Indescribable Beauty, Immeasurable Worth

The crew of the helicopter was now inside preparing to bring Tabitha aboard. They had equipment for transport purposes that made the things in the NICU, items that had only six days ago filled me with fear, look like playthings. They loaded her tiny body carefully into a traveling Isolette built onto a pediatric stretcher complete with every monitoring system she would need. Tabitha was then hooked up to a portable oscillator for the trip, but her blood gas numbers were not correcting as expected. One of the nurse practitioners called the neonatologist at the transferring hospital many times in an effort to fine tune her settings and get her breathing stabilized to the point that she could make it through the flight safely. After what seemed like hours of work, the team was finally ready to take Tabitha away and get her to a place where she would have the chance to get the help she needed to survive.

I wasn’t yet able to walk the distance necessary to see my baby off, so Genevieve pushed me in a wheelchair down to the helipad. I sat there with a blanket around my shoulders and over my hospital gown—the same silly, tan, no-slip socks on my feet from delivery the day before, the wintry February air twisting and whirling around me. It took only a few minutes for the crew to settle in thanks to all the preparations they had done inside to be ready for departure. The doors were closed, and the engine started with a deafening roar. The two long blades on the rotor at the top of the helicopter started spinning faster and faster, adding to the wind swirling around me. Tabitha was about to take to the skies and fly away to safety. My daughter was no longer in my sights, let alone in my care.

There I was, stuck in a wheelchair on the sidewalk in the back of a hospital, helpless and cold, feeling alone despite the company around me. Once again unsure if we had made the right decision, I was worried about what would unfold in the hours to come. A tear started to stream down my ruddy cheek as I watched the helicopter rise slowly toward the cloudy, gray sky, the dust and debris it kicked up from the road hitting my face. Every little gritty speck of sand, pebble, or stick was turned into a projectile by that rotor with enough force to sting the skin on contact. I closed my eyes. I had no choice but to admit, with humility, that I was completely powerless. I had to surrender, not just my ideas of what I could control, but my actual baby, to the God who had all the power to hold her in His mighty hands. There was nothing—not one single thing—I could control in this moment. I had to remind myself that I was not alone now, and wouldn’t ever be, because the same God who was holding up that helicopter as it flew out of my view was covering me with His feathers and hiding my heart under His wings.