Progress

I'm going to celebrate it, because it is a big deal for me.

There are few things that have been more stressful for me than waiting for my babies.
I think even with Brandon, who was 8 days early, I was pretty much a basket case by the time I got induced.

I have prayed and prayed this calamity away to no avail.

So here I am doing it for a 7th time, and I finally realized there may be something I need to learn from this experience.
It is not just an evil and unfair torture designed just for me and compounded by all of the people whose babies magically come weeks early.

I keep thinking I've arrived at some kind of peace about this, only to have some other fear or concern or agitation rise to the surface.

So instead of surrendering myself to the worst and riding out the hours/days/weeks? ahead peacefully, I find myself in a daily battle with my emotions just to stay sane.

It is hard, hard work.

When you spend the days of several weeks battling with your emotions, however, you learn things.

Reading the Spirited Child book has helped me know my son Simon better, but it has also helped me know me better.
I am an intense person. I feel things very deeply.
I am a shy person. I long to express these deep emotions, but it is difficult for me to start conversations, especially of such a serious nature.
Because of this, I realized I might be one of those people who is hard to read. How strange to think of myself as others might perceive me and to discover this.
I am not private or reserved. I love to share things about myself. I am just shy, and it takes some prodding for me to open up.

I realized that the intense part of my nature makes this waiting game particularly difficult for me. It is not because I am so very uncomfortable physically, though that certainly plays a part.
It is because I am so volatile emotionally.
When I experience a sign of labor, I don't just think, "Oh, this might be it, we'll see what happens."
Before I know it, my mind has gone through the whole of labor and delivery and I am sitting with my baby in my arms, teary with excitement and joy.
And when the contractions stop or another day passes without any sign of baby, I go the other direction into the worst-case scenarios. I go 42 weeks and still have to go in for an induction. Or he doesn't make it to that first blessed breath.

This roller coaster ride starts at about 37 weeks. Sometimes sooner.

So I spend my days trying to rein in these powerful emotions. Tug this way, tug that way. And sometimes I find that pulling myself in to dead center feels just like that. Dead. I just sort of exist. I want to crawl in a hole away from everything and everyone until this baby is born. Yet, what I really WANT to find at that center is peace. Surrender. Trust.

Besides the discovery of the intensity of my emotions, I've also unearthed a fear that I have to face. It is the big WHY?
Why am I doing this? I am now officially at a point where I could walk into a clinic and be induced and have my baby within a day. I am now officially at the point where I am paying a price to have the birth experience I want, and I have to wonder, "Is it worth it?" "Why do I have to be such a weirdo?" I don't like having to own up to this choice in such a stark way.

I love having my babies at home. I love all the parts about it except the wait. I even love the work and the pain and the ability to feel something so real.
I feel blessed to be able to keep something so sacred in a sacred space.

But from 39 weeks on, I feel like I REALLY have to own that choice. It is no longer out of my control. I start paying the price.
I'm the only one who can decide when the price is too high.
I don't want to make that decision.

Today as I contemplated these things, the scripture came to my mind, "Bridle all your passions that ye may be filled with love."
I have never really considered before that I had passions that needed to be bridled.
But I am so thankful to have been given a different perspective. I feel like there is a powerful motive there that makes this battle more worth it. Love.
Love is one of my spiritual gifts outlined in my Patriarchal Blessing. I am counseled to magnify that gift.
Could this crazy horrible experience actually be an opportunity to fulfill an eternal principle?
I think so. I am sorry I didn't think so sooner!

I can see that maybe if I do this for love instead of out of sheer endurance, I might actually find the lasting peace, surrender, and trust that I've been grasping at.

And a new, more powerful, special kind of love will be born in me just in time to share it with my baby.