I Hope You Dance
The question was not whether or not Taylor Hicks would win “American Idol”.
The question was how was I going to keep from screaming and crying when he won?
Since I happened to be at work and planned to take my break at 2130 so I could watch the results.
Simple.
I heard the results two hours early from a co-worker who had just talked to a friend on the east coast.
I then, very professionally, did my Steve Martin “Happy Feet” dance for the next two hours.
And then screamed and cried in the back room when he won, composed myself and finished my shift.
What? You’d think I’d scream in front of my co-workers?
Okay, they heard me.
How was I supposed to know the back room wasn’t soundproof?
********************
I’d like to relay a story told to me by a colleague. It made me cry when I heard it and I thought it was both poignant and inspiring. And because credit must be given, interspersed in the story will be the lyrics to “I Hope You Dance”, written by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers, as sung by Lee Ann Womack.
This was her last pregnancy.
She made sure of that.
Too many “mistakes” that had been terminated. A rough life on the streets. No money, no job, no friends or family. Young. Alone. Tiny and street smart, she showed up in a metropolitan emergency room for sutures when she was eight months pregnant. Sliced her foot on a piece of glass. Other than listening for fetal heart tones, her pregnancy was a side issue; small talk about where she would deliver and when.
The next time the nurse saw her it was in the middle of the night and she recognized her suture patient immediately.
Only she was no longer pregnant. In fact, she had released the baby for adoption.
She stood at the desk sobbing.
(“I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance”.)
The nurse, having been through it herself, recognized post-partum depression before the patient finished her second sentence.
But there was more to it than that.
There was a hole in that patient’s heart as painful as the heaviness in her breasts that were still producing nourishment for the baby she no longer had.
(“Living might mean taking chances
But they’re worth taking”)
You see, like all women, she had an idea of what her birthing experience would be like. Never one to mince words, she thought she had made it clear to her doctor that she wanted some time with her newborn before relinquishing her baby to the new adoptive parents.
(“Lovin’ might be a mistake
But it’s worth making”)
But complications ensued. The bonding time she expected was a hazy memory of post-anesthesia semi-amnesia and the heavy fog of pain medicine. She remembered seeing the baby and maybe even holding it, but she wasn’t sure. The next thing she knew, her baby was gone.
And she was kept on the floor with the other new mothers, even being roomed with a woman who had happy visitor after happy visitor cooing over the baby in the next bed.
That night in the ER she was grieving. The sobs wracked her entire body. The nurse, on an impulse, reached out to hug her and held onto her for a long while.
She was young, but she was one smart cookie. She had tried to obtain help for days before coming into the ER but hit a wall every time she tried.
For you see, while there are hundreds of support groups for adoptive parents, this particular metropolitan area had absolutely nothing for those mothers (and fathers) who had chosen to relinquish their babies. The nurse said it was hard to even find post-partum depression support groups in general, let alone for birth moms.
Oh, but there are many groups for adoptive mothers with post-partum depression.
I had no idea that even existed.
The nurse said she spent over an hour searching the internet.
Must have been a slow night.
(“Don’t let some hell bent heart
leave you bitter”)
The nurse waylaid the doctor before he got to the room and explained that not only was this patient in post-partum depression, but was also experiencing a deep, deep loss that the patient described as having a part of herself “ripped out”.
She didn’t expect the emotional fall-out. She didn’t expect the feelings of loss, of grief.
Oh, she knew she had made the right decision and had no intention of reversing it. The baby was in a far better place than the patient could ever have provided. In her innermost core she knew she had made the right decision, but the cascade of disappointment in the birthing process combined with the cascade of hormonal changes post-partum made it hard to feel it.
(“When you come close to selling out
Reconsider”)
The nurse wanted to make sure the doctor understood what the patient was feeling. Not everyone understands, or even believes in post-partum depression. She wanted to make sure the doctor would be supportive and not write the patient off.
He was and he didn’t.
The patient spent a few hours in the ER and was given a prescription for medication to help her sleep, as it had been days. She went to the pharmacy.
In a horrible twist of fate, the state screwed up and stopped the mandated post-partum coverage sooner than required. At 0400, the pharmacy called the ER and said that the patient was not covered and could not tell us of any medication that was.
The nurse told me that “enough was enough”. The patient had been through too much to have to deal with this. The woman didn’t even have two sticks to rub together, let alone the money for the medication she needed so badly.
A Visa number was given to the pharmacist. The patient received her medicine.
(“Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance”)
The nurse thought that was that. She had vacation coming and was gone for a couple of weeks.
When she came back, there was a letter in her mailbox.
In that envelope was a letter of thanks, two five-dollar bills……
…….and a photo of the most beautiful baby girl taken just after birth.
(“And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance”)
The letter wasn’t signed.
Something tells me that that gorgeous baby won’t only dance, she’ll be a Prima Ballerina.
And I hope that someday, somewhere, somehow a beautiful little girl will understand that her mother loved her enough to let her go.
