst of challenge, with faith that my children will navigate this life-changing period and find their own lessons in waiting — seeds planted that may take years to bloom. But for now, I have reasons to step outside of musing and concern and wondering what the future will bring. There are teenagers upstairs waiting for a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies, dogs to snuggle, and a 14th birthday to plan!