Missing Spring. And other things that kind of sting.

After our fetal surgery, Poppy and I had the long responsibility of recovering.  Poppy’s spine, skin and back needed to heal. I had a large external incision that needed to heal, in addition to an internal uterine incision that had the job of healing while growing to accommodate a baby inside for (hopefully) 12 more weeks.  Because of that, I was put on strict bed rest.  Nothing physically strenuous and I could only be standing/sitting for 10 minutes out of every hour.  Ultrasounds had to be performed every week to check on mine and baby’s growth, so the only “outing” that I was able to go on was to my weekly dr’s appointment. There I had to be driven up to the door and then transported by wheel chair through the hospital.  The worst part is that I had to do all of this bed resting in Nashville; away from my family, friends and home.  Not the way I saw this pregnancy going, for sure.

(If you can't read it, my cup says "someone in Oklahoma loves me".  Thanks to my sister Molly.  I feel certain that she spoke on several others behalf.) 

Throughout the bed rest process, I battled with myself a little with two different schools of thought.  The first one realizes that what we’re going through- fetal surgery, bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, living 600 miles away from my family for 3 months, knowing that our baby will be born with unique challenges that will be life-long with a varying degree of severity- and the list goes on- is a super big deal.  This is not normal.  This is life changing big.  Some days I feel that there’s a certain room for grief, emotions that aren’t altogether happy, and overall like we’ve just been through and are still going through the storm of our lives.  Sometimes I get sad that I don’t get be with my husband throughout the last half of my pregnancy.  I feel sad that I don’t get to take maternity pictures in a field wearing a chevron dress.  I feel sad that when the stranger at the hospital asks my 4 year old what happens when mommies are pregnant he says “sometimes mommies need to have a lot of surgery when they’re having a baby.”  

But then another me chimes in and feels selfish for feeling sad or confused or disappointed.  I feel guilty because I know that there are people in the world that would give anything to have a baby- even if it means bed rest, or surgery or a “not normal” diagnosis.  There are people that have carried their babies 8 weeks, 3 months or even 9 months, only to not be able to take them home.  There are people that have to be away from their families for 3 months and even longer for reasons that do not end happily- cancer, deployment, another terrible diagnosis, etc.  I appreciate that I get to come home with a baby girl that will bring joy to our lives and complete our family.  I fully appreciate that for every negative I can think of about this process, there is a complete and far greater reason for gratitude. 

I also acknowledge and completely realize that when you hear “bed rest”, the average person thinks “oh yeah, that must be torture- sitting around all day, watching HGTV and Downton Abbey, with no responsibilities while someone waits on you hand and foot”.  Understood.  And I fully expect that someday in a few months I will be WISHING to be back on bed rest.  I will grant you that the first 48 hours feels pretty nice.  There are certainly far worse things in life than being ordered by your doctor to “build a fat layer” and “drink more milkshakes”(not lying, those were my real dr’s orders)   HOWEVER, I also have to point out that for all of the good parts of bed rest, there are a few negatives.  First of all, I am used to being an adult with free will.  Bed rest means you can’t drive.  You can’t cook what you want for dinner.  You can’t decide you want to take a walk on a beautiful day.  You can’t see a commercial for something and decide that you’ll go buy it.  You can’t realize that you’re in the music capitol of the US and go see a concert…or a movie…or the freezer section of a convenience store.  My birthday festivities included a trip to the grocery store where I actually planned days in advance and looked forward to sitting in the car while my mother in law shopped for groceries.  Being on bed rest means that you’re faced with having conversations in your head (and I’m not kidding) that go like this:

Responsible me:  I need my chapstick but it’s on my bedside table and is out of arms length from me.  I should probably call my mother in law in to come in and hand it to me. 

Super Dare Devil me:  Nope- I think I’m just going to reach and stretch and grab it myself.  How bad can one stretch be, right?

Responsible me:  But think of the shift in gravity and the stress it puts on my uterus!  Plus, I’m not just doing it once.  If I do this once or twice every day, all of that bending and stretching and gravity will add up and I’ll go into premature labor!

Super Dare Devil me:  Oh come on.  I’m just reaching for chapstick.   It’s not like you’re doing something COMPLETELY careless like walking to the mailbox!

Responsible me:  I know I’ve left my kids and husband and house and job and family back at home, but if I REALLY loved my baby, I’d not reach for my chapstick.  What kind of mother does that?

