I always wanted to be a Missionary. Now that I have four children at home, seven in Heaven, I realize that my Mission Field is my backyard and my family and I are a testimony to Life!! Here I recount my musings, my stories, thoughts, and adventures as a Mommy and as a Missionary helping to build the Culture of Life! Won't you join me?

Saturday, July 31, 2010

First Trimester Lessons

Well, this hasn't gone as planned!  Its been almost 3 months since I was last able to post!  One of these days  I will stop trying to totally plan out all aspects of my life, because whenever I do God just LOVES to knock me down to size!  (well, that's relatively speaking...usually I end up expanding a few sizes.)

Every pregnancy God teaches me something.  Every time I think I have it figured out, He teaches me something else.  This time around its no different.

When it first sank in that I was going to be (well already was) the mother of 5 children I glibly though that I'd happily blog while crunching a ginger snap and sipping lemon seltzer through my first trimester.  After all, After my downright miserable first pregnancy each subsequent one got easier and less nauseating.  "This one will be a breeze," thought I.    Boy oh boy (or girl)  was I counting my chickens before they hatched!

It wasn't long before morning noon and night sickness set in with a vengeance.  It was a monumental effort to prepare breakfast for my other four - without losing it....too much.   (See If You Give a Mom a Muffin a few posts ago).   Then it got worse. (and I didn't think that was possible.)

My heroic husband took over virtually all the household chores - while continuing to work his two summer jobs.  This was hard for me.  I have long prided myself on being able to "hold things together."  I have always wanted my husband to take care of me, but I never realized that I never really give him the chance.  Well, now he certainly had the chance - because I went down like a ton of bricks, and I could barely scrape myself off the floor.  This was the first lesson of this pregnancy - that my husband is head of this family and sometimes, while I think I give him room to be so, I need to truly let go and trust his headship - and God's guidance.  Its not my job to be co-head of the family and "hold it all together" all the time.  Admittedly this lesson took me a while to truly come to terms with - and while I was attempting to understand why my world was suddenly dominated by nausea and feeling like I had the perpetual flu, I had yet another lesson to learn.

For a while I was wallowing in self pity.  Sitting on the couch, willing myself to interact with my poor children who just wanted a Mommy whose head wasn't hovering over the toilet every half an hour.   At night I'd burst into tears and woefully sob to my husband that I was a horrible wife and mother.  This pathetic display of hormonal emotionalism lasted until I pulled myself together enough to bring it to God.

Thank goodness we have a patient God!  "Lord," I croaked, "I feel so awful and I am afraid that I being a bad mother.  I need help to make it through the day - I can't do this!"

The sickness didn't magically abate just because I prayed.  (Although a big part of me foolishly hoped they would!)  Instead I got an inspiration.  I have been handed an opportunity to feel awful.  I DO feel awful.  There is nothing I can do about it, so I might as well make it an opportunity.  "Alright Lord, I can offer this up...since its not going away."  I finished my quick prayer and didn't think about offering up the awfulness again until a few hours later.   All of a sudden a good friend of mine popped into my head.     A dear woman who desperately wants children, and for reasons God alone knows has been unable to give birth to any.   She is one of several friends of my husband's and mine who struggles with the silent purgatory of infertility.  All of a sudden I felt so ashamed!  Any of one these dear friends of ours would give anything to feel like I did.  I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy feeling sick, but they would not be hovering on the edge of resentment.  What a moment of extreme humility.

I burst into tears - this time not induced by rapidly fluctuating hormones.  I had been so ungrateful since getting sick.  I didn't quite resent the baby  - but I resented God - and all He had done was give me a precious gift.  That moment clarified things for me quite profoundly.  No longer was I angry and full of self-pity.  No more did I border on resenting my pregnancy.  My friends had unknowingly taught me a lesson about Life, and about our Lord.  Their silent witness, their pain, and their deep desire for children - all while seeking to unite themselves to God's Will - taught me a lesson I wouldn't have learned if I had had an "easy first trimester."  Many of them may never really know how thankful I am for their witness, and for the lesson that their sacrifice taught me.

It was then that I decided that the least I could do for these women was offer up, for them, my discomfort and fatigue.  So that became my mission.  It gave purpose to what was otherwise a miserable three and a half months, and gave me the extra motivation to push myself when I felt like laying down for hours and hiding from the world.  I do not know if they will ever be blessed by a full term pregnancy, only God does, but it has been my prayer that at the very least God will ease their burdens, give them peace, and give them the comfort of knowing that He is in charge, even if we can't understand His Will.  This is, after all, the real lesson that I learned.