Baby – Marilyn R. Gardner

Baby Showers and Belonging

Published on April 8, 2024April 8, 2024 by Marilyn4 Comments

My younger daughter is having a baby! We have known for months, but as is usual in this space, I don’t often share specifics about my children. As people who were initially formed in my womb, I don’t go a day without thinking and praying for my adult children multiple times, but I created an unwritten rule for myself a while ago that I would not share my children’s stories. Some of them involve me, some don’t, but either way, there is a sweet, humbling, and critical connection with adult children that must not be severed by any writing ego.

But today’s thoughts are bigger than Stefanie or me, or the beautiful new life that is every day changing inside her.

Yesterday I had the honor of hosting her baby shower. The walls of our small city house expanded to fit two distinct generations of women – my generation and Stefanie’s generation. It was a brilliant, beautiful mix of wisdom and exuberance, of sweet naivete and humorous reality, of skin free of wrinkles and age spots and skin that is marked by time, of bodies that have set into older maturity even as we try to cajole them into something less squishy and young bodies that bounce back from childbirth like Winnie the Pooh’s Tigger.

Because we know her baby is a girl, every one of us opted to go against the trend of genderless beings by reveling in ruffles and pink, bows and the sweetest little socks and shoes imaginable. Why are little girls’ clothes so much cuter than little boys, I ask you?

The food was a an equally beautiful mixture of savory and sweet with chicken salad, hummus, cheeses and dips sharing space with thick, chewy brownies made by Stef’s husband Will’s Aunt Carol, and the most beautiful lemon, raspberry layer cake with the inscription “April showers for a May Flower.”

Beyond the surface was a reality for Stef and Will: they are deeply loved. They have people who surround them with love and appreciation for who they are and what they will bring to this little baby’s life. Over and over, friends and family spoke of the combination of exuberance, kindness, love of life and love of sports that they will bring to their little girl. I loved reconnecting with, as well as meeting for the first time some of Stef’s girlfriends as they surrounded her with beauty and love, as well as a good deal of laughter for her sense of drama and her husband’s calm. They are in the delightful stages of early marriage, pregnancy and forming families of their own. There was an unspoken sense of belonging and security that I could see in my girl, belonging and security that she will be tasked with bringing to the baby that is coming.

Like so many of us third culture kid mamas, I often feel guilt and sadness for the way I have moved my children from the proverbial “pillar to post.” They have picked up and moved multiple times, leaving behind the tangible in dolls, books, dollhouses, Playmobil, friends, schools and more, as well as the intangible gifts of belonging and security that we get when we love a place and people within that place. We moved Stefanie to this area in the middle of her sophomore year of high school. She exchanged the sun of Arizona for the worst winter the Northeast had seen in five years. Thinking back, I feel a bit ambiguous about that decision. But then I think about yesterday and the circle of love that surrounded this couple. Had we not moved, yesterday’s event would not have taken place. I felt the goodness of God in the land of the living, the goodness of God in giving Stef, Will, and their baby a place to come home to and place to share with others.

The cynical may push away the idea of things like baby showers, opting instead for Amazon deliveries to bring the essentials to our doors, but these events are perhaps more important than we realize. In life we need markers and milestones, times of stepping back to welcome a new stage or event, times of being surrounded with belonging and realizing what we have. In a fractured world, it becomes even more important to know that there are places where we belong. Perhaps baby showers are one place that can be, not about gifts or cake, savory and sweet, but about publicly announcing that a new stage of life is coming and that a baby is entering a world where she belongs.

Mercy Triumphs Over Justice

Published on April 4, 2013 by Marilyn9 Comments

call the midwife 2 In Season One, Episode 2 of Call the Midwife, we have an overwhelming picture of love and mercy.

The beginning of the show has us at a clinic watching women come in for their regular maternity check ups. A couple walks in, he – older, she – clearly uncomfortable. The midwives check her and give her a perfect bill of health, but they are uneasy and intuitively know something is not right.

Throughout the show we are taken to the home of the couple, privy to the conversations between midwife and patient. But still we don’t find out much – just that she is surprised she is pregnant and worried about something.

Toward the end of the show the woman is in labor. And it is while in labor that we find out why she is worried. She is worried that the baby will be black – the husband we have met is white. And we are suddenly part of her story, part of the drama unfolding onscreen. What is going to happen? The birth is imminent – what will the outcome be?

The midwife with complete authority reminds the woman that there is a baby coming whether she likes it or not: “I don’t care if it’s green, red, or orange. Your child’s heart rate is dropping, and I need you to start pushing. Now.”

