The Making of Our Family - Part II

Tuesday, January 23rd started off like any other morning.  I was 29 weeks, 4 days pregnant.  Zoe was a mover.  I swear the only time she was still was from five to seven each morning.  I went to work, ate a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for lunch and then got some things ready to be sent out to some clients.  It was an uneventful work day.

I walked into the mail room to put something in the overnight bin and I felt it.  I was totally confused at first thinking that I was peeing my pants.  Zoe was known to love sitting on, dancing on and kicking my bladder.  Sometimes all three at the same time.  It made making it to the restroom sometimes difficult.  I had just gone to the bathroom.  There was no way I had a little bladder kick.

Then the panic set in.  Was this my water breaking?  From what I'd read, it certainly could be.  I had another two and a half months until she was due and at least another one and a half months until she could come early.  I ran to the bathroom, totally afraid.

It wasn't my water breaking either.  It was blood.  Too much blood.

I went back to my desk and called my doctor.  She assured me that a little "spotting" was normal.  I told her that "I think it's a little more than that."  My boss was in a meeting, so I told my co-worker that something was wrong with the baby and I had to go to the doctor.  For the first time I realized having a doctor close to work wouldn't just save me some vacation time.

I waited in the waiting room for what seemed like hours.  I saw happy couples, much farther along than me go in and out.  All the while I was sitting there, listening to my heart, praying to God that everything was okay.  I knew they were squeezing me in, so I would have to wait.  I just didn't realize the waiting would feel like eternity.  Their definition of normal and my understanding of what was happening were different.  I didn't want to appear over-reacting, but I knew something was grossly wrong.

When I got called back, my fears were confirmed.  This wasn't normal, it wasn't "a little spotting" and they needed to check the placenta to make sure nothing had detached.  I had read enough to know a detached placenta could mean death for my daughter.

Fortunately the ultrasound showed nothing out of the ordinary.  My daughter was kicking and moving just like normal.  Her heartbeat was a strong 160 beats per minute.  Everything was normal. 

Until they checked me.  I was dilated to two centimeters.  Complete shock came over me.  How could I be contracting and NOT know it?  I hadn't even had those Braxton-Hicks things they talk about.  I would surely know I was contracting.  Wouldn't I?

Apparently not.  Zoe was a mover.  She moved ALL.THE.TIME.  Apparently some of those sommersaults that I thought were going to come out of my stomach were in fact contractions.  Who knew!

Because I was contracting, I got to spend the first of many nights in the hospital to be monitored.  They put me on medication round the clock to stop the contractions and monitored me.  N came up and spent a couple hours with me, but headed home to get some sleep for work the next day.  I spent the night listening to Zoe's heartbeat on the monitor and praying that God would keep her in me a little longer. 

I didn't really know what any of this meant, but I did know one thing, life as we knew it would be coming to an end.

The Making of Our Family - Part I

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.

Reflective

It seems like we are at a crossroads right now.  We know where we've come, we know where we are, but beyond that we don't know much else.

Perhaps it's the New Year or my lack of REM sleep, but I'm feeling rather nostalgic.  If my life were a movie, this would be the flashback sequence.  I would be sitting on a porch overlooking a lake, sipping some coffee, watching the sunset and the movie would slowly fade into pieces of my past.

I'm not sure if it's the weather or the fact that this month is Zoe's birthday, but I've become very reflective lately.  It's made me very grateful for where I am, where my family is.  We are still growing, still learning and still trying to lean on God for everything.  Sometimes we fail and sometimes we succeed.  I can guarantee our fail rate is much less than it was a few years ago.

As I hold Zoe, with her stuff nose and low-grade fever and watch my REM sleep slip away, I wouldn't trade this moment.  Wouldn't trade this use of REM sleep for anything else.  I know where we've come from and how quickly it can all be taken away. 

I'm gearing up for a series of posts that tell our story.  Tell how we began to see things from His perspective and not from ours.  I hope you enjoy it.

I Never Even Pulled an All-Nighter in College

Sleep is one of my favorite things.  I'm not someone who needs to sleep until noon, but I do like some solid REM cycle sleep.  Now that Zoe is older, I'm getting more REM than I have in her entire life. 