Or this little gem of a scenario; imagine waking up in the morning with a hankering for a Starbucks Frappuccino (as I wake up so many mornings hankering for).  You either have to:

A)     Not have it because you can’t, of your own accord, go get it

B)    Ask someone to take you.  But this someone has already waited on you hand and foot all day, is cooking your dinner, has plunged your toilet, picks up all of the ice that you drop on the floor but aren’t allowed to pick up.  And your’re going to ask for yet ANOTHER favor?! (keep in mind that “I’m sorry” and “I feel bad” are my two go-to reactions) OR

C)  Jedi mind trick someone into thinking that THEY want a frappuccino so that they’ll want to go get one and invite you along for the ride.  

Entirely too complicated. 
Fortunately for me, I have a mother in law and caretaker that is equal parts fun, frappuccino loving and organized, so for those reasons, I rarely felt deprived.

On a more serious note though, bed rest also means experiencing my children through Skype.  

I missed being there in person for so many things.  Their last night in the toddler beds that they’ve slept in since they were babies.  Sleeping in their new bunk beds and sharing a room for the first time.  I watched Harper’s first gymnastics class from a Google Hangouts call while sitting in my hospital bed- I saw the whole class, but she doesn’t know that.  When my kids came to visit me for a week, I had to tell them that I couldn’t pick them up or walk up the stairs to their room to sing them goodnight.  I would have never imagined a scenario in my life where I would be away from my kids for 3 months.  While I know that the ending is supposed to be happy, it still does not feel like something “good moms” do.  It feels like picking one baby to care for over the other two.

Bed rest also meant ultrasounds.  And waiting.  And what if’s.  Throughout my pregnancy, I had 27 ultrasounds.  Twenty-seven.  First of all, ouch!- especially when you have a 13 inch incision that is fresh.  I believe that I’ll forevermore have a fear of ultrasound jelly.  But more than that, the minutia of what they can see and tell you in those ultrasounds and what you have to worry about is exhausting.  I never cared about the size of my other kids’ ventricles- I’m not sure that I even paid any attention to where they were in their bodies; however with this baby, the slightest tenth of a millimeter increase makes me catch my breath.  Poppy’s right leg was “fixed” or never moved in utero.  They’d hold the Doppler over her legs to see them move for minutes at a time.  In those moments, all of my maternal energies were attempting to will Poppy to move her sweet little legs, but to no avail.

I’d leave the appointment with the weight of wondering if my baby will walk or if she will develop hydrocephalus or so many other things that you would never want to have to worry about for your baby.  I know the Baptist thing to do is to say something like “well, just let go and let God”, but what does that even mean?  We were in the process of making the hugest sacrifice we could possibly make for our baby and to feel like, on some days, it might not be paying off is heart wrenching. Perhaps one of the most difficult emotions of my pregnancy was feeling scared of the baby that we were waiting for.  

When I was first released from the hospital, there was a big snow storm.  Cheryl, Poppy and I were safe in our little Nashville cottage, hunkered down, just like the rest of Nashville.  It didn’t feel so bad, I suppose, because everyone else was in the same situation.  

But my angst and discontent with bed rest got more difficult once the weather got nice.  Beautiful spring days that are the kind of days you wait all year for, were days that I had to observe from a window.  That’s when the boredom set in.  (I recall a lot of selfies initiated by me via text message.  My poor friends).  

It was those days that I feel like I realized all that I was missing out on life.  There were people that got to get out of their houses and enjoy the spring.  I also realized that I was missing out on what my expectations had been.  When I got pregnant and even when we discussed having a third baby, I expected that I’d get to enjoy 9 full months of pregnancy bliss, be able to let my kids touch and kiss my belly every night, fall asleep next to a husband that would rub my back and tell me how “glowing” I was, set up a nursery, take pictures, and have a beautiful natural labor at full term with, what I expected to be, a completely healthy, normal baby. But none of those things were my reality.   

Perhaps it will always sting a little bit that I didn’t get what I expected.  But I don’t think the sting diminishes the gratitude that I have for what I did get.  I am reminded that we were told that the hope that we have in Christ "does not disappoint", so our waiting done in Him isn't in vain.  And I'm realizing that many times our hope in Christ doesn't disappoint in a way that we can see tangibly in the here and now, but sometimes it  "doesn't disappoint" in an altogether more eternal way that in a short term perspective does seem disappointing.

Did God “short change” me?
No.  

Do I have less special of a story to tell than if I’d had my ideal “husband coached child birth” experience, or a whole pregnancy at home or a photo shoot full of chevron maternity dresses?
No.  

I have a different story to tell, but not a lesser story.