Ministry. Intensity. One hell of a night
Something happened to me Wednesday night/Thursday morning; the kind of experience that both leaves me shaken and wondering what the hell I’m doing, yet also reminds me why I am so glad I went into ministry.

This is a pretty intense story. It’s about pregnancy termination and fetal anomalies and people dealing with intense emotional pain, and turning to religion, among other things, for a bit of comfort amidst all that. If any of that might be a trigger, or upsetting, or just sounds nothing like what you want to be reading right about now, please feel free to skip the rest of this post. For those who are interested- keep reading.

I should start with a disclaimer or three. First- its been a long time since I’ve written in these pages- somewhere back I just stopped knowing quite what I wanted to say or use this blog for, and every time I’d sit down to write it would feel forced. But this- it feels almost the opposite. A story I’m dying to tell, that I need to tell- but also on some level feels like it’s not mine to tell. I experienced so much that night- but mostly I was there to be present at someone else’s experience.

Part of me feels like it is not my story to tell. But maybe it is, as a witness. Or maybe just because people who are close to me know I went through ‘something’ and I’ve spent all day trying to find the words, and if I can just write it all out here I can share it with everyone.

And a simple disclaimer about time. This all happened Wednesday night into Thursday morning. I’m posting this now on Friday morning, but I wrote most of this post Thursday evening, so it talks about last night, and earlier today. I’ve left that in even though its only going up now Friday morning.

So here’s my story. My version of a larger story. With some details left fuzzy to protect those whose story it truly is.

Around 7pm last night, I got a phone call. It was from a friend and colleague of mine who volunteers at a local hospital. She was working with a woman who had recently discovered that the pregnancy she had been so excited about had developed severe anomalies in the 4th month. Anomalies that would surely kill the fetus before it could be born, and seriously endanger the life of the mother if the pregnancy continued. She and her boyfriend had done a lot of soul searching over the last two week and had decided to follow the doctor’s strong advice to terminate the pregnancy. Now she had come in for the procedure and was preparing for it, but going through a great deal of anguish. The particular procedure she required involved inducing labor and delivering the fetus after it had been terminated- a particularly difficult procedure, both physically and emotionally.

Most of this though, I only learned later. At 7pm, the call I got was, “Matthew I’m with a woman who is about to start a termination procedure and wants to pray- can you pray with her?” This had happened a few times before, and while a few years ago I’d have said the idea of praying by phone was crazy, I’ve seen that in an imperfect situation where real connection in the moment isn’t possible and someone so dearly needs to know that what they are doing will not take them from the loving embrace of God- praying by phone sometimes can do some real good. We talked for a few minutes, enough for me to learn enough about where she was and what she needed so I could offer at least a modicum of comfort, and then we prayed together. Mostly I just created a safe spiritual space in which she could say what she needed to say to God, and hear re-assurance that she was loved and blessed and God was with her, and holding her through this. We recited the Lord’s Prayer, and talked for a few minutes more and then she had to go.

We hung up and I said my own prayer- mostly for her, but also a bit for me. Hope that I’d been able to help her, thanks that I could be present in that moment. And then- I went on with my night. Those moments haven’t happened often, maybe a dozen times or so now over the three years I’ve been doing this work. Sometimes we are able to schedule a more through conversation over the phone, or we can meet in person. But about a dozen times now I’ve gotten that call, from someone who just needs someone to pray with right now, someone who will understand. And every time I get one of those prayer calls- it’s always a bit strange. I’m going about whatever I am, and all of a sudden I’m completely focused on someone I’ve never met, being emotionally and spiritually present with them in the midst of a major moment in their lives. Then we hang up… and they’re gone. And suddenly I’m back doing whatever suddenly very mundane seeming task the phone call interrupted, reminding myself I may well never hear from that person again, never know if my words helped or what happened to them, but instead I need to get back to my day.

This time though, about 10 minutes later, my friend called again. She told me how grateful the woman had been, how much it had helped her to pray together, but she had a further request. She was very worried, in her words, about the baby*. She wanted to know if I could come down when the procedure was complete and the baby had been delivered and perform a baptism. My friend couldn’t tell me when this might happen, though it would likely be sometime in the next 12 hours or so. All she knew was that they wanted me to be on call, so that when they were ready I could come down.

