The 15th-A Golden Birthday

The number 15 has been on my heart and in my head a lot lately. While running yesterday, I realized that two of the most important days in my life occurred on the 15th of the month. I married my amazing husband on July 15th and gave birth to sweet baby Hart on November 15th. You would think that for as many children as we have, we would have lots of double dates ;) but actually we don't. Each of our children has their own birth month and day-and I'm too lazy to figure out the statistical probability of that right now, but it feels unlikely. (Although my daughter and son-in-law began dating on the same day-that many years earlier-my husband and I started dating, but that just felt serendipitous.) Anyway, it never occurred to me until yesterday that two of the happiest days of my life fall on the 15th.

Knowing that Hart did not live a long life and that we knew that was going to be the situation, people are often surprised by how much I love to celebrate November 15th. I certainly get lots of concerned, "How are yous?" and "Are you okays?" each year. The thing is, what should have, tragically, been both his birth and death day, turned into a miraculous day that we could never have anticipated. We were told if he survived his birth, we would likely only have a few hours with him. We never imagined that we would be bringing Hart home, and we certainly could not have fathomed having, holding, loving him for almost a month. This was a gift far greater than I even dared to pray for, one, that even today, seems beyond my wildest dreams.

I have two vivid memories that set the foundation for this. The first is, about an hour after Hart was born, a nurse walked in to the delivery room and said, “Congratulations!” in authentic celebration of the moment. She was the first person to say that. To be fair, the delivery itself felt like a battle, and we were all still in shock that Hart was alive... living! The amazing delivery nurse had to keep stepping out of the room to cry (which I didn’t find out until much later), my incredible doctor was hyper-focused on my health and what the next steps were for Hart, and the rest of us were just dumbstruck! But I hold onto the memory of the sweet nurse who knew the perfect, right thing to say. My heart is steeped in this love.

The other memory is when it was time to take Hart home. I cried to my friend, Ceta, who also happened to be a neonatologist, that it wasn’t in the “plans” to take Hart home. I told her I didn’t know how I was going to do that or what to do when we got home. To say I was overwhelmed with the thought is a gross understatement. She said, “Erin, you’ve done this five times before. Do it just like that.” It was truly the exact, empowering thing I needed to hear. I was still terrified (and ill prepared-our infant car seat was in the attic and filthy. Fortunately, (and embarrassingly) my friend, Jenny climbed in my attic, cleaned it and brought it to the hospital). I am continually in awe of how blessed I am in my friends.

Because this November 15 would have been Hart's 15th birthday, his golden birthday, I've decided to honor him by doing 15 posts to celebrate the joyful heartache that is my love for Hart.