Today I spent the entire morning pre-cooking dinners to freeze for the two weeks I'll be on bed rest. I didn't want my husband to be stuck trying to figure out every night what to make for dinner after a long day of work, making everything from scratch. So I made a few complete dinners, ready to just pop into the oven, and I wrote up a dinner plan for each night for the next two weeks including side dishes. That way, he can look ahead to see what is planned for dinner the next day so he can take it out of the freezer the night before to have it defrosted in time for the following night. Hopefully it'll help make things a little easier on him while he takes over all the cooking and cleaning entirely for two weeks. He already does so much cleaning around the house already, making it easy for me to just rest and relax throughout the day. But I know it can be a big chore taking care of dinner on top of all that.
It's hard to believe the surgery is this Friday. For the past several nights, I have been crying really hard, thinking back on the last time I was in the hospital. It is so terrifying to go back. I know the situation is different, but it still makes me extremely emotional. I keep thinking back on the day we lost Joey, worrying and wondering: could I possibly go through that again if things went wrong? Do I really have the strength to go through that again? But I guess if someone were to ask me before if I thought I could ever have the strength to keep moving after losing Joey, I probably would have said no. It's one of those horrible things I had to live through, never really knowing how I kept getting up each morning but doing it anyway.
My husband keeps reminding me that we're catching things really early this time, that this is a preventative stitch, so things are not critical at this point. And it does help to remember that. The risks are really low and my cervix is, so far, in great shape. But we are quickly approaching the stage in the pregnancy when we lost Joey, and the realization of that leaves me petrified. I have faith in the doctors and in the cerclage that I will have in place. But when the life of my child is in balance, held together by a simple stitch, faith can be a hard thing to hold onto.
Whenever I've been in a hard situation, people always remind me to have faith. But what they forget to tell me is just how hard it can be to keep my faith strong when my whole world feels upside down. Some of the best guidance I ever got was years ago when my father told me it was okay to question my faith during hard times. Because in his experience, after faith has been challenged and examined from all angles, a true and deeper meaning comes from it. It is then that faith becomes even stronger than before because it held the test of time, even in face of all my anger and questioning.
I wish there was something more I could do than just lay back and let the doctors do their work. I've always been the type to take a proactive approach to things, needing to get my hands dirty to really feel like I've made a difference. It's very hard for me to just sit back and leave the life of my child in the hands of others, helping only by resting and staying off my feet. This is the biggest leap of faith I have ever had to take and it leaves me feeling uneasy. But I guess being brave and having faith doesn't mean not being afraid; it means doing what is right and staying the course even in the face of fear.
"The ability to forgive and to love are the weapons God has given us to enable us to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world."
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