*I should interject a quick note on terminology. The procedure involved inducing labor and the delivery of the fetus after its termination, to prevent it becoming septic while still inside the woman after termination. The question then becomes how to refer to what was delivered. Some call it a fetus. Come call it fetal tissue. In this case, as I’ll get to, the woman referred to it as her baby, and that is the terminology I will use as well, to honor her experience. Now back to our regularly scheduled story, already in progress.

It was 7:30 or so by now. I had dinner plans with a good friend I hadn’t seen in a while. I had a long list of things on my plate for work the next day, and I badly wanted a good night’s sleep. But, whether you wanna call it a mark of good character, or just bad boundary setting, I agreed. My friend couldn’t give me many details, but said she would call me when they were like 30 minutes way from needing me. Since my friend lived an hour north or so, I regretfully cancelled dinner and started getting prepared.

I didn’t want to go to sleep, as if her call woke me up I feared the time it took toget dressed and ready would be far too long before I could get out the door, and there would be only a short window of time between the delivery and when the baby had to be taken. . So I got together what I thought I would need; got dressed in my slacks and clerical collar shirt, found a stole I could wear. It occurred to me that I’d never done an infant baptism of any kind, let alone under such extreme circumstances. I’d taught about the importance of offering that service to those going through fetal loss, and all of a sudden it became so important to me to find exactly the right ritual. I spent more then an hour looking through books and collections of liturgies for reproductive loss and poking around online till I caught myself, and had to laugh. I was looking because I was nervous.

I spent the next few hours just waiting. Talked with friends online, some of whom knew why I was antsy and needed company, others were just good enough to keep talking late into the night. Around midnight I kicked myself for cancelling my dinner plans, since I could have gone and been back. By 3am I was starting to think I should have just gone to sleep cause at this rate I was going to be utterly wrecked by the next day. Finally, around 3:30 my friend called and said they were getting close to beginning labor, and I should expect a call in the next hour or so.

I got the sudden though that I should be close by, that if I was going to wait anywhere I might as well do so by the hospital, so I got in my car and made the drive. I called my friend again when I got there but she could not answer as she was with the patient. It was at that moment I realized I had no idea where in this huge hospital they were, nor did I know the patient’s last name, and I had my doubts about getting into a hospital waiting room in the middle of the night with such little information. All of my discussions with my friend had been hurried and I still had only the smallest sense of what was going on. So, in what seemed both the most logical choice, and the perfect summary of the rather ridiculous nature of my whole evening to that point, I sat in my car parked outside the hospital, alternating between dowsing off for a few minutes and reading my book.

Finally, around 6 am, my friend called. She only had a moment, the patient was about to go into labor, but I should come up as soon as possible, and she told me where to go. It took a good ten minutes or so to find my way to the right room, by which time I was glad I had already driven down because when I arrived she had already finished labor.

I walked in- and there was such a pallor of sadness over the whole room. The first thing I saw was the mother (not using her name intentionally, and again, terminology- in her mind she was very much a mother in this situation, so that is the term I’ll use). She was in a hospital gown, hooked up to various monitors and machines and just looking… dazed. That look of someone who was experienced something terrible and it hasn’t fully sunk in yet. Next to her was a man who I later learned was her boyfriend, and the father of the baby, so obviously trying to push any of his own feelings down as far as he could so he could be there for her. My friend and another volunteer were also there, and you could just tell everyone was spent after the more then 12 hours since they had begun to induce labor. An event that normally has so much work but with a bundle of joy awaiting at the end, and this time, it ended in nothing but sadness.

My friend introduced me to the mother and father, and I came in and held her hand, and for a long moment just stood there, being present with her. We started to talk, and she was asking me if her baby was ok, if her baby was in heaven, if her baby loved her? Heartbreaking questions, but one’s I’d heard before. Here at least I was on comfortable ground and for little while I talked with her, with both of them, reassuring her that her child was with God, and that God loved them both and understood why such a decision had to be made.

From the moment we started talking there were tears on her face and as she cried she wailed so many different concerns- fear that she had killed her baby, that something else could have been done, that some how this had been her fault. After a little while, I was just holding her hand while she cried, and telling her again and again that this was not her fault, that she made the right decision, that God understood why she had done this, her daughter was with God and would also understand, that she had not killed her baby- things that sound like such empty platitudes, but which I have to believe meant something to her. Addressed her concerns, re-assured her- let her know that God was with her. After a while of crying she seemed to come to a place of peace. We held hands, myself her and the father ( who I knew I had not been paying much attention to and who I was concerned about, but I felt she needed to be my first concern) and together we prayed. After the prayer, she dozed off- she was clearly both physically and mentally exhausted, and the rest of us began to wait.

