My Story - Part III: It's always darkest before the dawn

Yesterday’s story ended with a pregnant, scared, and distraught teenager.  How could this situation have happened to her?  All of a sudden the magnitude of her apathy descended like a heavy blanket, smothering and oppressive.  What was she going to do?  She couldn’t tell her parents; she assumed they would disown her.  She couldn’t tell her pastor; after all, she was a “good girl.”  She couldn’t tell the college; she assumed she would lose her scholarship and her place with the incoming freshmen.  So, she found her ex and told him. 

He threatened to sue for custody; he threatened to make her life as miserable as possible.  He refused to sign for an adoption.  She had absolutely no intention of marrying him and raising a child with him.  She was scared and felt trapped.  Her only course of action seemed to be to terminate the pregnancy as soon after her eighteenth birthday as possible.  A friend – who had had an abortion the previous year – lent the money.  As hard as it is for me to write this, the girl in our story – me – had a second trimester abortion.  It was a two-day affair.  Her mother had guessed what was happening after the first day.  When cornered, our girl told her mother everything.  Instead of casting her away, though, her mother began to brainstorm ways that they could keep the baby.  She started listing support options.  The hardest thing our girl ever had to do was to tell her mother that it was too late.  The process had started, and it was irreversible.  The next day during the actual procedure, our girl cried throughout the entire ordeal.  She cried on the ride home.  And she made a promise to herself:  she would never marry.  And if, in some alternate reality she found someone who could love her – warts and all – and who she could give her entire heart to – if it was ever complete again – she would never have children.  She was not worthy.  She had her chance, and she squandered it.  How many chances does one person get at happiness?  How many chances does one person get before God cuts her off?  How many times can one person willfully and knowingly tear out her Savior’s heart?  How could she ever be whole again?  Thankfully, no matter how much a person hates herself, she can never outrun God’s love, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Our girl spent the rest of the summer keeping to herself and trying to rebuild some semblance of her life while preparing for college.  August rolled around, and she left for a school four hundred miles away, ready to start over.  She found a group of friends and threw herself into college life.  She learned to fake a smile and even got a job solely for the brightness of that smile.  She majored in biochemistry/pre-medicine.  And she stayed away from relationships altogether.  Her best friend in college, a guy, developed a crush but she kept him at arm’s length by telling him she wasn’t yet over her ex – which was actually true.  Her first love?  The boy who shattered her heart?  They were talking again……all night at times.  He said he wanted to try again.  She was ecstatic, but in reality, they were just phone conversations every night.  Then he changed his mind, over and over again.  Back and forth and back and forth – for the entire school year. 

Through it all, though, something happened.  Between the amazing atmosphere of Asbury College and the gentle healing of the Holy Spirit, our girl’s heart began to take shape again.  The spring semester ended, and our girl was ready to come home again.  Her first love wanted to meet to talk in person.  They did, and he told her she was his only love, and he thought they should try again.  Whether it was the healing or the vacillation of the previous year, our girl didn’t buy the pitch, and she told him she wasn’t sure she could handle that.  It might just be too “weird.”  Lo and behold, two days later he said that it would not work after all.  Instead of being crushed, our girl felt nothing.  And then something truly remarkable happened that weekend…

My Story - Part II: Desperation

We left off yesterday with a girl’s dreams (mine) in tatters.  She had found and subsequently lost love and lost faith in love.  Her world had been irrevocably altered.  Her three dreams had changed as well.  While she still wanted to change the world for the better, she no longer longed for the intimacy of marriage.  She no longer desired the presence of children.  The male species became simply a source of companionship.  She would go out every weekend with a different guy but only so that she would not have to be alone on a Saturday night. 

After several months, the loneliness became overwhelming.  Deciding to take another chance at a relationship, our girl placed a personal “ad” on yahoo’s website.  Her stipulations for her next male counterpart?  This guy would be nothing that her “prince” was and everything that he wasn’t.  Much to her detriment, our protagonist found such a man.  He was sweet and romantic.  He bought her roses every week and packed a lunch for her every morning.  He professed undying love and devotion.  He made our girl feel loved, valued, and wanted.  She did not love him, but that did not matter.  He was a pathological liar, but that did not matter.  He was a thief, but that did not matter.  She was wanted, and that’s all that mattered.  She used him, plain and simple.  She used him to make her feel beautiful and special.  He gave her a ring, and despite her shame at leading him on, she took it.  She never had any intention of marriage, but she traded her empty promises for his tokens of affection.  Unfortunately, her empty promises were not all she traded.  She gave everything she had left, but she had convinced herself that nothing mattered anymore.  After all, what was the physical worth when pieces of her heart were still scattered and lost to the wind?  She had poured every last piece of herself into the previous relationship; so what if she now gave up her “illusions” of physical purity?  Nothing that she had left to give was worth anything anymore, so she gave it away to an insignificant man. 

