I felt numb for awhile. A good while. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. And then I just sat. I just sat. You see I am a runner. Figuratively- not literally. (yes if I am running its probably because a sasquatch is chasing me or there’s a truck with free ice cream I am trying to catch it) But figuratively when things are hard and I don’t want to face them I run. I run hard. Away. My mind wonders to anything and everything so that I do not have to face what’s ahead of me. What is crushing me. Instead of reaching out to the Lord I run as far away as possible because then maybe even if its temporary what is happening won’t really feel like its happening. Like its crushing me.
But here is the thing about a tiny little baby growing inside of you. You cannot run. It goes with you. If I bolted out the door and went to the beaches of Mexico, there would be this not so little bump there with me. If I got in bed determined not to get out forever 10 minutes later I had to pee. This was the first time I couldn’t do my normal run away for a bit until I couldn’t run away anymore then come crawling back to the Lord asking Him how to sort this out. I had to face this. I had to deal with this. In a few months a living and breathing baby would be before me. And one with a hole in his lip and possible the roof of his mouth. This child who would need specialized bottle and possibly have hearing issues and later on speech problems. A child who needed surgery and maybe surgeries!
I just felt so stuck. Just uncomfortable and cried out and confused. I went to talk to a friend who was a nurse and asked her why I felt this way. This was not a death sentence. He would be able to read. He could play soccer. Someday he would go to college. So why did I feel this way? She gave me some wisdom.
She told me “you have to allow yourself to grieve.”
Grieve? This baby was still alive. Still kicking and getting daily hiccups. Still making me have to run to the bathroom every 20 minutes. What do you mean grieve?
She told me I had to allow myself to grieve over the thought of having a perfectly healthy, normal baby. That this baby would be different. He would look different and need different things. Surgery would happen sometime after he was born and I had to grieve over the idea of this perfect baby with no issues.
It was like a weight was lifted off me. I was stuck in this cycle of feeling so sad, then feeling guilty for being sad. I told myself being sad over the way my son would look was vain and just terrible and I was not supposed to feel this way. But then she unlocked something so powerful. She allowed me to let go and really grieve. Really go through the stages. I couldn’t really go through the denial, I mean I had this 4D ultra high def ultrasound in front of me that proved this was true. But sadness and anger washed over me and for the first time in my 30 years of life I didn’t run. I embraced it. I sat in it. I held the hand of my husband and grieved. I allowed all the fears and all the hesitations spill out before the Lord. I told Him how I felt about all of this. I fell on my face begging him to take this away. Then slowly and ever so gently He began showing me how we were going to make it through this. How we would be just fine.
We finally alerted the media (aka facebook and the church prayer chain) and allowed people into our grief. And a surprising thing happened. We were loved on so completely and overwhelmingly. People came out of the woodwork and knocked me over with their kindness. People I barely knew took an interest. I was stopped in Walmart and told I was being prayed for. Text messages, facebook messages and letters came. An army of people gathered around us like an army of angels and said “you got this Caroline. We got this.” I felt the fellowship of the church like never before and suddenly the burden of grief didn’t seem so heavy. People cried with us. They laughed with us. They brought me chocolate (bless them!) Suddenly I didn’t feel the need to run away, I just had to look around and grab a hold of those around me. Those cheering for me. Those who loved our unborn child as their own. It was amazing. People were amazing.
We headed towards the finish line with a new found confidence. Our knees were still trembling, but we did not run. We walked ahead with our arms outstretched to the Lord and said “Ok. Lets meet this amazing baby boy.”
Open Doors Sticky Floors 