My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

Well, even though the girls’ heart rates looked good today, my heart got a little jumpstart! A resident did a quick ultrasound this afternoon and she wasn’t able to measure one of the girls’ amniotic fluid level. She called in a higher-ranking resident, who similarly struggled to find an adequate pocket of amniotic fluid. They said they needed to have a “fellow” (an OB/GYN training to be a perinatologist) do the ultrasound to double check their findings, but said that low amniotic fluid levels could be caused by either my water breaking, or by placental problems. Needless to say, I was a bit worried. Jim reminded me that a nurse yesterday had mistaken him for someone else and remarked that “Tomorrow’s the big day!” We were hoping she wasn’t unintentionally prophetic!

A few hours later, two residents, a fellow and the chief perinatologist come into my room with an ultrasound machine, and I started to get nervous – why were they were bringing in the big guns? Fortunately, the “big guns” were able to quickly find appropriate amniotic fluid levels, and reassured me that the girls were absolutely fine. Hooray!

Now I’m off to watch “Anne of Green Gables” with our niece, Alli, who was kind enough to agree to one more slumber party during her visit here to Connecticut. We’ll see if we can persuade Jim to watch as well – I figure he needs to get used to chick flicks now, since two more chicks will be joining the family shortly!

The girls decided to have a little fun at the expense of my nurse this morning, much to their mother’s consternation. They somehow managed to position themselves just perfectly so when the nurse tried to monitor their heart rates, she was registering the exact same rate for both babies, which is statistically impossible. She moved the dopplers all over my belly, vainly trying to separate the two rates. No matter where she placed the dopplers, the rates registered as identical. The poor nurse, who also happened to be one of the head nurses and thus very experienced in the art of baby monitoring, was bewildered! After ten minutes of frustration, she decided to call in the reinforcements. She left the room and returned with one of my favorite nurses in tow, who was laughing at the girls’ shenanigans. This nurse calmly and slowly started sliding the dopplers into the position where we find the girls’ heartbeats 99% of the time (and where the previous nurse had been focusing her efforts), and lo and behold – in thirty seconds, we were registering two separate, beautiful rates! The head nurse shook her head in disbelief, and the other nurse just winked at me and thanked my girls for making her look good. I still don’t quite understand how my girls pulled off this stunt, but it made for an exciting morning monitoring session! And it also reinforced my theory that they know which nurses make me the most relaxed and comfortable. My suspicion is that the girls decided the first nurse would make an excellent target of their hide-and-go-seek campaign, but knew they better behave for the second, because they wanted her to be sure to come back and play again! These girls are going to be a handful – well, two handfuls!

Sometimes it’s easy for me to dwell on the aspects of pregnancy that I’m missing during my hospital stay, such as the excitement of decorating and organizing the nursery. However, I was thinking today that there are less-pleasant parts of the pregnancy experience that I’m actually being spared due to my hospitalization. For example, I’m currently the master of my own thermostat – I can keep the room as cool as I like, in order to compensate for my own increased body heat (Jim is very understanding, and just dresses more warmly in anticipation of a visit to my room. I think he’s thrilled we’re not paying for the air conditioning!). I don’t have to endure the frustration of trying to find flattering maternity swimwear, or sneak mid-afternoon naps in at work to combat my rising fatigue levels. I don’t have to put up with strangers coming up to me in public places and asking to touch my belly (I can’t imagine doing that, but my pregnant friends have assured me it happens!). I don’t have to create meals that meet our nutritional requirements, as well as my craving requirements. I don’t have to adjust to being so big that it’s difficult to share a bed, or worrying about going into labor far from a hospital. I don’t have to lug my expanding belly up and down the stairs in our house, and I don’t have to devise an ingenious way to spend time on the boat with Jim and convince him to drop me off at the shore for frequent bathroom breaks!

I truly have so much to be grateful for. I’m just trying to continually remind myself of all these positives, especially as my patience wears as thin as these hospital bedsheets!

Is it pathetic that the highlight of my day was watching two big hawks flying near my window? (Don’t answer that!). I’ve never been much of a birdwatcher – I’m actually not 100% positive that the birds I saw were actually hawks – but they looked so graceful and peaceful soaring in the blue sky. They were probably circling some sort of carrion down in the hospital parking lot that was beneath my field of vision, but from my perspective, they looked utterly majestic. I decided to be a bit rebellious, maneuvering myself out of bed and waddling over to a chair near the window with the hope of a better view. As soon as I exerted all that effort, the hawks disappeared, but it was very nice to sit in the sun for a few moments. I then realized I was panting from fatigue at even this modicum of exercise, so I shuffled back into bed.

I was a bit bummed that my feathered friends had come and gone so quickly, but knew that I was far from able to control their flight patterns. As the Lord said to Job, “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?” (Job 39:26,27). The more Job struggled with the concept of God’s sovereignty and his desire for concrete answers to life’s mysteries, the more the Lord illustrated that humankind is simply not equipped to understand the intricacies of creation, life and death, let alone control these complex processes. As I lie in bed and try to wrap my head around why the Lord allowed me to go into pre-term labor and then has kept my labor from further progressing for nine weeks, I am reminded that such questions, while honest and harmless, simply fail to grasp the reality that God’s ways are higher than my ways. Christian author Ray Stedman, in his summary of the Book of Job, eloquently captures the truth that I am vaguely circling:

“The great lesson of the book is that there are times when we cannot be told the whole picture. There are times when God does not adequately explain life to us. There are times when we must trust that not all suffering occurs because we are bad, but because it can also be the source of some final good. The deepest note in the book may be struck when, out of the desolation of his heart and yet with the Spirit of God within him urging him on to faith in the midst of his bewilderment and confusion, Job says,

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. (Job 23:10)

“That is the lesson of this book. Life is too complicated for us to handle alone. It gets so involved that we can’t even be given some of the answers at times, but God is saying, “If you just take a look at all the problems that I keep solving on the very simplest levels of life and which even then are far beyond your ability to cope with, can’t you trust me to work this one out as well?” In Romans Paul rejoices, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

Well put! So while I did not initially intend for this post to be about anything deeper than my fascination with my winged neighbors, I am thankful that the Lord can use even small object lessons to strengthen my understanding of Himself.