pregnancy

I’m still alive …

~ hrh316 ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been rather quiet lately … the stork paid our home a visit four months ago, and our new BabyGirl has kept me very busy!

12 Pembroke
Motherhood

The arrival of a baby into a family is an occasion of both overwhelming joy and stress at the same time. My emotions have run into peaks of love and delight and valleys of despair and anxiety these past months. I have understood the meaning of God as my rock as I have so desperately needed a constant, a level surface under my feet. Emotions are like breakers, threatening to sweep me away.

In times of stress it is so easy to cling to the old lie – “things will be better when …”

I place my hope in a change in circumstances, looking forward to easier days. But this is a false hope. Easier circumstances would relieve some pressure, but our calling in this life is not to seek ease or mere happiness. We are on a quest for joy, and the Bible assures us that joy is found in service and sacrifice, and in knowing Jesus better, not in comfort or ease.

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Mark 10:43-45

Prayer has been particularly hard as hormones and sleep deprivation turn my brain to cotton wool. I have found great peace in simply offering my day to the Lord at its start, determining to serve him, my husband and children, trusting him to provide the strength.

My default is to panic when I have a poor night’s sleep. My automatic thought is, “I won’t cope tomorrow”. And of course it is harder to cope with two rowdy, challenging boys and a new baby with less sleep. However, the discipline of pausing that thought and reminding myself that my loving Father has provided me with the right amount of sleep, and that he will provide me with the grace to cope, has brought great peace and blessing.

It is a discipline, though, and many days I fail.

What are you struggling with at the moment? Are you waiting for comfort and ease? May I encourage you instead to look to Jesus for your strength and joy, and to determine to trust him to provide for you what you need for today, to do the work he has given you to do.

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Pregnancy after trauma

~ hrh316 ~ 1 Comment

Today some wall stickers arrived that I ordered for our baby girl’s nursery. I also ordered some furniture paint online so that I can freshen up our baby furniture (which is looking decidedly tired after serving two little boys).

Anyone who has not known the trauma of a high risk pregnancy and delivery can have little understanding of the faith required to do these small, perfectly normal things.

My first pregnancy almost ended in tragedy, for myself and my baby. I developed aggressive pre-eclampsia early in the pregnancy. My son had to be delivered at 30 weeks by emergency caesarean section. Both our lives were put at risk, and the decision to have another natural baby (rather than adopting) has been very difficult. My second pregnancy ended with a natural, full-term delivery. I had hoped this third pregnancy would be different. That I’d be able to relax and enjoy it (as far as pregnancies can be ‘enjoyed’!)

So far I’ve been as anxious as ever. After wading through weeks of severe sickness, I’m now, according to the pregnancy websites, meant to be enjoying the second trimester ‘bloom’. Instead I feel as though my body has decided to skip over those happy middle weeks when women are pictured jogging on the beach, playing football with their children, and generally enjoying a burst of energy, and go straight to the third trimester.

My stomach has expanded to the point that I feel ready to burst, and I am heavy and uncomfortable whatever I do. I have anaemia, and literally could sleep at any point in the day, even after an hour’s nap. I still get waves of nausea, and seem to have no immune system whatsoever.

But hard and jagged under all this is a bedrock of fear that I cannot seem to shake. It makes the niggles of pregnancy seem minor. I tell myself that I have successfully carried one baby to term, and this reduces my risk of pre-eclampsia. I tell myself that the chest pain is just heartburn, that the palpitations are anaemia, that the exhaustion is perfectly normal for a woman in her early thirties with Crohn’s disease.

I am not convinced. Instead, I am not expecting to go full term. I am waiting for something to go wrong. Sometimes I feel my daughter kicking and feel that she is struggling for life. I imagine her wrestling for oxygen as the placenta reluctantly surrenders what she needs. I feel like my body is a hostile environment for her; who knows whether my immune system might start reacting again and prevent her from growing.

So I bought stickers for her nursery and paint for her cot, but with a lacing of fear about the decision. I wonder if these things will one day bring me pain.

I am aware that today I have let go of my ‘life to the full’ motto. I am allowing myself to listen to the whispers of the demon Fear. I am finding it hard to listen to the voice of Christ, which says, ‘do not be afraid’.

So I remind myself that I am here on his business, not mine. I am here today, and today my job is not to worry but to let Jesus live in me. I am here to be his hands and his feet.

And I pray that my little girl will live and grow and become his servant also.

Some news and thoughts on care during pregnancy

~ hrh316 ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been rather quiet for a few weeks. I have been a bit preoccupied … I’m actually pregnant with our third baby, and I’ve been contending with morning sickness, tiredness, and grumpy children!

I’m now 19 weeks and through the worst of the sickness (though it still comes in panic-inducing waves) and being pregnant again has made me reflect a bit more on my other delivery experiences.

My first son was born at 30 weeks gestation, and spent the first five weeks of his life in hospital, fed by tubes and kept alive (for a week or so at least) by machines. He did really well, but nothing can quite prepare you for that experience of having your helpless newborn isolated from you in a plastic box, wearing an arterial line, and having to leave them there every night.

I try to suppress the memories, but if I’m honest with myself, I’m terrified it’s going to happen again.

My second son was born naturally at almost full term. I had no pre-eclamsia, or other complications. But that’s no guarantee that it won’t happen again.

This time around the medical professionals seem quite unconcerned. I’m basically being left to cook. I’ll be scanned regularly from next week to make sure the baby is growing well, and like all pregnant women I’ll have my blood pressure and urine checked routinely, but today I’m feeling very uncared for. I think what has struck me most lately is the massive difference that a single medical professional can make to their patients.

I suppose what I want to do here is appeal to medical staff caring for pregnant mothers who’ve had traumatic deliveries in the past. It doesn’t matter if right now she is ok. That mother will be haunted by the terror of having her own life and the life of her fragile baby hanging in the balance. She remembers the bleeping machines, the tubes of blood, the wires, the alarms, and the fear. She remembers the smell of the hand gel on the ward, and just a whiff of it now makes her feel sick. She remembers the feeling of empty arms, and the ache of coming home to an empty cot, once full of expectation, now overflowing with anxiety.

Be gentle with her. If she is worried, acknowledge her fears instead of just dismissing them.

“I understand why you’re worried,” would be enough. With a little gentle reassurance: “But we’re going to take good care of you.”

Listen to her fears, even if you think they are unfounded. Chances are she’s been researching online whatever landed her baby in the NICU, and has come across the many exceptions to the rule that exist. Besides, even if her risk factor of it happening again is only 1%, to a mother that is 1% too high.

Don’t tell her that the slight rise in her blood pressure over the last few appointments is due to her anxiety. This is not going to help her relax in the slightest.

Don’t tell her that you have no idea why she feels breathless and nauseous because her iron levels are fine. At least suggest further investigation.

When she says that actually, she’s not felt very well through the whole pregnancy and sometimes feels as she did when she had complications, listen and acknowledge, and show some concern.

Do make eye contact and be patient. I know you are under time pressure, and probably have a list of patients the length of your arm. I know you may not have had a cup of tea for a few hours, and perhaps you had to skip lunch today. I know the pressures that rest on medical staff these days.

But this woman might have been waiting desperately for this five minutes of your time to be reassured and listened to. She might have fears that she cannot express to anyone else because they do not have the expertise to help her. Just giving her time to express those fears can help her massively.

You could be the difference between a mother feeling confident and safe, and sobbing in the car park because she feels all alone and that no one is listening to her.