Just Have Faith

It is amazing how I can work myself up into a panic over a doctor's appointment.  Even though I know it is coming, and I know that it makes me slightly anxious and I try to prepare myself mentally and emotionally I just can't prepare enough it seems.  Yesterday was no exception.  We had our second trimester ultrasound, and Felix and the boys came along.  The boys were excited to see the baby for the first time, Felix who worries probably more then I do (which is hard to believe, but true) wasn't so excited and yet went along.  I was terrified.  What if this... and what if that.... went through my brain.  Secretly I have been very very worried because with Ethan I didn't feel good or even slight movement from him until I was well into the 20 weeks.  This precious one has been keeping me on pins and needles as well.  I felt the first butterfly movement at almost sixteen weeks and weak ones every now and then ever sense, but I was growing anxious because why weren't they getting stronger and therefore I worried.  Then in the ultrasound yesterday we found out that the placenta is on the front (which I have never had before) and therefore the baby has to kick really hard at this point for me to feel it - because it has a cushion to go through.  As I laid there absorbing this information, the doctor ticking off each organ and body part (though not the boy or girl ones :))  that we are concerned about, I dwelt on the amazing hand of God and the wonder of faith.  I have been anxiously waiting for the movements and kicks and stressing over it and all the while there is a perfectly fine reason why I haven't been feeling them stronger.  I heard the phrase, "Just have faith"  ringing over and over in my head and had to smile and shake my head at my God who never ceases to bring wonder into my life.  There is so much that is unseen in our lives, things that we may never even know God put into work and yet we feel and experience the after shocks not understanding the fullness of it all.  Only God knows.  There is so much that has come into our lives as a result of Ethan's brief life with us - things that we see occasionally and I am sure many things that we will never know - there has been a lot of difficulty, hurt, and pain, but there has also been in equal measure and sometimes more so, grace, mercy, love, and growing in wonder....faith.

Cautiously Optimistic

When we were pregnant with Ethan I had a feeling, but didn't know that something was horribly wrong. This time I know that something is more than likely not okay, and yet I have to trust that the outcome will be much different. For three weeks now I have been spending 6 hours on Fridays in Sanford with an IV in my arm receiving IVIG, and I have 17 more to go. Each time the treatment starts flowing into my vein I breath a heart prayer hoping it reaches God's ear, a prayer that this will do what it is supposed to and keep this little one safe from my antibodies. I find myself begging God for this little one's health, and then I stop myself and think maybe I shouldn't beg. I have begged for the health of my children before and that hasn't turned out very well. So instead I try to find peace, and trust in the faith that I cling to. I wish that God would lean down and tell me that all will be well, but I haven't heard that audible voice and don't anticipate that I will. I don't know where we will be come February, will we be at home cuddling our little one and breathing in that new baby smell - sending peace to my soul, or will we be standing beside another open cold grave? These thoughts swirl through my mind daily, and I struggle to remain calm in this storm. Not only do I feel my own fears, but I have to also daily address the fears of my sons as they are cautiously optimistic about what is going on and what can be a very real outcome. We don't spend a lot of time planning for the coming of this precious child within, we spend more time planning how to breath through each day, and silently praying that there will be good days to come.

Breath Held

I have not written a lot lately because I have been at a loss.  My heart has cried out so many words, but I could not find a way to make them translate through my fingers onto the screen.  I looked back on my past few blogs remembering how they were so close to the one year anniversary of Ethan's entrance into and exit from our arms and all the raw pain that raised again, and how in that moment I felt without but desperately clung to hope.  I remember that next weekend sitting out on the back porch with my husband reminiscing on a beautiful summer night and raising those questions, fears, and dreams that we seem to be only able to say to each other anymore.  All those crazy things that we quietly fear would make others eyebrows raise...  I asked my wonderful husband "What if God doesn't want us to have more children, what if this is our family story?"  He looked at me in his quiet confidence and said, "I have no fears about that, we are going to have more."  I felt hope and disbelief run through my soul at the same time and do a crazy dance there.  I thought on what my husband had said for several days; asking myself if I had that kind of quiet insistent faith.  I felt ashamed to say that I didn't - I still had doubts as to what God could and would do in our lives.  And that plagued me...I desperately wanted to lean into my Savior and believe but I was struggling.  Little did I know then, as I struggled with my faith, my God was doing what I had come to believe was impossible for us and had lost real hope of.  It is now a fact that on the day of that conversation, God had already begun the work of a possibility of a miracle in our lives.  As I write this I am 18 weeks pregnant, and holding my breath.  Believing that God is doing a miracle in our lives, and I am blessed to be a part of it.  Even as I endure the stress, the sleepless nights, the tears, fear, and hours of infusions I have to trust in my Savior because even as I hold my breath, He has breathed new life in me.