The Mountain is the Valley

Abstract

The Mountain is the Valley Shaina Rose Ciaccio The phone shrills, interrupting my morning fog as I sip my coffee. The chaplain resident answers it quickly, her face growing serious as she listens. I scroll through my patient list for the day, taking notes on how many I can see today, not for medical care, but for various spiritual and existential crises. Checking into a hospital is anxiety-inducing, and so we provide what other medical providers can't do when they are crunched for time: our presence and a hand to hold, although that's changed a bit since the pandemic struck six months ago. After hanging up the phone, my co-worker says slowly, "It's a stillbirth. And the mom is asymptomatic Covid positive." She looks at me meaningfully. "Do you want to be the one to go?" I look at her, understanding, yet not understanding. I know why she's asking me. But I don't understand if I'm allowed in to see her. The policy is strict: essential medical personnel only for Covid positive rooms, and we chaplains don't rank high enough. We make phone calls instead. Sometimes exceptions can be made. Based on the nature of these circumstances, a case could be presented for an in-person chaplain presence. Stillbirth is unlike any other tragedy because it's supposed to be a time of great joy and expectation when you check into the hospital to deliver your child. There really are few things more sorrowful in life than the sudden and unexpected death of your baby. I would know. I came to this hospital specifically to do this work; to be with people in moments of hopelessness, because I understood what it was like to lose everything. The best chaplains around are that way because they too know what it's like to have traveled to hell. I had always wanted to be the chaplain to respond to a patient and child stillbirth. Actually, I was desperate for it. I left my job at the state with its cushy benefits and security to pursue the call to care for others, and I wanted to be the one who sat with someone who lost a child too. My loss would mean something. It had to. Approval was granted, and with precautionary measures in place, I began my ascent to the room. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I fingered the small bottle of oil that I brought to anoint the little boy who had already departed this world. I navigated the hallways easily, as I knew the way since I had also given birth to my subsequent living children on the same floor. Once upstairs, I met with the nurse who began to fit me with protective gear. I stopped for a moment, surprised, because . . . I remembered her. It was past midnight, and my newborn son began to wail in his hospital crib next to me. It had been a year since my first son passed tragically, and the pediatric nephrologist had come in earlier with concerning news about fluid buildup in one of his kidneys. After he left, I picked up my son gently, and suddenly, began to sob uncontrollably. My body shook violently as I clutched my son to my chest. The nurse came in, alarmed at the scene before her. Between heaving breaths, I told her about my first son, and the nephrologist's news. Sobbing, I wrenched out, "I can't go through this again. Do you understand? I can't lose one more. If I do, I want them to bury me too. I cannot live through this again!" Between soothing words, she eased onto the bed, her arms wrapped around me and my baby, holding us tightly. A tiny island of grief, anchored in that moment by one touch. [End Page 189] In amazement, I watched as those same arms tied my protective gown behind my back, looking at me with kind and knowing eyes. As she tightened the knot, she murmured that except for the doctor and nurse, all other care this patient had received had been via telephone and she had no visitors due to...