What if...

So besides the fact that getting well and staying well seems to be a near impossible feat around here, it is also the end of my school year and I am otherwise drowning treading in all things work. Add to that the fact our next treatment cycle is just around the corner and I find my Blogger queue once again riddled with far too many started and then stopped posts...all skirting around the same topic, all unfinished, all horribly raw and all too difficult to finish because getting these thoughts out in their entirety means living them, feeling them, processing them...and to be honest, all I want to do is hide from them and well, maybe they will just go away.


Ignorance is bliss, right?


I was reading Angie's blog the other day and this post simply struck a cord and really met me where I'm at right now. I found myself in a puddle of tears facing the exact thoughts and fears I have been running from and it was all in a post about a cartwheel.


Long story short, one of Angie's daughters had broken her arm while doing a cartwheel outside. I'll let you read it for yourself, but her thought process through it all is something every mother can relate to.


And then when all was said and done, her daughter recovering at home with her arm in a cast, Angie said this to her:

"When you get your cast off, honey, I don't want you to be afraid of doing cartwheels." I looked her square in the eye, my hand on her arm. "What happened here doesn't always happen, and if you let it make you scared...well, baby, you might just miss out on a great cartwheel."


If you don't know Angie's story, then read this and you will see the power of this statement coming from a woman of incredible faith and grace, a mother who has given birth to and buried one of her children and gone on to "do the cartwheel again."


And it's just that...the cartwheel that I am just so incredibly fearful of. I want to do this so badly, but the unknowns have me wanting to pull the covers over my head and hide from it all.


When I actually allow myself to consider the thought of this cycle being successful, the myriad of "what ifs" start circling above. 

What if we DO get pregnant again?

What if I have to be on bedrest? Hospital bedrest even?

What if we go through all of this only to lose the baby?

What if we do everything in our power to have ONE baby and we end up pregnant with TWO?

What if we lose TWO babies?

And then the last what if--the one what if that I find so hard to believe could actually be our reality...

What if we get pregnant and everything works out beautifully...and a healthy, amazing little baby girl or boy lands safely in our arms?

What if we attempt the cartwheel again and it ends up being a great one?

It's just something I cannot wrap my mind around. Just. CanNOT.


I don't know why that is either. Or maybe I do. 


Is it because I am a pessimist realist at heart? Is it some kind of post-traumatic stress thing that clearly I haven't dealt with or worked through? Is it because I had a horribly complicated pregnancy and ended up with two little girls who although they had a very rough start are perfectly fine now and I feel that I somehow escaped or cheated losing them both? Is it because I feel guilty for them almost not surviving? Or is it because I feel guilty because they DID survive when I know so many mothers whose little ones didn't make it? Is it because I can't quite imagine or see how it could go right next time despite 3 doctors telling me it "most likely" will be okay? 


Or is that it? No one can tell me for certain that it WILL be okay and that's the one thing I want to hear.


I'm sure it's all of this and more. On some level I feel as if the uneventful pregnancy and term baby realities are just not "our thing." After all, getting pregnant isn't exactly a walk in the park either, so why should I expect anything else to be? We fall on the short side of the statistics pretty much, um, ALWAYS, so why on earth would we ever find ourselves in the company of those who just get pregnant and have a baby without all of the icky in-betweens?


How is it possible that THAT could be OUR reality? How is it possible that we could try the cartwheel again and it be the most amazing experience ever when everything I know says it isn't going to be pretty.


Sigh. 


And now I don't even know where to go from here. It's pretty much where I end up each time and then I just shut the computer and try to forget yet again.


There are some people that are walking this windy road with me who understand completely. There are others who think I've completely lost my mind for willingly and knowingly going through all of this again. And there are still others who think I'm crazy for thinking all of these things because "it won't happen that way AGAIN." 


I find myself a part of each of these camps as well...moving from one to the next in a matter of minutes. You should try keeping up with my mind...it's not an easy task.


Ultimately, I know that I just have to stop planning and trying to have a plan and wanting to know the outcome and give this all up to Him. I know that. 


Really, I do. 


I just don't know HOW to do that. I don't know how to trust that it will all be okay in the end, no matter what actually happens. In the past four years I have run the gamut and back...I have trusted, I have doubted, I have hoped, I have feared. I know I need to learn to trust again...trust that no matter what lies ahead of us, we will be held through it all. I need to somehow break the stronghold fear has on me. My prayers aren't getting me there. Mediation isn't either. I want to trust. I do. I want to go into this with a sense that it's out of my hands and no matter what happens, He'll be there. I want to believe that the road that lies ahead, no matter how windy, is one that we will one day look back on and say that we were better for having traveled it. 


But it's so much harder than just that. It's the whole, talking the talk and walking the walk thing. I guess all I can do is ask that you keep us in your thoughts and your prayers, hold on to hope, and to continue my own prayers that somehow, I will trust again. 


I just hope it happens REALLY soon.