On Thursday, May 8th, we welcomed Nathaniel Joseph Fox Ryberg. Everything went well and he was beautiful and we settled in for the weekend to get to know this new little person. It was particularly special because Sunday was Mother’s Day and my birthday and it felt like the biggest gift to be snuggling a newborn. I read and ate yummy foods and napped. The older kids absolutely adore Nate. It’s a sacred delight to watch your children fall in love with the baby. Nate is calm and (mostly) peaceful, looking around all the time at the things and people around him.
And then….
Monday afternoon, seemingly out of nowhere, I got severe chills. Like, can’t-get-out-from-under-the-blanket-because-it-hurts cold. I felt absolutely awful, and my whole body ached. At first, I thought it could just be the symptom of needing some food, or hormone fluctuations typical during those first few postpartum weeks, but as time went on and I felt worse and worse, we decided I needed to contact my midwife (“we” really means my husband, because far too often I’m a “wait and see” kind of person, and he wisely told me I needed help).
My midwife suggested an in-home IV as an easy first step. So around 6:30 pm, a lovely woman named Beth came and gave me fluids, answered my children’s millions of questions, and explained to me what could be happening in my body. My temperature when she began the IV was 100.8, which she said was just on the cusp of being concerning, and my pulse was elevated. I was hopeful that the fluids would make me feel immensely better, but as time progressed, I started feeling very odd; conversations seemed to be happening underwater, and I felt distant and removed from my own body, which was not a good sign. Sure enough, when the IV was finished and she took my temperature again, it was 103.1.
So we went to the ER.
They did a ton of tests and started me on IV antibiotics. I was shivering and so cold I felt sick to my stomach, but I was only allowed a thin sheet because my fever was too high. Every move I made was excruciating. Thankfully, I wasn’t septic, which was what they were originally concerned about when we first arrived. After hours of waiting and testing, they didn’t have a conclusive answer, but decided to admit me for continued IV medication and observation. They put us in the postpartum unit, which was something else we were grateful for; Samuel wasn’t allowed to leave because I had Nathaniel with me and he wasn’t a patient, which meant he had no caretaker if I needed attention. In the postpartum unit, we had supplies for me and Nate and a bed-couch for Samuel.
We went in Monday evening around 9pm and ended up staying until Thursday at 5pm. Never did I expect to be there that long. Ultimately, it was discovered that I had a Strep A UTI (and maybe even other infected areas) and so I had IV antibiotics the whole time I was there. Gradually, my temperature and pulse normalized, but not before many, many pokes, some failed IV’s, sleepless nights, and a whole lot of discomfort.
But that’s not my story. It’s just the set-up.
Tuesday was a hard day…we hadn’t gotten into a room until 3am, we were relying on the good will and incredibly last minute help of some of my sisters for the kids back at home, we were facing a longer stay than we had anticipated, and I was sad. I was sad because I missed the kids and hadn’t said goodbye (they were in bed by the time we realized we had to leave). I was sad because I didn’t feel well. I was sad because this was not how I wanted my first week postpartum to go.
Around 1pm, there was a knock at my door. “Come in, ” I said, expecting a doctor with more questions or a nurse with more medicine. Instead, it was a sweet lady holding a basket filled with packages of cookies and crackers.
“Hello, dear,” she said kindly. “It’s teatime…would you like a snack? Some warm tea?”
Well, she was speaking my love language. I took a cookie and asked for chamomile tea, accepting the offered honey to go with it. She disappeared into the hall and a moment later, came back with a cup of steaming tea.
In a teacup.
I was expecting a paper or styrofoam cup, and honestly, it was still going to be delicious. But this? This made my eyes fill with tears. In a place that otherwise felt cold, hard, and a bit violating, this felt like Home. Coziness. Familiarity. A tie between me in a sterile hospital room and Lucy Pevensie in Narnia or Rat and Mole around a blazing fire in the winter.
It was beautiful.
And this, this is my story. The same one that I hope I speak until the very day I die. The story of beauty that is impertinent (a line from Wendell Berry). Audacious. Persistent. Beauty that invades even dark, hard, or challenging times. It doesn’t care how you feel; it certainly doesn’t care if you’re interested in seeing it. Indeed, I have very rigidly set my face against beauty, away from it, turning to the dismal and weary within me and feeding it so I could wallow in my circumstances.
Yet still, beauty pursues.
Let me be clear; beauty doesn’t erase pain. In this experience, there was still a lot that wasn’t fun and a lot that I hated. I still missed my family. I still longed to be home. I’m still sad that my first week with my new baby wasn’t just relaxing and private and restful.
But beauty does help carry me through these times and gifts hope to my heart. And the part that makes me the most excited is that it doesn’t have to come in huge, elaborate doses. Beauty can be gratuitous; I’ve experienced that, as well. But beauty can also be simple, like a warm serving of chamomile tea in a pretty cup. Sometimes, we just need to feel a bit humanized, a bit seen in our struggle…a hug, a smile, a note, a perfectly timed offering of food (which, let’s be honest, is anytime food is offered).
The point is, I was reminded…again…of how persistent good, true, beautiful things are in life. And when this thought is the at the forefront of my mind, it becomes even easier to recognize when these sweet evidences appear. Since coming back from the hospital, we’ve had little sleep (newborn, obviously) and kids throwing up (seriously, what timing) and my husband is preparing for a minor surgery this weekend. It’s been kind of a lot. But I feel like my life is marked these days, not by escaping the hard seasons, but by all the hundreds of tiny, wonderful moments that happen in between. Kind of like if you are playing The Floor is Lava, and each pillow staggered across the tile is a time when beauty invades, and you focus on making it to the next time it happens and then the next and the next until suddenly, you’re at the safety of the couch. Those pillows can look like meals dropped off by dear ones, or sitting on a swing watching bees for 15 minutes, or reading a book by a lamp, or sharing a post-nap snuggle with your two year old.
Ok, that’s probably not the greatest metaphor, but, like I said, I’m tired.
I’m going to go to bed now, although probably not to sleep much. And tonight, I’ll be super tired with an achy back, trying to change a poopy diaper in the semi-dark and wishing I could just fall asleep for a couple hours consecutively. But I’ll also get to listen to sweet little baby sounds as I nurse my newborn. I’ll get to kiss deliciously soft cheeks. I’ll feel my tiny son wriggle up comfortably under my chin, feeling safe and content because I’m his person and he knows I will care for him well.
And that is such a beautiful thing to get to experience.