In the Dark

Schedules are pretty important. I like having a schedule, even if it's a loose one that can get tossed in the air. I like having a plan. 

But sometimes, plans just fall all to pieces. I had plans for how childbirth was going to go. I had expectations (which, looking back, was really dumb, since this was my first time) about how things were going to go and I had plans for how I wanted to deal with it.

Well, nothing went according to plan. Sunday, October the 28th was the longest, hardest, most exhausting day of my life. It was, to be perfectly honest, a horrible day. I ceased to be able to think, I quit trying to care about things like not getting an epidural - all I wanted was to sleep, and I'd have settled for getting knocked out or dying. But it didn't matter. I was pain-free, completely numbed from the waist down, worn out to the point of crying over everything and nothing, and I still could not sleep.

It was not a happy day; but it was a good day. It was the most trying day of my life, and I failed a lot that day. I fell to pieces so many times. I reached the point of wanting to die. I couldn't think of how to pray for anything, so I laid there praying, "Help me. Oh, Father God, please help me."

My little girl came that day. God did help me. Zack was amazing. It was good; it was over; things were getting better; we were back on schedule.

And then they came in and told us that Evelynn's bilirubin count was too high and she needed phototherapy. And it all happened again. My plans, my schedule, my ideas for how things were going to go - it was all gone, and I was standing next to her bassinet for the next three hours trying to console my baby.

There's been no schedule since then. There's been no plan, and I hate it. And I know I shouldn't, because there is a plan - I just don't know it. There's always been a plan, a plan far better than mine.

We don't like being in the dark. When Evelynn had to stay in those lights, she had to wear these goggles to protect her eyes. It was the goggles more than anything else that she hated. She hated the dark. But it was best for her, and she was better off when she trusted Mom's and Dad's voices and was still.

I'm in the dark. I don't know what I'm doing; I don't know where we're headed and there are too many scary things that I can imagine. I don't have a schedule and I don't know how to get one back. And every time I try to plan, it falls apart on me. I have lost everything that I was going to do for her. The real kicker is that SHE doesn't seem to be any worse off for it. It just makes me feel like I'm failing.

So I'm going to try to do what I wanted my little girl to do that day; I'm going to try to rest in God's words; I'm going to try to lie still in the dark for as long as He says I need it; I'm going to try to trust His hand as it firmly pulls my goggles back in place.

And I'll probably be freaking out later today and need God to hold my hand and whisper, "Shhhh, it's okay, little girl. I'm right here."