How This Is Truly Enough

Things have mellowed over the night here at Munson Medical Center, in room 1103. It seems the Magnesium Sulfate has lessened the pre-term contractions Monica was experiencing. This is something to be thankful for, very much so. The Doctors have confessed that they can't stop a pre-term labour if it is going to come... but they can buy some much needed time: time that our unborn son needs to develop just that little bit more, especially where his lungs are concerned.

So we are sort of exhaling here, waiting to see what is going to happen. It is kind of calming for us after the tumult of the past two days. And it is also kind of eerie, maybe even a little anxiety-inducing. We would like to know what is going to happen (just as thousands of other people who are either staying in this hospital or are related intimately to someone who is).

We drift in a sea of uncertainty. The baby could come at any time. Monica has not yet dilated any further than she initially was (again, thanks to the Magnesium the Doctor's say), even though it is no guarantee that she won't in a moment's notice. After all, that is how this all began: just preparing a meal... then boom!... our world was transformed.

I have found it helpful to focus on the small things. The 'big picture'--because it is so uncertain and hazy--only seems to generate further feelings of anxiety and concern about things that I have no control over (that we have no control over). It has resulted in a very Zen-like approach to being here. Just washing Moncia's feet. Just putting lotion on her back. Just sitting here looking out the window at the snow-covered boughs of a Black Spruce. Just breathing this breath. Not another. Not another breath. Not the next one. Not tomorrow's breath. Just this breath. Just this moment's moment breathing us into Being now.

Oddly, that is enough.