In all the pain and work that is childbirth, the baby is birthed….and the baby is black. It’s obvious that the husband, so excited by this pregnancy, so zealous for the welfare of his wife, so ready to welcome his son into the world, is not the father.

And we don’t know what is going to happen. Will he rage and accuse? Will he leave or throw her out? Will he demean and demand?

At this point there are two midwives, a doctor, the mom, and the perfectly formed, healthy newborn in the bedroom together. The husband is outside, taking a much-needed cigarette. The doctor heads outside and stands silently with him, revealing nothing, just waiting alongside. And finally the midwife comes to tell the husband he can come see her, come see the baby.

And so the dad rushes in.

All is silent as he looks at his son. None of us can breathe as he takes in the obvious. All of life hangs on this moment.

The man takes the baby in his arms. “I don’t reckon to know much about babies” pause “But I can see how this is the most beautiful baby in the world.”

And so we breathe. For a moment we were the pregnant woman – would he accept or reject? Would we see mercy, or would we see justice? In that instant mercy and love triumphed. Sacrificial love, love that bears a cost, takes a stand; love that would forgive and move forward.

And we respond the only way we know how, with tears, relief, and a small sigh of gratitude escaping our lips.

On Earthquakes and Babies

Published on March 13, 2013March 13, 2013 by Marilyn25 Comments

“My friend is having a ‘Reveal’ party” said my daughter.

“A what?”

“A reveal party – gender reveal – where you invite people over and you have cake and you ‘reveal’ the sex of your baby”.

I laughed. “Oh” Pause “Well – we had five of those!”

Five reveal parties. One took place in Illinois,one in Pakistan, one in Florida and two in Egypt. Five reveal parties on three continents! That has to be some kind of record. The difference was this – there weren’t a lot of people invited to our ‘parties’. Just my husband, a doctor or midwife, a nurse, a friend or mom, and me. And we didn’t call them “Reveal Parties” – we called them deliveries.

But oh how we rejoiced when we heard those words “It’s a Girl!” and a lusty cry from a newborn infant. Or “It’s a Boy!” and in our situations, even lustier cries.

Call me old. Call me unable to keep up with the times. I don’t really care. I think reveal parties are ridiculous. I think they’re over the top, I think they’re not at all about the baby, and I think they’re about Big Business. Big Baby Business.

If you want to know the sex of your baby before birth – that’s great. Have at it. I won’t judge. But if you want to do little cake thingies and party favors and Big Reveals – I think it’s crazy.

Because there’s a natural reveal party waiting right around the corner. It comes after hard work and tears and real labor – but no reveal party is like the natural reveal.

No amount of work, fun, cake, and punch can ever top the Great Reveal –

The Great Reveal – when you’re holding a six pound plus infant in your arms, your throat is catching as you say ‘hi baby!’ and you see the man in your life, who never cries, with tears coming down his cheeks looking down at your tiny daughter or son in complete awe.

As a wise friend once told us, there are only two real surprises left in life – And those are Earthquakes and Babies.

The Quest for a Bigger, Better, Cuter Pregnancy (christianitytoday.com)

Seven Point Four Pounds of Perfect

Published on August 26, 2012August 24, 2012 by Marilyn9 Comments

She’s perfect. All seven point four pounds of her.

Her soft baby skin swaddled up in a light baby blanket; her perfect face peeking out, a head of dark hair covering her soft spot. Her eyes, though closed, scrunch up as though she is trying to make sense of this world she has come into. Her tiny mouth purses then her lips curl up as if in a smile. Medical experts claim they don’t really smile at this age – and mothers nod, knowing the experts are a bit text-book and theory crazy.

She’s less than 24 hours old and has ten fingers, ten toes and a perfect suck reflex. She’s as perfect as the pink rosebuds on the coffee table just beginning to open, gifts from a family friend.

As I hold her I know that I am holding a miracle. A miracle; “God’s opinion the world should go on”.*

Outside the world is raging. During the hours since her birth Syria is ravaged by internal conflict, a bomb goes off in Afghanistan, people argue ‘personhood’, and humans that at one time were new-born infants bash each other with guns, swords and words.

But inside a new-born baby is held, perfectly formed and known by a God who still believes that this world is worthy of being redeemed. She is entrusted to, and loved by, an imperfect family and friends; people who will hold her and teach her, love her and cry with her.

And as I hold her I am in awe – in awe of baby soft skin and seven point four pounds of lovely, in awe of the strength and fragility of life, in awe of my friend who gave birth within five minutes of arriving at the hospital. Mostly in awe that somehow God believes that we in our human frailty, born as helpless babes are worth redeeming.

She’s perfect, seven point four pounds of perfect.

*Carl Sandburg