Disappointment and Giving Back

I left the doctors office yesterday so disappointed, and defeated, and hormone charged.  It's a hard thing to explain really, disappointment. It's not like grief, it's not because something is over or final, it's that it isn't the way you hoped or planned. It's that it isn't the easiest way, but a harder road than you thought you would be taking.

Disappointment mixed with bad past experiences can be even worse. I cried on the way home as I remembered sitting next to an incubator with glass between me and my baby. I remembered all of those feelings that I felt when Timothy was taken from me as a baby, and how my arms literally ached to hold him. I remembered howA SONG came on while I was getting a snack in the gift shop one morning after visiting hours and I completely lost it. I stood there, my mind delirious from no sleep, completely worn out emotionally from what had just taken place with Timothy and the week before with Molly (she was diagnosed with a blood disease that they first thought was leukemia just 6 days before he was born), my belly was still swollen from giving birth to a baby who wasn't with me, people stared but I didn't care, for once in my life I didn't care if the whole wide world could see me cry and know just how I felt. All of my walls were down and I just stood there and sobbed. It was the kind of cry where all of that deep emotion, that nobody ever wants to see or feel, just flows out of your bones and hurts and heals as it comes out. After that cry I slept for the first time in days. I was completely exhausted on every level.

Yesterday, my doctor very gently broke it to me that we need to be very happy to make it to 36 weeks this time. He wanted me to understand that 36 weeks is a good realistic goal for this pregnancy, and NOT a fail. He told me that he thinks that I can make it to 36 weeks if all goes well, his prediction was that I would make it just to or inside of the 36 week mark. I was so disappointed, I was completely discouraged, and just plain sad that I couldn't make my body stop this insanity! I basically spent the rest of the day feeling depressed and like a big fat failure. I was attacked by all of these hard memories and sad times. Seriously, to this day if I hear that song my heart aches. That's when it hit me that I was wanting these things for my baby and me, and while they were very good things to want ( I mean who can fault a mama for wanting a healthy baby?) I was trying to achieve it by trusting in ME. I thought that by keeping this strict schedule of drinking, eating, going to the bathroom, and taking medicines that God would bless me with just what I wanted. But that's not how He works. He wants me to trust Him for my next step, not to try to earn a healthy baby with my feeble attempts at control. He wants me to hand all of this disappointment to Him and just rest. It's time to give this baby back to the One who can do a better job than me.

That's a hard one isn't it? As mothers we have to constantly re-give these children to Him. We let Him take over or a while (like at the beginning of the pregnancy) and then slowly, without even realizing it, we take back those little bits that we think we can handle. We walk around collecting all of those little jobs until we all of a sudden realize "Oh no! I've got more than I can handle, my arms are too full! Help!" So today, I gave my baby back, again. I'm still fighting, I'm still doing all that can, but with the knowledge that He is in control and not me. And that's a good feeling to have today. Whatever the next three weeks hold for me and my family, I can rest, and know that He is in charge. xo, Sam