Holding Pattern

A due date's purpose is to give the mother, the caregiver, the family a "ball park figure." My due date came March 2 and it has gone. swoosh! At least someone wished me "Happy Due Date!" Thanks Gabe for the enthusiastic blessing!

Every day leading up to it was wrought with much anticipation. Every night I went to bed thinking, "could this be the night I wake up in pain?" (they say it starts at first feeling like menstural cramps) But these last few nights, I might think "could this be the night?" but then immediately follow up with a "nah" and throw myself in bed literally (it's impossible to just lie down slowly when you have a 20 lb belly). After sitting at the edge of my seat every day, after constantly saying, "any day now!" It got tiring. It's feeling old now. At this point, it feels like it'll never happen... for the rest of my days, I'm just going to have to roll in and out of bed every night, feel my feet fill with liquid the moment they hang below my waist, down Gaviscon like water... How it's so hard to not know the time or the day. Now that we're in that "ball park" it's not quite good enough. When Hannah was about to be born, Graham and I laughed about the appropriate means of her arrival, by "scheduled c-section." We knew the date and even the hour. We did what we needed to do the day before... and knew exactly what to expect. Actually, we did wait a bit the day of surgery. I was scheduled for a 7pm surgery, but got pretty impatient when it kept getting pushed back. At last, Hannah was born at about 10:30 at night. I think there is humour in the fact that it's more than a few hours that I have to wait in this "ball park" period.

Well, the reality is that I won't be pregnant forever. In fact, I am scheduled for a c-section next Friday. So the pressure's on to go into labour before that. I'm not one among those who insist on natural childbrith for the experience of wanting a child to pass through my birth canal. In fact, my fear of pain is so great I'd really rather not. Rather, it's the practical notion that for six weeks after a major surgery such as getting your uterus sliced open you can't pick up anything heavier than a new born--at most 10 lbs. Hannah weighs about 23 lbs! No big deal, we can work it out. And we will. How will she get onto the change table without me lifting? Well, I'll change her on the floor. How will she get in and out of her crib? We'll leave a chair outside her crib and lower the side bar... (and then we'll teach her how to climb in and out of her crib. eeks!) It's doable, but not ideal. God can't you just make me have a normal birth so I CAN do these things? Having known the Lord for 15 years, I realize the answer can be "no." Perhaps, I'm so pig headed that the Lord needs to teach me more about flexibility. And reminds me of that faithful hymn always comes to mind in times of these... Trust and obey...for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

I am slowly learning. One night I was so anxious I couldn't sleep. And the Lord spoke clearly that I need to learn patience. I was reminded that I had been taught this lesson before patience, this waiting, this holding pattern... it was back in my single days. While I admit I am among those who got married early at the age of 25, the lessons about singlehood were still real. That chapter from Passion and Purity about the holding pattern really spoke to me. Elliot describes the scene so vividly. I can picture it, babies crying, people sighing and looking at their watches impatiently as the plane resumes its holding pattern waiting to land. Once again, I am in a holding pattern. Really, it's just a few days (five to be exact)! Morsels compared to a lifetime, barely a breath compared to eternity.

So once again, the Lord uses Elisabeth to speak into my life. I went searching on gatewaytojoy.com for wisdom. She quotes Hannah Whitehall Smith (good name), "The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self--our own daily living, our frames and feelings." And that word frames, I think in her day meant moods. "Our special weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments, our inward affairs of every kind--these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else. And that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness. In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself." I better read that again. "In laying off your burdens, the first one you must get rid of is yourself." http://www.backtothebible.org/gateway/today/8132

So I say to myself, "self! lay off and get out of here!"