May 13, 2018 | 28 1/2 weeks
This Mother's Day was a hard one. But I wasn't expecting it to be so tough. We had a great ultrasound and appointment on Tuesday, so I was looking forward to a pleasant week and a celebratory Mother's Day. However, we were hit with the stomach flu the day of my appointment, so I was on hyper alert all week. I also ended up having a lot of down time, because we canceled all of our plans for the week & quarantined ourselves at home.
In my down time, I finished reading I Will Carry You (a book in which a Christian woman shares her story of carrying a baby "incompatible with life"...and I think their diagnosis was even the same as ours: ARPKD). Reading about the delivery, the death, the funeral, and the subsequent grief, made me imagine again the hard road ahead for us, and that, coupled with the disappointment of the stomach flu, just put me in a somber mood.
And I also suddenly felt an urgency to make sure we were prepared for baby's arrival. I want to have a special hat and blanket for baby, but they're not ready yet. I began working on a baby blanket, but I wasn't pleased with the way it was turning out, so I decided to just buy one....one of those beautiful muslin blankets that weren't around when I first began having babies 12 years ago. I ordered it Saturday night, but trying to choose which blanket to wrap my dead baby's body in and then actually imagining doing it, put me in an extra somber state, and I went to bed sobbing Saturday night.
We made it through the night event-free, and this morning, we woke up and got ready for church. Nobody had thrown up since Wednesday, so I was hoping it was all over, but then today after lunch, we had one more kid get sick, and it totally bummed me out.
I guess it was also hard to truly enjoy Mother's Day, knowing that here I am, supposed to be made a mom again, but fully cognizant of the fact that I'm actually carrying a child who is expected to die.
I made it a point to hang out with and intentionally enjoy my kids. It's a choice I ultimately have to make, not to linger on the painful thoughts for too long. Yes, I have this ominous, terribly sad diagnosis looming over me, but I also have six amazing kids and a loving husband. We played Catan and had a great time bonding. Aaron also saw how sad I was and wrote me this sweet poem.
My Mother's Day was spent being a mom, with all the ups and downs that motherhood brings, but I am thankful for the people I get to be mom to.
This Mother's Day was a hard one. But I wasn't expecting it to be so tough. We had a great ultrasound and appointment on Tuesday, so I was looking forward to a pleasant week and a celebratory Mother's Day. However, we were hit with the stomach flu the day of my appointment, so I was on hyper alert all week. I also ended up having a lot of down time, because we canceled all of our plans for the week & quarantined ourselves at home.
In my down time, I finished reading I Will Carry You (a book in which a Christian woman shares her story of carrying a baby "incompatible with life"...and I think their diagnosis was even the same as ours: ARPKD). Reading about the delivery, the death, the funeral, and the subsequent grief, made me imagine again the hard road ahead for us, and that, coupled with the disappointment of the stomach flu, just put me in a somber mood.
And I also suddenly felt an urgency to make sure we were prepared for baby's arrival. I want to have a special hat and blanket for baby, but they're not ready yet. I began working on a baby blanket, but I wasn't pleased with the way it was turning out, so I decided to just buy one....one of those beautiful muslin blankets that weren't around when I first began having babies 12 years ago. I ordered it Saturday night, but trying to choose which blanket to wrap my dead baby's body in and then actually imagining doing it, put me in an extra somber state, and I went to bed sobbing Saturday night.
We made it through the night event-free, and this morning, we woke up and got ready for church. Nobody had thrown up since Wednesday, so I was hoping it was all over, but then today after lunch, we had one more kid get sick, and it totally bummed me out.
I guess it was also hard to truly enjoy Mother's Day, knowing that here I am, supposed to be made a mom again, but fully cognizant of the fact that I'm actually carrying a child who is expected to die.
I made it a point to hang out with and intentionally enjoy my kids. It's a choice I ultimately have to make, not to linger on the painful thoughts for too long. Yes, I have this ominous, terribly sad diagnosis looming over me, but I also have six amazing kids and a loving husband. We played Catan and had a great time bonding. Aaron also saw how sad I was and wrote me this sweet poem.
My Mother's Day was spent being a mom, with all the ups and downs that motherhood brings, but I am thankful for the people I get to be mom to.
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