After six months with this man, she finally had enough.  She broke it off, and though he was chasing another girl, he continued to profess unending devotion.  Almost as if waking from a dream, this girl’s life went back to the way it was before.  Her grades – which had taken a hit when she was with this other man – improved.  She felt no remorse at the break-up.  She did not miss him at all.  One day she was with him, and the next she wasn’t.  She was preparing for college.  In fact, she was headed to her first choice on a scholarship.  Life was better – for a time.

Unfortunately, approximately a month after the separation, the consequences of our girl’s actions came calling.  She was seventeen years old……and pregnant.  Pregnant with the child of a thief and a liar.  Pregnant with the grandchild of drug addicts.  Pregnant and preparing to attend a small Christian college in the Bible belt.  Again, it felt as if her life were ending……

My Story - Part 1: Dreams

My story starts with a very young girl from a poor family.  She was idealistic and enthusiastic.  Life was hard, but this young girl had the world at her feet.  She wanted only three things in life:  1) to change the world, 2) to grow up and marry the man of her dreams, and 3) to have lots and lots of children.

This girl grew older and wiser.  She excelled in school and babysat for spending money.  Her dreams evolved.  She still wanted to change the world, but the dream became more focused.  She was going to be a physician in a third-world country.  She was going to run a mission deep in the jungle where no one had ever even seen a white man before, and she was going to heal bodies and save souls.  She still wanted to marry the man of her dreams.  She still wanted children, though "lots and lots" became two to four.

At age fifteen, our girl fell in love.  She and this boy had known each other most of their lives but did not become close until the summer between her freshman and sophomore years of high school.  They began dating in the fall and quickly became serious.  He was everything she had ever wanted, everything she had ever dreamed.  He was handsome, kind, and on fire for God.  He, too felt a call to the mission field.  The two were going to change the world together.  They were going to marry (he had proposed one winter night), and they were going to have a family.  They were aiming for three children, to be exact.

They were happy for a year and a half, and then......(there's always a "then," isn't there?)  And then, he decided that he was no longer called to the mission field and that he could not ask this girl to change her plans for him.  To say she was devastated would be akin to saying Atlas was merely strong.  Her heart was smashed into thousands of tiny pieces, and those pieces were scattered.  Some were lost.  In one instant, her whole world was changed.  Nothing was the same.  Her story - my story - was over, and yet, it was just beginning......

Did you miss me?

I know I have been conspicuously absent for the last week. My only excuse? It has been an intense couple of weeks. Do you remember how it was two weeks ago? That week culminated in working in OB the day TOM decided to arrive.

Last week was spent with entirely different stresses. I work 36 hours per week. Overtime pay does not start until 40 hours. I hit overtime last week. Does that give you any indication of what work was like? Then, Friday was a big test that I have been preparing for - and dreading - for two months. If I passed this test, I would be certified as a CCRN - a nurse deemed competent in the critical care (ICU, ER, etc) arena. The exam was - in a word - brutal. I felt as if I had competed in a mental gymnastics meet. I was absolutely sure that I had failed, but I am happy - and relieved to say that I passed!  My weekend after the test was spent working and getting my garden in the ground:

I took one more day to recuperate, and here I am again. To make up for my absence (for those of you who actually read this), I will tell you my story - from the beginning - throughout this week. Stay tuned for part one tomorrow!

"Someday" Sunday - Love is Patient

Let's run away
Oblivious to the slipping time
Very soon dawn will break
Ending our brief interlude

If I just hold tight
Sleep may linger just a bit longer

Pleading desperately for five more minutes
Anxious for the dream to extend
The alarm tears you from my arms
I reach and grasp, but your cries fade
Efforts to hold you are in vain
Now all that's left are memories
That and the hope that someday dreams will become reality

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Here I am, at the end of me
Trying to hold to what I can't see
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn 

Today was a horrible day.  First off, I woke up to the realization, that yes, TOM had made an appearance.......with a vengeance.  Horrible cramps, three tampons in three hours (hmmm, tmi?), and my best friend was motrin...  And that's all BEFORE work this morning.  The best part of the day was still to come.

