calling Baylor

Backtracking a couple weeks, it was May 27th that I worked up enough courage to call Baylor.  I had been wanting to contact Baylor for some time about offering hope boxes to their parents that would unfortunately be able to bring their baby(ies) home from the hospital.  I was told while we were still in the hospital while I was in labor with Jaxon that there were two other families in the hospital at the same time as we were that were saying goodbye to their babies.

Wow.  Just wow.  This happens way too much, and we were exposed to just how much it happens very early on.  I had no idea that so many families have gone through this.  It really sucks to know about it.  But knowing about it means you can do something about it, and that's what I was craving so early on.

I never really understood this until after Jaxon.  God lays things on our hearts.  I have heard a lot of people say things like, "God was telling me that I needed to do this," or, "God showed me the direction I needed to take when this happened."  But, I always had kinda thought that those people were just really, really good.  God speaks to those that are really, really in tune with Him, and I just had this false assumption that it takes a ton of time out of the day to do that, and I didn't want to spend half the day sitting in a chair reading my bible.  I thought it sounded really, really boring.

But God works in the lives of people like me even.  People that don't take much time to read His word, He finds ways to speak to us.  People that don't take much time to pray, He finds ways to stir our hearts.  That sweet, yet bold Holy Spirit living in me has been working hard on something since Novemver 13, 2013, and I didn't even realize it.  I had stopped going to church for a while even.  But I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach.  My mind wouldn't stop thinking about what we were going to do to honor our son and make his short life with us matter.  Why was he here, God??? 

And this nagging in the back of my mind to call Baylor would not go away.  

I had so many mixed emotions about this project.  I wanted really badly for Baylor to have these boxes.  Mine had helped me so much, and it opened the door to a community that has helped me work through some major questions and grief.  I wanted everyone to have the same opportunity.

But it came with the possibility of having to go back to the hospital.
The possibility of having to go to the same L&D department where I last saw my baby boy.
It came with the possibility that I would share Jaxon's story and cry like a baby with complete strangers.
I wanted to see our nurse, Sherry, however I wasn't ready to be back in that hospital so soon.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it and so I called.  I remember going on Baylor's website and seeing a section for pastoral care.  Perfect, I thought.  I dialed, without thinking another second.  The secretary for the chaplain's office had picked up the phone, and I didn't quite know what to say.  The number I called was for patients to call and schedule an appointment for a visit with the chaplain.  And that's not why I was calling, so I said, "Hi, my name is Michelle Garza, I was a patient last november and I'm not really calling to schedule an appointment, I'm calling to share a resource."  And then the waterworks began.  As I began to cry and breathe and talk through my tears, I said, "You see, my son Jaxon was stillborn last year, and I delivered him in November.  I got a Hope Box in the mail a few weeks later…"  I told her about how great the hospital staff was to us, but that nothing really ministered to me like my Hope Box did.  I said that the organization Hope Mommies puts these boxes together for hospitals to carry, and I'd like to share the boxes with Baylor, if they'd be willing to offer them.  The secretary sounded very sweet and comforting over the phone.  She assured me that I would be getting a phone call from the chaplain of the Women and Children's services dept.

And that was it!  Wow.  It all happened so fast, one minute I couldn't stop thinking about calling Baylor and the next minute, I was hanging up the phone.   The build up of anxiety inside me was gone, and I could breathe again.  Did that really just happen?  This is so not me.  

God I know this is you.  And I thank you for making good out of the bad.