Reminders...

Mikayla-January 2006

Caitlin-May 2008

This reminder is just so heavy on my heart today....maybe Im just hormonal and emotional but these images haunt me as I fight to stay pregnant a few more weeks. Nothing in the world can prepare you to have a newborn in the NICU for any period of time. Something in your heart hurts deep watching your baby through a plexiglass box and being told when you are allowed to hold your baby, sometimes not for days after they are born because of all the tubes coming out of her tiny little face.

My heart cries to the Lord today...begs even....to just have one....just one baby to take home and know what it feels like to be the one who cares for your baby. I have endured 16 weeks of progesterone shots as incredibly painful as they are because I am so desperate for this reality. Oh to even know what it feels like to simply be able to nurse my baby...this is not my public pity party but a real desperation for a chance at normalcy. I want to bond with my son alone from the moment he is born instead of having him taken away from me the moment he enters the world. You grow and care for this tiny person for months and go through the pain and difficulty of labor only to have your baby whisked away and cared for by others who will dictate their life for weeks as you sit by helplessly. This is made even harder when you have to juggle kids at home. I cant be away from my baby but doing so pulls me away from my other children. Im sorry but its just not fair!

Now I am torn between trying to rest and trying to raise a family and my desperation for a term baby drives me to resentment for my current duties. I know it shouldnt and I know I need an attitude adjustment (which the Lord is currently working out in me) but I honestly just want to crawl into bed and stay there for the next 4 weeks only to emerge when I am ready to birth a healthy baby I can bring home. But thats not realistic, only by Gods grace and strength will I get through the chaos of the next few weeks.

So I PRAY

and I BEG

and I PLEAD

with Jesus...

please

let

me

have

this

ONE