We were waiting for them to bring out the baby so she could hold it and say goodbye and I could baptize it. A baby who by now I had learned they had agreed to name Maria, so Maria she shall be for the rest of this story. It took a while- there was a lot to do and they obviously go to great efforts to make the result as less traumatic as possible. Finally they came in wheeling a little basinet, with a blanket over the top. They pulled the blanket back, and for the first time we could see Maria. The nurse picked her up- really picked up the cloth she was resting on, and so very very delicately handed her to her mother. Who held her, and again began to cry.

Maria was- I don’t think I will ever forget that sight, or that I can find words for what she looked like. She was so very, very small- her whole body was maybe the length of my hand. Her skin—I don’t even know if I can call it skin. She was a fierce red- the color of muscle tissue when the skin has been peeled away. I found myself wondering if at that stage of development the epidermis hadn’t even formed yet, and it was just muscle we were seeing. Her limbs looked like they were made of jello, so delicate and fragile. And her head- it was badly misshapen, and the flesh on it was shriveled, so it looked almost like a prune left too long in the sun. My understanding is that this was in part due to the fatal fetal anomaly, and part due to her stage of development- the doctor explained but I was paying more attention to the mother then the medical details. All I know is it a site I will never, ever forget.

For a long time she held Maria, rocking her slowly but so very gently, and talking to her. Telling her she loved her, saying she was sorry. For most of this I was trying to be a presence, let her know I was there and supportive, but I honestly doubt she knew any of us were in the room. She kept focusing on Maria’s feet, these tiny little bits of flesh at the end of her legs, with toes just barely perceptible and beginning to form, and saying that Maria would have had her feet, would have had feet just like her mother.

I had put on my stole and filled a little bowl with water when they brought in Maria, preparing to do the baptism, but now it was clear that her mother just needed this time to hold her, to talk to her. Finally, when she seemed to have run out of words, she looked up at me and nodded and I knew she was ready to begin.

I took up the little bowl of water and held it out for both of them, the mother and the father to put their hands on so we could bless it together. This was the first of a number of times where I may well have deviated greatly from what a baptism ritual was “supposed to be.” Instead, in that moment all I was remembering was one of the greatest things I learned in seminary- that the value of rituals is in what they do, and what they both needed was a ritual that they could experience together, that would speak to their concern that their child was loved and safe and in a better place.

I read through the words, some from the book, some from my head. Spoke some myself, had the two of them repeat others. When I got to the baptism itself… I tipped my finger in the water and touched Maria’s forehead- and it was like touching tissue paper, so incredibly delicate. The whole ceremony lasted only a few minutes, though it felt far longer, and when it ended- I didn’t yet know why, but I knew we weren’t quite done. I finished praying and the mother went back to rocking and talking to Maria. She kept talking about how she would have loved Maria so much, been such a wonderful mother- and more then anything, more then the talking, she was just holding her. The father, who I could tell had been doing such a valiant job to bury any of his own feelings and simply be a loving supporting presence for her, started to let his frustration show, and suggested to her that it was time to put Maria down. But she wasn’t ready, suggesting that he if didn’t want to be there, he didn’t have to be. I saw the anguish on his face and in some ways I think that moment was the most painful. Understanding how much she needed this moment, and that she saw him as trying to take that away from her, but also knowing that all he really wanted was to help her let go and instead had her believing he simply didn’t care. Knowing that in that moment I couldn’t possibly know all the dynamics present in their relationship, and how this was effecting them, just that they were both in pan.

We stayed like that for a while- he came in and took her hand and I think she started to understand he was there for her. It occurred to me that while the baptism was important perhaps there was more that was needed, and when I suggested that could do a memorial service for Maria, I could see on both their faces this was what they had been needing. Again the stole went on and again the book was a guide, though a very loose one. We said a few prayers, reminded each other of God’s reassurances for those who mourn, spoke of Jesus’ particular love for children and that any child who passed would be held in God’s bosom. I gave them each time to say their goodbye to her- both so they could say it themselves and so they could hear it said by the other. Finally I made a blessing over Maria, re-committing her into the arms of the divine, and then holding hands and saying the Lord’s Prayer together. We stayed that way, just holding hands, for a long moment, and then when I asked the mother if she was ready to put Maria down, she nodded her head yes, and we got the nurse to help return her to the bassinet.

