Baa, Baa

Description

Down soulless hospital corridors, exhausted new parents Sarena (pragmatic, headstrong) and Mike (haplessly optimistic), are scrambling past patients and builders to get to a baby resuscitation training, in the hope they can go home with their newborn from NICU soon. Their initial team spirit is starting to crumble. Julie, an officiously chirpy instructor, shows them into an inappropriately large meeting room, as she stresses the significance of them completing the training. Shortly after Julie enthusiastically starts explaining baby CPR, the baby manikin that she's demonstrating on stops working. To fix it, she peels off its face and chest, exposing an unsightly spectacle of tubes inside. As Julie’s chirpiness melts into irritation, Sarena becomes determined to get the baby working. Mike tentatively joins in. The tone escalates to that of an emergency room: Sweat, tears, urgent commands and baby parts flying around. Eventually, their efforts hit a brick wall. The manikin they’ve cobbled together on the table between them, appears doomed. Julie leaves to fetch another manikin. As they sit waiting, Sarena and Mike slowly have an epiphany; that this baby is wonderfully made just as she is. Lovingly, they pick up the fragmented baby, composing an imperfect but complete family.

Biblical Connection

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! (...) You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” Psalms 139:13-16 NLT. It’s fair to say that everybody is a bit afraid of disability or having to care for someone they love… but some people find themselves having to quickly adapt to this strange ‘new normal’. Grief, bitterness and a deep sense of unfairness are all common emotions, “why me / why us?” is a question that chimes with a lot of people who've been through similar experiences. The prayer “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” is particularly meaningful for parents who are trying to get the best medical help they can for their children while having to accept that their children will always be “different”.