Oatmeal with Cranberries & Apples

I feel like a miniature me has been set atop a spinning record. I’m looking out at the world in a fast-paced trance but going nowhere. I’m dizzy & tired of the ride but can’t get off. But perception isn’t reality. It’s how I feel right now, but the truth is my life is not spinning out of control. The truth is God’s plans are to prosper me & not harm me (Jeremiah 29:11).

2 months ago in November I found out I was pregnant. Shocked, overwhelmed, & excited would be the 3 most accurate adjectives to describe my emotions. We were now going to be “that freak family” with 7 kids under the age of 7. Yikes! 4 days after finding out I was pregnant I experienced my first panic attack. I went home, sobbed & slept the Sunday away and then I was fine. Then I was excited and convinced that all the glitches and stresses of #7 would work themselves out. Ry and I re-budgeted, we began looking at 12 passenger vans, we debated whether or not to move houses, and then addressed that lurking question of whether or not I could travel to Congo to help Ry bring our boys home. I wouldn’t be able to get the required yellow fever vaccine nor could I take the modern malaria medicine that woudn’t leave me with feverish nightmares. All this to say, we were stressed, but accepted the pregnancy as a joy & exciting test of faith.

Yesterday, however, my 8 week 5 day sonogram showed no heartbeat. In fact it showed that my body had tricked itself into being pregnant. All the right hormones were there in appropriate levels, the sac was there, but no baby had formed in that sac. I now had to decide whether to wait for my body to miscarry on it’s own or pursue medical intervention (medicine to begin contractions or a D&C).

I’m too tired to be angry. I’m sad- at moments, horribly sad. I’m relieved. I’m disappointed. I feel like the last 2 months were pointless. I went from tears of panic that I was pregnant to tears of sadness that I’m not anymore. I am relieved that some difficult decisions have been answered- I can travel to bring my sons home & I no longer have to grieve over that possible loss. I have hope that maybe I do actually want to be pregnant again, and maybe someday that will happen when the timing is right. I have a heart overflowing with gratefulness for friends that immediately stepped in to care for my kids, to cover Ry at work so he could be with me (when I miscarried in 2009 he was away), to bring us meals & send us messages of encouragement. Grateful for friends taking my kids sledding right now so I can sit in a coffee shop with my husband and get my thoughts on paper. Thankful for hugs & tears & understanding. Thankful that I’m not alone.

In God’s perfect timing, at the very moment everything was seemingly crumbling here, our new boys were being delivered from the war-torn East to relative safety in Kinshasa, DRC. They are now in a better orphanage and even had a breakfast of cranberries, apples and oatmeal this morning. We were blessed with three new pictures of our apparently healthy, thriving boys. Despite how I may feel, God is at work. “Do not dwell on the past. I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert & streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19” Praise God!

I think I’m going to make oatmeal with cranberries & apples for lunch.

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