A Mother's Musings (2)

Momentousness of two separate occasions captured in two phone calls
Recorded August 18, 2002

After several hours of mild to strong labor pains at home, I called the on-call service for the hospital midwives about 9:30 am. My message was: "I think I'm in labor, and I need to talk with the on-call midwife." As I spoke, a lump formed in my throat. Why? Understatement of the year! I'd been in mild to medium labor since 3:30 am! I was holding my own, using my personal brand of denial/minimization to cope with the challenge. I was waiting for "the real thing" and "afraid" of jumping the gun. Silly me. Upon arriving at the triage room, fully dilated to 10 cm around 1:00 pm, I learned that I had already done plenty of real labor! Simon joined us on the outside at 2:20.

8/18/02: Stem Cell transplant: Simon's Lease on the Future

About 9:55 am, I tried to get a message through to our minister Eva to convey to the church. It's a gorgeous day, and, although we face a big challenge in the weeks ahead and really need our church community, we're not mobilizing ourselves out to church. We're having a busy, free-form day at home. Thinking about which digital camera to buy, and all the other preparations we need to make for the big deal of transplant.

I asked to speak to Eva and identified myself as mom to Simon, the 5-year-old in cancer treatment. The person on the other end of the phone dashed off to find the minister.

After a pause, she came back saying she couldn't find Eva. I told her that we're all fine. Her panic meter seemed to go down several notches. I explained that we weren't coming in person but wanted to get the message to the church community that we very much appreciate their support as we head into 3-4 weeks of tough times.

The lump came into my throat. My eyes teared up. The momentousness was clear: I am preparing to put my child through a harrowing ordeal in the hope of saving his life. Certainly a momentousness not unlike the time of his birth.