By now it was almost 8am. When I entered the room it had been dark out, and now the sun was shining through in beautiful day light, in what seemed a cruel mockery of what we’d been through. She had a few more things to do with the doctors, and they wanted to keep her under observation for a few more hours, and I thought I would stay a bit longer and then make my exit, so I could get at least a few hours sleep and go back to work in the afternoon. But I still had one more surprise in store. When she dozed off, the father started to step outside, and I put my hand on his shoulder, asking him how he had been doing. I felt he had been largely in the background for most of this, and while I sensed he was feeling his own complex, powerful emotions, my impression was that he was mostly just trying to be a rock for her.

So I was surprised when I could see the tears starting to form in his own eyes, and he asked me to come down stairs with him while he got a smoke. My friend and the other volunteer were both there, and would be there for the mother if she woke up, so I went. We got down stairs and he started to pour out his feelings- telling me that while he did not connect with the body of what had been the pregnancy as his girlfriend did, his heart was breaking over the loss of the child he had been so excited to be a parent too. He spoke of how powerless he felt from the moment they first learned about the anomalies and the need for the termination, of his going to numerous other doctors to get secondary opinions. He spoke with pain in his voice about how alone he felt because he knew his own church and his family would not accept what he had done, and neither would hers- that in both cases they would see it as an abortion and thus simply wrong, without any consideration of the anguish they both felt as they realized they simply had no other medical option to avoid losing both lives. He talked and I listened and I said a few things, but mostly I was just there as a presence for him, letting him know he was not alone.

Finally, around 9am I gave them my information so they could contact me to meet again and pray or talk or do a further service, made my good byes and headed out. By 9:30 I was back home and I sent a few emails cancelling morning meetings. I crawled into bed and set the alarm for 11:30, hoping that with 2 hours nap I could get through the day and be in bed by 9 or 10. And yet, I’m sitting at this computer at 1am, and I’m wide awake, trying to tell what I saw.

I feel like all of this should build to some great revelation, some amazing conclusion this story teaches me, that now I want to share with you all. But it doesn’t, not really. I was in that room, feeling like I was experiencing something that was changing my life, changing the world- and I went back out into the rest of the hospital, and it was a normal day. In some ways that makes sense, after all what I’d seen with Maria wasn’t actually that out of the ordinary. As I told the mother many times, situations like this are tragic, but they do happen. But maybe that’s the point of this whole story. That it’s so easy to look at numbers, and talk about aggregates, and how many pregnancies end in still birth or miscarriage or have to be terminated due to fetal anomalies that not only doom the potential child but pose a serious risk to the life or health of the mother. But once I stepped into that hospital room, for me it wasn’t a number. It wasn’t one more. It just was what it was.

I drove home absolutely exhausted. Physically, but much more emotionally and spiritually. As I drove I kept thinking, this is what ministry means to me. This is what it means to, in what I say so often it is fast becoming my own personal cliché, try and balance the prophetic and the pastoral. Because later this month I’m sure I’ll be making a point based on those aggregate numbers, talking about all the things we need to do to make sure everyone has the right and the ability to make the difficult choice those two people did, not to mention all the other related things I fight for that are just as central to reproductive justice. But last night- there was nothing political about any of it. It was just people, going through one of the most difficult moments of their lives, and my trying to find a way to be a pastoral presence, to bring a bit of healing.

I hope I did. I know I did- though I know I did that no where near as much as all the other people who helped them get through that night, from the skilled doctors to the nurses who showed such sympathy and care every time they came into the room, to whoever did such a marvelous job taking the fetal tissue expelled by premature labor at the 4, almost 5 month point, and turning it into a baby they could say good bye to, to those two amazing volunteers who stayed with her not just for the few hours I did, but for more then 14 hours making sure that she was not alone.

I’m glad I got to be one piece of the puzzle, helping them through that night. I’m glad I do the work I do, and I feel so blessed I have this opportunity. Last night was a good night- and one of the most troubling I’ve ever had.

I just needed to tell someone.