I got to work to find that our unit only had one patient; the med-surg floor only had eighteen; and the ER only had one.  So guess where I got floated to?  Obstetrics.  Talk about salt in the wound.  I was stuck around babies all morning.  And if that wasn't enough?  One of the babies was a four-pounder.  Why, you ask?  Because her mother couldn't stop thinking of herself long enough to get off the oxycodone for the child  growing inside her.  This mother had already lost custody of her first child and now had lost custody of this little precious girl - her second.  And she was precious.  And beautiful.  I have to admit, I was - and still am - terribly upset by the whole situation.  How many times can a person cry in a twelve-hour shift?  Several, as I've found out.  It's not fair.  There are so many things not fair about the whole situation.  What in the world is God trying to prove?  Why give that mother another child and not give another potential mother a chance?  And why, oh, why did I have to be in OB today?  Wouldn't it have been easier to just cut out my heart with a scalpel?  Seriously?

And if that situation was not enough, I had to assist with a newborn immediately after delivery.  If I wouldn't have felt so cowardly, I would have gone home sick at that point.  My heart is still breaking.  And now I have to face my bed and the dreams that it holds.

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Ok, God, I'm broken now.  Please put me back together.  Please bring Your beauty and Your healing.

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Maroon lyrics taken from Beauty From Pain by Superchick

“Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to.” ~P.B.S. Pinchback

Why does faith have to be so hard?  And why is there no time limit?  *sigh*  Two nights ago I had a dream that my TOM came while I was at church in the bathroom.  And it didn't just start......it was a bloodbath.  There was blood over both of the stalls, on the walls, on the sink.....everywhere.  It woke me up yesterday morning, hyperventilating.  Fun, yes?

So I went out to the local drugstore and bought a pregnancy test.  It's early; my period isn't supposed to start until Friday.  But I couldn't wait, and the test gave the statistic of 86% if three days before missed period.  I took it this morning, and just like my dream, it was a big fat negative.  So here I am, cuddling with my furbaby, blogging when I'm supposed to be sleeping.  (I work night-turn tonight).  On the plus-side, I guess that means I can drink all the Diet Mt. Dew I want to get me through the night.  That's a bonus.  It looks like another round of zit and yeast-inducing clomid is on the schedule.  Yay.

But I am holding on to faith.  After all,

¹ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ² For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. - Hebrews 11:1-2 NKJV

Time to work on that testimony, I guess...

"Someday" Sunday - Mother's Day Edition

Ahh, Mother's Day.  A time to reflect on the most important women in our lives:  those who gave us life and those who guided us in our lives.  My mother is amazing.  Here she is (along with my father):

Isn't she something?  This woman is solely responsible for the woman I am today.  We lived on a very modest income - hers, and hers alone.  My father didn't work.  But she fed us, clothed us, AND took us on vacation almost every year on less than $20,000 a year.  We didn't have the best or the most, but we had enough.  She scrimped and saved and planned for every penny.  Oh, and we never received money from the government.  I'll say it again....isn't she something?

Not only was she the breadwinner, but she was also the mechanic and the general handy-man.  She fixed everything - or, at least, she made it work.  She fixed our cars; she fixed our roofs.  She gardened.  About the only thing she didn't do was cook.  (Trust me, you didn't want her to.....)  ;)  Isn't she something?

Above and beyond the physical, she is - and always has been - my best friend.  She is fun and loving, but she's also stern and strong when she must be.  There were always consequences to bad decisions, but she was always there to support me through them and their aftermaths.  She was my biggest cheerleader, always believing that there was nothing I couldn't do.  She was there to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.  She cheered and danced at my wedding.  Isn't she something?

Someday, when I have a little one, I hope he or she looks at me like I look at my mom......I hope I will inspire the same awe.  I want him/her to say, "Isn't she something?"

C'mon, now, isn't she?

