Share in the joy, compassion and amazing moments
My second baby was born on a brisk, cool April morning in 2009. I'd traded in my laptop computer in exchange for a new diaper bag just five days earlier in preparation for the start of my maternity leave. As I lingered in bed, I heard the familiar sound of four-year-old footsteps scuffling toward my bedroom, bringing me quickly out of my otherwise relaxed state.
"Can we go to the zoo today, Mommy?" asked my daughter Emma excitedly. The sun was beaming through the slats in the blinds and the day seemed ripe with possibility, but that morning the zoo would have to wait. The all too familiar gush of water breaking down my leg as I hobbled out of bed landed me right into the maternity ward of Mercy Folsom just a few hours later. It was time to have a baby!
At 37 weeks along in my pregnancy, the Mercy Hospital staff welcomed my husband, Emma and me, greeting us with warmth and efficiency. Having given birth to my first child in a government hospital in Madrid, Spain, the birthing experience for our second child in the United States proved to be a VERY different experience!
I felt collected and cool as I filled out paperwork and dressed in my hospital gown. The colors of the private birthing suite were soothing and I noticed the cross and portrait of the Blessed Virgin and Child hanging on the wall. "This is the moment," I thought to myself.
Emma playfully tugged at the curtains and doodled on a hospital napkin. My husband was nervously trying to dial out of town family members on the cell phone. Who would care for our daughter in the coming hours so he could be present for the birth? Even though I spent many hours laboring without my husband that afternoon, I never felt alone. The Mercy staff was extremely kind and accommodating. At one point I remember a nurse asked what she could do to make me more comfortable. I said, "Walking around would be great!" So she quickly got my IV on wheels, draped a smock over my backside and with a knowing smile allowed me to move around the hallways as long as I needed.
The staff was amazing! As the laboring became more intense, I had a mini-melt down. Evening was approaching and my husband had still not returned. It was then that I recalled similar feelings of loneliness when I labored in the Madrid hospital, so many miles away from my homeland and family. I began to feel preoccupied and anxious. And there, in the Mercy birthing suite, during my moment of greatest despair, a gentle and soft-spoken woman arrived in the doorway and introduced herself as a spiritual advisor. She sweetly asked if there was anything she could do to help me before clocking out for the day. She had an angelic face and a quiet calm washed over the room immediately as I invited her in.
As pregnancy hormones, emotions and labor pains mounted I began to cry and this beautiful stranger whom I had met just minutes before simply held my hands firmly and lovingly prayed with me. I felt an overwhelming sense of renewed strength and it was then that I knew God had sent this messenger at my greatest time of need. The Mercy staff demonstrated such incredible compassion and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before! I will forever be grateful to all the staff: doctors, nurses and spiritual counselors, too!
Miraculously, my husband was able to be present for the birth of our second daughter that night. Kind-hearted neighbors watched Emma for a few hours so that together my husband and I could bring our Easter flower, Lilliana Claire, into the world.
The delivery and care for me and my baby at Mercy Folsom was outstanding. I felt as though we were in extremely capable hands and we received the best patient attention from the moment we arrived at the hospital until the time we latched our newborn into her car seat to go home. Mercy angels were watching over us all and we feel so fortunate and blessed to have had such an incredible birthing experience! A year later, we finally made that family trip to the zoo!
~ Julie
