Great Expectations

I had just gone public with a Big Announcement a few weeks prior, and was coming to terms with the ramifications. I was feeling very blessed after going through a trial of intense struggle and disappointment, yet was still in a sort of self-protective denial, like being the winning last leg to a relay race, still gripping the baton in a white knuckled clench even though the race had ended-- as if letting go would mean I had never won at all. But the euphoria was creeping in, the shock getting replaced by the excitement, and I was having lunch with my mom.

Lunch started out in an emotionally very good place. I had finally come to trust in my joy, having done all the right things, and feeling relaxed in the belief of my good fortune. But as I watched my mom sip her coffee smelling her familiar scent, a combination of Jergens lotion and expensive perfume, I was seized with a new terror and sense of vulnerability that somehow always seems to happen around my mother, she can coax out hidden fears and truths from the most solid situations out of me, simply from being in her presence.

I had lost my appetite. Fiddling around with the food on my plate, my blessing had turned into a predicament weighing like a thousand stones. I looked across at my mom and simply said, “I guess there’s only one way I’m going to get out of this, huh?” She laughed in a gentle way, blue eyes filled with understanding, “Yes darling, there is.”

I was going to have a baby.

I don’t think I’m unique from lots of women having babies, particularly for the first time. I read What to Expect While You’re Expecting, read numerous blogs and articles about the topic, and of course talked to a lot of women. And still. I simply was not sure what to expect. I had somehow forged a destination of which my own body was the vehicle, but someone left out the steering wheel. This perceived lack of control and looming unknowing-ness terrified me.

One of the few things that gave me a sense of stability was knowing where I was going to give birth and feeling good about my decision. We had toured the ward and met the nurses, made an extra long stop to peer at rows of healthy babies wrapped up like burritos in hospital issued blankets. This aspect of my baby-future was fixed, where my mind came to rest and find comfort when I felt overwhelmed, the thought of it becoming like a worn rosary.

As a Board Director for the Mercy Unity Hospitals Foundation, I recently had a hard hat tour at The Mother Baby Center at Mercy with Children’s. If you live in Coon Rapids and drive past Mercy Hospital often, you’ve seen its own gestation of metal beams and grey cement, the crown of sapphire windows neatly arranged on top of its newborn head. Inside it smells heavily of new car, fine bits of dust here and there, their rooms and hallways empty and quiet.

But you can imagine it bustling with staff, of the nervous women and men who will arrive through the doors, and depart as moms and dads and bigger families. The Mother Baby Center is a partnership with Allina Health and Children’s Hospitals and clinics of Minnesota. The special care nursery will be staffed by Children’s, with private rooms and in-room accommodations for families. All labor rooms can accommodate water births and will offer nurse midwifery services in the future. Amenities of bistros and lounges, valet parking and generous sized bathtubs gave impressions of a luxury hotel rather than the sterile hospital environment of yesteryear.

The advances and breadth of options of birthing services over the last decade are impressive. The Mother Baby Center at Mercy with Children’s is a top notch facility that is sure to attract top notch providers as well as mothers who demand the best for themselves and their babies.

There will always be universal worries about having a baby for the first time. It’s a remarkable season, filled with anticipation and angst. What I hope will bring every soon-to-be-mother in the north metro area, at least some ease, is knowing they will have a beautiful choice at The Mother Baby Center-- a place where they can be sure to expect great things.

The new Mother Baby Center at Mercy, opens Monday, July 27, 2015 at 7:30 a.m. It will provide all mothers and families in the north Twin Cities metro area – including Fridley, Coon Rapids, Anoka, Buffalo, Maple Grove and neighboring communities – access to a network of world-class, family-centered birthing options closer to home.

The Mercy Unity Hospitals Foundation has committed $2 million dollars to the overall cost of the Mother Baby Center at Mercy. For more information about how you can get involved with making a donation for the Center, call the Mercy Unity Hospitals Foundation at 763-236-3966