IUI Round 1

Friday the stick gave me a smiley face, so I called the doctor’s office to schedule my first intrauterine insemination for later that same afternoon.  I spent most of the day excited……and then.  Oh, there’s always a “then.”  As I’m driving to the hospital (their office is in the basement of a local hospital), I suddenly burst into tears.  No warning, no discernible reason.  Just tears.  Now, I’m normally a very logical person.  For me to just cry without warning, one of two things must happen:  1)  I have to be hormonal.  Think PMS.  2)  I have to be extremely stressed in some way.  Hmmm, I think option #2 about sums things up.  I pull into the parking lot and just sit for a minute.  The tears dry, and I pulled myself together – or so I thought.  I went into the hospital where I met Hubby, and we headed into the office.  The office was booming, and the doctor was insanely busy with patients in the office and the ER.  Our appointment was at 4:15; we didn’t get called until 5:15.  As soon as we went back into the exam room, I lost it again.  The room just seemed so cold and empty.  The bathroom was still institutional.  So I did what any sane woman would do……I panicked.  And that was apparently too much for the hubby.  So, again, we did what any normal couple would do……we fought.  Yep, we fought when we were supposed to be obtaining a sperm sample.  See that?  Still seems cold and clinical.  He said that he had been ok with the idea of artificial insemination up until the point I started crying.  Then he said that babies were meant to be made in the back seat of a Buick (his attempt at humor), not in a cold doctor’s office.  So there we stood, me with tears on my face and the hubby holding an empty specimen cup.  He turned around, went into the bathroom, came out several minutes later, handed me the cup, and then he left.  Yep, he LEFT me by myself……to face whatever came next BY MYSELF.  To say I was a mess would be an understatement. 

When I was finally called back the second time (an hour later…yeah, I was waiting, ALONE, for an hour), I was preoccupied enough to not feel much.  The procedure didn’t really hurt.  It felt like very mild cramps.  I made another appointment for the next morning and then – while I stayed on my back for at least fifteen minutes – called the only person I knew that might understand how I was feeling.  (Thanks, Tea!)  Another bout of tears later and I was on my way home.  I went to bed that night and tossed and turned all night.  When I did sleep, all I had were nightmares.  I was NOT looking forward to the next morning’s appointment.

The next morning I got up before the alarm and busied myself around the house until Hubby surfaced.  When he did, I cornered him and asked what we were going to do to make Saturday better than the previous night.  We came up with some strategies, and off we went – this time together.  This time, the room seemed less threatening.  This time, we took care of things together.  And this time, he stayed the entire time.  I was extremely glad of that when she started…..because this time, it HURT.  A LOT.  She said that the day before she hadn’t had to reposition my cervix, but she did Saturday morning.  Have you ever had someone tug on your cervix?  It’s not fun, believe me.  Believe it or not, I was still sore this morning.  Anyways, the prince I married was back and remained throughout the entire day, thankfully.  Now all I have to do is wait two weeks to find out if it worked.  These are going to be the longest two weeks ever.  And if it doesn’t work this time, the cycle is going to repeat.  And I have a sneaking suspicion that each time the waiting is going to be even longer.

"Someday" Sunday - Pass it On

Love is an amazing thing.  The more you have, the more you want to give away.  You want to Pass it On...

What a wondrous time is spring, when all the trees are budding...

Spring is one of the most magical times of the year.  After a long, dark, cold season of death and hibernation, the sun begins to peek out from the clouds.  New life begins to grow.  Old life resurfaces.  The trees begin to bud.  And deep inside, desires begin to take shape.  It's been a long season without new life in this family.

The birds begin to sing; the flowers start their blooming...

The heralds of spring are the robins.  Their brightly-colored breasts burst onto a dreary world.  Their beautiful songs follow shortly thereafter.  Colors and shapes previously hidden splash across a gray landscape.  You laughter, your cries, your absolute joy will splash across our lives.

That's how it is with God's love.  Once you've experienced it...

I can't wait to share our Father's love with you.  It springs eternal and never slows.  Your earthly father and I will love you to distraction, but that is a mere taste of the love your Heavenly Father has.  Once you've experienced it, you life will never be the same.  I cannot wait to see your blossoming under His careful tending.

You want to sing; it's fresh like spring...

My heart will sing when I first hold you.  I will break my hibernation at that moment.  There is so much love between your father and I, but it will only grow when you join us.  Our love will multiply to a degree so much higher than we can imagine.  I cannot wait.  I want to pass it on.

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** Lyrics in maroon taken from song Pass It On by Kurt Kaiser.