Here we are now at 20 weeks. The dreaded week my body has never let me get past in pregnancy. I enter it today with trepidation but an effort to believe this time will be different. So far all is well. Our little girl is healthy and thriving and my body is doing all it should. But the past is not my friend this week and I struggle to shake off the memories. The fear creeps in despite my efforts and others as well to thwart it. This week is what it is to me, the dreaded week, and all I can really do is wait, and hope and pray. Each day. Perhaps even each hour. Lord take away my fear, give me peace and guide us safely through this week.
I think of my little girl growing inside of me and I can't help loving her and cherishing her already. What a blessing of hope and joy she has already been to us, our families, and our friends. I know her life is worth the risk, and I pray with everything in me that she continues to be to week 21 right on through to her delivery...and for years to come.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Risky Business
It's been a while since I've posted something. The pregnancy post procedure sort of seemed to fly by, but the closer we get to our dreaded 20 weeks it feels like we've slowed down to a steady crawl now. As of yesterday I reached 18 weeks and people keep asking me, "How do you feel?" I usually tell them physically I feel great, emotionally though I'm all over the place. Many days I'm fine; distracted and content to pray each day for my little one and wonder if this time we really are going to take a baby home from the hospital. Other days I feel a heavy burden of fear and angst that covers me like a dark cloud, and still other days are filled with worry and every sort of "what if" my mind can think of. I imagine a lot of these feeling are probably normal for any pregnant woman, but I have to assume they take on a different manifestation in my case and it's an effort sometimes to keep it from debilitating me.
Obviously I can't just say "never mind, we don't want to risk this anymore." What's done is done and I can't exactly un-pregnante myself, (well I guess theoretically I could but I wouldn't). So instead I have to face the fact we agreed in the beginning this was a risk worth taking. Brian's reminds me often that with big risks there is frequently big reward. In our case, being able see this pregnancy to term, deliver our baby alive and healthy, and then bringing it home would not only be a big reward, it would be monumental. For some reason though, in those darker worried filled days, this fact doesn't always make me feel better. Truth be told I haven't found a lot that does yet. It's not that I'm ungrateful for this opportunity; quite the opposite really. I thank God every day I wake up still pregnant and every night I ask him to give me another, but gratefulness doesn't change the reality of my situation. Being pregnant is a huge, scary risk for me, and that's just the way its going to be. I can't live in denial and pretend it isn't because I've lived this story before and I know it doesn't always have a happy ending. Instead all I can really do is live this pregnancy one day, one week at a time; (so cliche I know but frustratingly true in this case). Or you can think of it in terms of that old biblical stand by, that God gives us just enough light to see the step in front of us; which growing up I always found equally frustrating. Why not let us see more of the path in front of us, why not find a way to reassure us that if we just keep going it really will be fine in the end. Maybe because that doesn't require as much faith on our part, or perhaps we wouldn't seek and depend on God as much if we knew all would be well? Honestly I don't really know or totally understand.
What I do know is that God has His hands in this pregnancy, but what that may mean in the end I don't know. I can hope and pray that this baby stays safe inside me, and that eventually this little one will come home with us and make us a family. I can trust in the skill of the great doctors who are caring for me and our baby. I can also try to have faith that this really is the miracle I have been praying for since we were told I probably shouldn't get pregnant anymore.
Truth is there isn't going to be any guarantee for me that everything is going to turn out alright with this pregnancy. However, that's the case for anyone. In fact it's true in any circumstance really. Life's full of risks, big ones and little ones; if we're unwilling to take them are we really living at all? I think you have to be willing to take the risk, calculated or otherwise, if you want to reap the rewards. Sometime this means though that all you can do is keep taking the next step that's in front of you and hope and pray for the best. Which, is pretty much where that leaves me.
Obviously I can't just say "never mind, we don't want to risk this anymore." What's done is done and I can't exactly un-pregnante myself, (well I guess theoretically I could but I wouldn't). So instead I have to face the fact we agreed in the beginning this was a risk worth taking. Brian's reminds me often that with big risks there is frequently big reward. In our case, being able see this pregnancy to term, deliver our baby alive and healthy, and then bringing it home would not only be a big reward, it would be monumental. For some reason though, in those darker worried filled days, this fact doesn't always make me feel better. Truth be told I haven't found a lot that does yet. It's not that I'm ungrateful for this opportunity; quite the opposite really. I thank God every day I wake up still pregnant and every night I ask him to give me another, but gratefulness doesn't change the reality of my situation. Being pregnant is a huge, scary risk for me, and that's just the way its going to be. I can't live in denial and pretend it isn't because I've lived this story before and I know it doesn't always have a happy ending. Instead all I can really do is live this pregnancy one day, one week at a time; (so cliche I know but frustratingly true in this case). Or you can think of it in terms of that old biblical stand by, that God gives us just enough light to see the step in front of us; which growing up I always found equally frustrating. Why not let us see more of the path in front of us, why not find a way to reassure us that if we just keep going it really will be fine in the end. Maybe because that doesn't require as much faith on our part, or perhaps we wouldn't seek and depend on God as much if we knew all would be well? Honestly I don't really know or totally understand.
What I do know is that God has His hands in this pregnancy, but what that may mean in the end I don't know. I can hope and pray that this baby stays safe inside me, and that eventually this little one will come home with us and make us a family. I can trust in the skill of the great doctors who are caring for me and our baby. I can also try to have faith that this really is the miracle I have been praying for since we were told I probably shouldn't get pregnant anymore.
Truth is there isn't going to be any guarantee for me that everything is going to turn out alright with this pregnancy. However, that's the case for anyone. In fact it's true in any circumstance really. Life's full of risks, big ones and little ones; if we're unwilling to take them are we really living at all? I think you have to be willing to take the risk, calculated or otherwise, if you want to reap the rewards. Sometime this means though that all you can do is keep taking the next step that's in front of you and hope and pray for the best. Which, is pretty much where that leaves me.
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