Until Sunday night.  She seems to have some kind of cold that makes breathing through her nose tricky.  No one likes to be sick, so she wanted her mommy to hold her.

Then at 3:45 AM, she decided it was time to watch some cartoons, have some crackers and water.  I figured I could give her some medicine and we'd be back in bed in no time. 

No time came around 12:30 that afternoon.  After my mom came to get her and let me rest a bit.

Fortunately she slept better last night, but there's a reason I like sleep.  These all nighters are killer.  If you don't hear from me for a few days it's because I'm asleep on the keyboard.

In the Tunnel

For awhile now N and I have been plugging along.  He's going to school to get a degree in a field he loves.  He's also in a job that doesn't pay him what he's worth.  To say the candle is burning at both ends is an understatement. 

Things for me haven't panned out the way I was led to believe they would.  It's frustrating and humbling at the same time.

We both know we're in a place that God wants us.  We both know He has a great plan on the other side of this.  We're just in the middle of that tunnel.  We can see where we've come from and we can see the light at the other end, but we're not sure of much else.

Without going into too many details, certain possibilities at the end of this tunnel are presenting themselves.  All of them give us hope, but they are drastically different from one another.  We're not sure which one of these possibilities is at the end.  We're not sure if these possibilities are at the end.

This schedule is hard.  We're tired.  We want some assurance that, at the end of all this, we will have been working toward something great.  Something we can tangibly see and experience.  We don't have that assurance.  The only assurance we have is that God is guiding us down His path.  We aren't guaranteed tomorrow or even this afternoon.  We are only guaranteed that He will be with us in this moment to get us to the next moment and the next.

Right now N and I have several possibilities before us.  We have to figure out which path is His path.  We've committed this to prayer.  Our hearts have a peace about the future.  Sometimes the noise of "what if" and "maybe" get in the way of that peace.  They are like an echo in the tunnel that turns our heads from the Light at the end.  It distracts us from getting through the present.

She May Play For the WNBA Someday

For the last week Zoe has been a bottomless tank.  The girl just wants to eat.  It hasn't been uncommon for her to consist of three pieces of ham, an entire bowl of mashed potatoes, a quarter can of green beans and then she'll ask if she can have a cookie.

That really should've been our first clue that she was growing, but no, we just figured she was hungry.

Yesterday morning she slept until ten o'clock.  TEN!  That's unheard of.  That really should've been our second clue that she was growing, but no, we just figured she was tired.

While playing at grandma's house yesterday she complained that her leg hurt.  I believe her actual words were, "my leg is crying."  Isn't that the sweetest way to say something hurts?

When she got up to play some more, she wouldn't put any weight on that leg.  So we called the doctor and made an appointment.

Just a growing pain. 

Both N and I had some horrible growing pains.  I remember laying on a waterbed trying to relax because the pain in my legs was so severe.  Granted I was a bit of a dramatic wuss.  While I may have had the same physical reaction to a sliver that I did to a growing pain, I can tell you with all assurance that those growing pains were brutal.  The slivers weren't so much, I was just more afraid of the needle my mom would use to get it out.

Zoe isn't a girl who complains about pain.  She would be getting three teeth at once and we'd only know about it because we could see it coming through her gums.  Her pain tolerance is higher than mine.  Obviously, if a sliver can cause me to go into hysterics.  In my defense, no one really likes a sliver.  When I get one of those my finger really does cry. 

As does my pride.

Makin' Lunch Our Way

On Fridays N gets to spend the day with Zoe.  It's their time.  It usually involves throwing a certain girl in the air, playing chase, some coloring and a picnic lunch.  The routine is that while N makes the sandwich, Zoe picks out what shape she wants from our cookie cutters.  She used to fancy the star, but has moved onto the leaf.

It's their thing.  It's their routine.  I love it.

With N going back to school, one of the things I do for him is to pack his lunch and his dinner.  He's on a sandwich kick lately.  Last night I asked Zoe to help me make sandwiches for daddy.  Without hesitation she ran to the drawer and goes, "I'll pick the shape!"

That's way better than any note would've been.