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7/10/12

Yesterday on my way home from work I learned my 90-something grandmother was in the hospital.  The details were lacking but we knew it involved a 911 call, an ambulance ride and a lot of scary unknowns.

Earlier, around lunch time, I randomly made the decision that I wanted to tell her Clif and I were expecting.  We hadn't decided yet if we wanted to go ahead and share the news with her or wait until we were out of the first trimester woods, just in case something happened.  I had a sudden stroke of "you never know what tomorrow will bring" and realized if we waited and ended up missing our opportunity to tell her she had another great grand baby on the way I'd never be able to forgive myself.  This revelation made extra significant and chilling upon hearing the news that she was suddenly not doing well at all.

My sister was the chosen contact person, the one who would be called with updates from the hospital who would in turn spread it to the rest of the clan.  I told her if at all possible I wanted Grandma to know our news, even if it meant having Mom tell her if we couldn't talk to her directly.  A few minutes later Mom called from our Associate Pastor's cell phone, teary but strong, to say Grandma wasn't completely responsive but could hear and asked if I wanted to tell her the news.  They put me on speaker phone and held it close to Grandma so I could tell her that Clif and I loved her and we wanted her to know we were going to have a baby.  She couldn't speak back but Mom and Trish told me she had heard me and was crying, we all were.

This morning the news from the hospital is slightly better than yesterday but still uncertain and scary.  Things might both be better and at least as bad as we'd feared but Grandma has improved significantly.  She was perkier, eating and communicating by last evening, all significant improvements to hours before.  I haven't had the chance to call her hospital room yet to hopefully carry on a conversation with her, and we don't know what direction things will go over the next several days, but I'm so thankful I got the chance to share our joy with her.