An Emotional Day ~ A Changing Me

It seems I have more and more emotional days as the birth of this baby draws near.

I knew that I was going to talk to my OB today about my fears and thoughts surrounding this baby’s birth, so I was already “in that place” emotionally. I fought and gave into tears off and on all day long. And of course, I cried as I talked with my OB. Through teary-eyes, she told me when I give birth, “We’ll all cry…it will be okay.”

I still have so many questions and thoughts. I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around them. Will my body kick in and do what it needs to do? Will I have scary thoughts and fears during the labor and delivery? Will I be able to be fully engaged in this birth the way I want to be?

On top of all this, the need to choose a headstone for Emmy has been looming large. Every time I go to the cemetery, I find that I ache for my little girl to have a stone that marks her grave…something more than the little plaque they put up the day we buried her. The funeral director recently sent us some samples of headstones, but nothing seems adequate. As I’ve said before…how do you put all you want to say on a tiny bit of stone? As an online friend so aptly put it, “Choosing a headstone wasn’t in the mothering books.”

Lynnette at Dancing Barefoot, wrote a post today about her husband bringing her deceased children *home* to a cemetery near their farm…I could do nothing but cry as I read it.

Sometimes I look at myself and think how strange and unlike myself I now am. Who is this woman? Will I ever be *ME* again? Yet, the Lord does not make mistakes. This change in me is who I am now. It has forced me to live transparently. I live more compassionately. I love more fiercely. I have a better grasp on my boundries and limitations. I see more clearly the important things in life.

There are some things I have lost that I pray I’ll regain. My intuition being one of those things. I WAS the type of parent who could look at a child and know if he or she was getting sick long before they ever actually got sick. I knew what home remedies to use and when to actually take them in. Now I feel inept. Not because of anything I did or didn’t do for Emmy, but because there was NOTHING I could do. I could not “fix” her and no matter how long and hard I stared at her little chest and her closed eyes, I could not will her to breathe again. As a mother, designed by her Creator to nurture and protect, THIS is not something easily gotten past.

And yet, the Lord knows all this about me. He is not oblivious to my fears. None of what we have gone through was an accident. None of what we are going through now is an accident. It is all within His almighty will and all part of the Refiner’s fire.

I know for some this is a hard concept. There are days when it is hard for me to understand. I still ask how this could happen to us. More than one time I have found myself for a moment in time thinking maybe it didn’t happen, only to find myself face to face with Emily’s picture and the knowledge that the reason her picture sits on that little table beneath that little lamp is because I no longer hold her in my arms.

Our entire family is different. There is no denying that we are forever changed. But, I know in my heart that the Lord has something for us in all of this. It may not be revealed to us today or tomorrow or the next day, but “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in [us] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6)

And so, I accept these emotional days and the change in me as part of His plan. And in my human frailty, I cry out to Him. In my affliction, He comforts me.