Strugglin’

I’ll be honest.  This isn’t at all how I imagined welcoming our third baby to the world.

I had planned on the girls getting a few days of fun play dates with cousins and friends while I recovered in the hospital with Eric by my side.  I had imagined Eric going home and picking up the proud big sisters and bringing them here to meet “my new baby” (as Noa calls her), as soon as possible after she was born.  I was hoping to have a ton of photos documenting sweet Baby Glo’s first days, including our first family photo all together.  I imagined leaving the hospital as soon as possible because I love being in my home, in my own bed, close to those I love, and it’s where I rest best anyway.

Instead, I left home Monday morning, aching as I passed a miserable Martha off to my brother to comfort and hold. Even before Gloria was born, I knew we wouldn’t, couldn’t expose all these new babies here by bringing our girls over to meet their sister.  I sobbed Monday night after Eric left me and went home to take Martha to urgent care and try to figure out what is going on with her.

I had a wonderful day of enjoying my tiny baby yesterday, snuggling her close, and having her all to myself.  And those moments are stored in my heart, not on our camera’s memory stick, which is fine.  And I guess we sort of have a family photo, if you count a picture of a split computer screen showing Noa ichatting with baby Gloria.

But I missed my husband dreadfully, and came to a point when I knew I couldn’t do it without him…that was when I was waiting for him to get the girls to bed and come take me home last night.  While he was on his way I began bleeding profusely, horrifying me,  shocking and confounding my medical staff, and canceling my discharge. After two hours, they finally got it under control with medication and I begged him to stay with me.  Martha was doing a lot better at that point and both girls were already asleep, so we asked Sachiko if it was alright with her that he not come home.  We knew he needed to be there when they woke in the morning because they were expecting Mommy and Baby Gloria to be there too.  He ended up leaving around 3:30 am, because he couldn’t sleep anyway after getting up for a feeding.  It was a good thing, too, because moments after he got home, poor Noa woke up throwing up.

And that brings us to today, and why I am strugglin’.  I just don’t get it.  I have wanted so badly to go into labor without being induced, and when it finally happened, it happened at, what seems to be, the worst possible time ever! I just don’t get God’s good plan in this.  I don’t doubt it’s there, I just feel so weak in my faith and ability to trust.

I long to get home still, but know it will be miserable having to stay away from my big babies in order to care for my littlest.  It’s this weird feeling of nothing sounds great right now… no option is perfect.  I am hoping they will discharge me today, but if not, I guess it will be good that Gloria and I aren’t exposed to this plague of a bug that won’t leave our family alone.

Anyway, this is all pretty raw.  Sorry to not be so optimistic right now, but I hope you will pray for us – our bodies and our hearts in all of this.  We are blessed to have wonderful family support.  Jonathan and Maggie were with our kids all day Monday, but hopefully won’t get sick too.  And my mom, bless her heart, flies in tonight. I can’t wait to see her, and I know having her will be an incredible blessing.

That’s all for now.  I am gonna go snuggle with my baby some more and dream of when life will feel normal again…