Thoughts On C-Sections

Some mostly unrelated instagrams from the past week:





Well, we just got back from our last prenatal appointment and despite my best efforts this week, I am still not dilated at all.  Although I'm really excited to meet Maggie, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm also kind of scared and sad about the likelihood of having another c-section.

I know it's not going to be the same, but when I think about going into an operating room again, I just keep having all these flashbacks to Claire's birth, which was definitely the saddest and scariest day of my life.

Either way a baby is born, there's a lot of pain and a lot of love involved. If they come out naturally, there's also an element of pride, perhaps, or at least awe. You get to say, "I pushed another person out of my body! How amazing is that?"

With a c-section, there's absolutely no pride in saying, "Well, for some reason my body couldn't work the way it should, so I had to have my stomach cut open and my child removed." It's a pretty great opportunity to grow in humility. 

It's so easy to waste that opportunity and throw myself a pity party instead. It's tempting to think, "I'm so young. Why have both of my pregnancies ended in complications? Why me?" 

That's exactly where I was headed in adoration the other night, but I thankfully got started in the other direction of the "Why me?" question instead. The Lord has blessed me so abundantly and, of course, I certainly don't deserve any of it. 

Have I mentioned that Adam gets a month of paid paternity leave? A whole month! And that as soon as I told my sister that the c-section date got moved up, she volunteered to rearrange her work schedule and miss out on a pretty awesome conference to fly up here? 

Life isn't perfect {that's what heaven is for, after all} but it's really, really good.