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January 7, 2005
This has been a day of one of the famous Whatcom County "northeasters" with blowing snow up to 60 miles per hour causing snow drifts over the roads and making general navigation a challenge due to intermittent "white outs". We get at least one good "blow" per year, but the most infamous one was in 1996 when the drifts topped 10 feet between the house and our barn, requiring that we tunnel through to get to the horses over the course of about 5 days. Thankfully nothing quite so extreme seems in store this time, but with Mother Nature, one is never sure.
The other notorious northeaster that I recall vividly happened 12 years ago this week as I was a one week overdue, way too old pregnant lady, staring out at roads that were drifting in higher by the hour, and I'm wondering whether I'm going to be delivering my own baby at home since it is looking more and more dismal that the roads will be passable. Recognizing some very minor early hints of labor, I called my obstetrician in town 10 miles away, and begged that I be allowed to come in "preventively" to the hospital, so I wouldn't have to sweat it out wondering if I will make it or not in time, or deliver in the middle of a snowdrift along the way.
So Dan and I set out in the dark, with chains on our little Toyota, and hoped we could skim through the drifts. We crept down the road trying to feel our way in the white out conditions. A mile from home we high centered in a three foot drift with snow banks up to 6 feet on either side and sat there, completely helpless. Dan starting digging around the tires, but it was fruitless. So he hiked down a long driveway to a neighbor and asked if they had a tractor to pull us out. Better than a tractor, they had a bulldozer! Out they came and dozed away the snow around us so we were free to move ahead to the main roads and get to the hospital. Once there, I was checked and all was well, no imminent signs of labor so we tucked in for the night, anticipating induction in the morning to get labor started in earnest and finally have this long awaited baby.
In the morning, as they checked my baby's heartbeat, something was amiss even before induction was initiated. I had no change in how I was feeling and no serious contractions, but the baby's heartrate was lower than the previous night with some ominous dips that herald stress and potential problems. They shifted me around, gave me oxygen but nothing seemed to help. It was not a good sign and as a family doctor who had done many deliveries myself, I knew it all too well and began to panic. A quick ultrasound showed a marked decrease in amniotic fluid, another sign of a failing placenta and/or a baby with significant defects, so things started to look even more urgent. Within minutes, our decision was made for us--the heartrate dropped to a perilous 20-30 and stayed there. I got much calmer when I knew I had to accept whatever was to happen, as there was no changing the outcome, whatever it would be. It is not a natural thing for me to relinquish control but in such a circumstance, I was merely the vessel and I had to believe I had the strength to cope with whatever lay before me. An emergency C section was done and 15 minutes later, Eleanor Sarah Gibson was born, looking pink and vigorous when what we expected was a blue, floppy and critically stressed infant. Lea, as we nicknamed her, had given us an early warning that she was one sensitive kid to things not being right, in this case with her blood supply (my placenta was officially declared "senile"--not a nice term to hear when you are 38) and 12 years later, she still has a very sensitive emotional barometer when things aren't quite "right" but I can appreciate it for what it is.
The storm saved her. Clear and simple. This nasty nuisance of a drifting white out conditions northeaster compelled me to go into the hospital when I ordinarily would have waited it out at home as long as possible, certainly causing her to be compromised as I went through labor unmonitored. I marvel at this now, pondering these things in my heart. My daughter knows this story and understands that she is a healthy 12 year old because of a windstorm on that frosty night. She even knows the exact spot on our road where the "Lea drift" was and the neighbor who helped bail her worried parents out of trouble. When the wind blows and the snow drifts, we will always remember and celebrate her life when others are grumbling about the hassle, the cold, the inconvenience, and yes, even the danger. She positively beams on days like this, knowing she was touched by the grace of a God that was watching over her that night. It wasn't deserved, or earned, but simply happened. Too much to fathom and too much to comprehend.
Where is a similar touch of grace and salvation in the events of the past 12 days after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean? The astounding loss of life of good and innocent people, so many of them children, the unimaginable grieving and fear of the survivors stripped of everything, the overwhelming burden being borne by relief workers. It is too much to fathom, too much to comprehend. We all ask for an explanation, a reason why this could happen, how the devastation leaves so many lives altered forever. Such a disaster is neither deserved nor earned but happens inexplicably and strikes us as vulnerable mortal humans who are here on this earth so briefly, and at such peril. We must relinquish our false sense of control that we believe we have and deserve, as it is really not so. We are here by grace and we are taken home through grace. At times ripped away by the waves, cruelly and suddenly, and other times, just as cruelly stuck in a drift of terminal illness, pain and suffering, waiting for the inevitable that never seems to come. Yet it comes for us all--we cannot escape it, only accept and prepare.
Emily