As I've mentioned before, January is a time of reflection for me. Not because of the new year, but because this is the month of my life where so many things changed. I became a mom, had my whole plan on becoming a mom thwarted and my relationship with God radically changed.
Zoe turns three in about a week. I realized a couple weeks ago as I came across some of her NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) clothes that I have never really documented the course of events that started our family. Over the past three years the significance of her birth hasn't diminished, but some of the details have. I wanted to keep a chronological account of her birth on my blog.
Not only for the reason of keeping a chronological account, it's also a reminder to me of how real God is. He orchestrated all the pieces of this story long before Zoe came into the world. While I was still not living as faithfully as I should.
That's where this story begins. In August of 2006 when we found out that we were expecting. Our marriage was touch and go. I disliked N more than I liked him. He wasn't fond of being married. It came with bad connotations for him. Instead of fixing the problems in our marriage, we decided to appear to be happy. We were in the process of building a house that was bigger than we needed and came with a price tag we couldn't easily afford. It was the appearance of what we should be, so we thought in some way it could help our marriage. It could be a mask that hid all the problems. If they were hidden, maybe we could forget them as well.
N was in the Air Force at the time, working odd hours. He preferred to keep his odd schedule on weekends and such. Our time together was limited at best.
I was working at Russell Investments. I loved my job and the people I worked with. I didn't like getting too close to people there for fear they'd see through the facade I was trying so hard to keep up. I kept everyone at arm's length for that reason.
Getting pregnant was supposed to be difficult for me due to having PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome). I was always told to prepare for years of struggle. It took three months. The pregnancy, while not something we were trying to stop, still came as a surprise. With the state of our marriage being so rocky and our balance sheet being so unbalanced, becoming a parent both thrilled and terrified me.
For years I told myself that I never wanted a child. It was my defense mechanism for being told it would be difficult for me to conceive and even more difficult to hold onto the baby. Both of which were relatively easy in hindsight.
It was thrilling to know that I might be able to have a child. To be a mommy. Maybe, just maybe, I could give N a son. He talked about always wanting a son and I thought maybe our marriage would be better if I could give him everything he wanted.
We found out it was a girl. I was elated. I have an excellent relationship with my mom. I was excited to have that kind of relationship with my daughter. Yet I was scared too. Would N fall deeper into his isolation because it wasn't a boy? Because I couldn't give him everything thing he wanted?
Our daily routine was fairly uneventful. Our new, expensive house was on Puyallup's South Hill. N worked at McChord AFB, so his drive was about 20 minutes. I worked in downtown Tacoma. My commute was almost 23 miles, or about 45 - 90 minutes depending on the time of day. I picked a doctor close to work since I knew the closer I got to delivery I would be going to appointments every week. I didn't want to take precious vacation time for doctor appointments. I wanted to tack that onto my maternity leave.
Three years ago today we were painting the nursery. I came home from work and told N that we HAD to get the nursery ready. We had paint for the walls, some of our furniture ready to be assembled and a cute outfit I knew our girl would love. I knew I'd just be getting bigger and losing energy. I had a mild anxiety attack and informed N that we HAD to paint the walls. I had just entered my third trimester. All the books I was reading said I would enter the nesting stage. I figured I was nesting. The need to be prepared was strong.
Little did I know it was just the beginning of our journey. A little paint on the walls was a minor thing in comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment