I haven’t been able to find the words to describe life lately but I know there are a few of you anxious to hear how things are with our new little one. I’m planning on writing a much longer version of Drew’s birth story, complete with interesting anecdotes. But that will have to wait for now.
Drew is doing just lovely. He really is. I’m amazed at how beautiful he is and I often find myself in tears when I hold him. Just in awe of the miracle of life. He is only waking up two times in the night and for the most part it’s a quick feeding and then he’s off to sleep again.
I, on the other hand, have had it pretty rough ever since I left the hospital and my days tend to alternate between a Good Day and a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The quick version is that I came home from the hospital on April 11, a Wednesday night. The next day was my one day of freedom in which I was finally home with my baby. On Friday, the incision from my c-section opened and I had to rush back to triage.
Needless to say, the next few days were daily visits at the hospital to have a wet to dry dressing on the wound. Painful. Oh, so very painful. And then this past Saturday, my wound vac arrived. It is a therapy treatment that removes the fluid from the wound and helps the tissue to granulate. There is a tube that runs from the wound to a small tank in a zippered pouch that I have to carry around. It’s quite heavy because it also has a large battery inside. To be quite frank, it’s a very cool process and is supposed to make the healing time much shorter – but it’s also very gross, cumbersome, and Extremely More Painful than the wet to dry dressing. Example: I was lying flat on my bed yesterday when the nurse exclaimed, “Oh no, your tissue is healing so fast that it started to fuse with the foam.” Cold chills flew up my spine. Fusing with the foam is not a good thing. It’s a very bad thing. Because then the foam has to be pulled away from the Very Raw and Fresh New Tissue. There was even concern that my body had healed over pieces of foam within TWO days. Thankfully, they are 100% certain that didn’t happen and I lived through the nurse pulling the foam away from the newly generated tissue. Barely. Apparently, most folks who wear wound vac’s are older and so these nurses are just having the time of their lives seeing how my body is healing quickly. It’s just providing for some intensely painful experiences that I could really do without.
Other exciting tidbits about the wound vac: people stare at you when you are in public (after all, it does look like a catheter or Something Else Odd), it’s very easy to trip over the tubing in the middle of the night when you are trying to reach the baby’s crib, it makes little noises that sound like someone passing gas (yes, Daniel cracks jokes regularly), and lastly, it makes showering just a Ton of Fun and exceptionally easy as you might imagine.
I’m struggling with all of this in a very real way and I long so much for these days to pass. My heart feels as though it physically hurts at times and the panicky moments, tears, and tiredness are growing so old. No, this isn’t what I imagined the first month of parenting to be like. I feel as though all I have time for is to change diapers, feed him, and then put him right back in his crib so I can wipe my tears, make sure my vac is properly attached, not trip over the tubing, calm my frantic heart, and then make sure I’ve taken the right amount of pain medicine before my next dressing change. I’m longing to put lotion on his toes, sing lullabies, pray over him, and enjoy his tininess. I feel like I’m missing out on opportunities left and right.
Ever since I went into the hospital, I have been facing things that were unexpected and circumstances that were far from how I’d planned. Our hospital stay was much longer than it was originally supposed to be due to a last minute high fever that I ended up having for a few days. The doctor never found the cause but it was heart wrenching to spend those extra days lying in a hospital bed, dying to get out into the world. I also had an extremely strong desire to breast-feed only to discover that those dreams haven’t come to fruition either. My milk came in, I spent time with a lactation consultant, only to find time and time again that Drew was angry and frustrated at each attempt. He had surgery to correct his ankyloglossia in hopes that it would help nursing and yet it hasn’t. It’s as though I am having to let go of my own expectations, lift my hands skyward, and earnestly pray for the strength to breathe each moment. Daniel has been sweetly reminding me that attempting any of this in my own strength is useless. But how difficult it is to take your hands off the circumstances and trust Him completely.
Sometime around one o’clock this morning I found myself in the green chair, holding Drew, singing to him in a broken voice with tears streaming down my face. And then I was reminded of dear Peter, who when he took his eyes off the Savior, he began to sink. It is so easy to feel the storm and forget about the Savior. The One who is my refuge and strength. A very present in trouble. These days will pass, I know. He will gently lead me through these places.
Daniel, Natalie, and I have sung Through for quite sometime but the words means so much more to me now.
When I saw what lay before me, Lord, I cried, what will you do?
I thought He would just remove it. But, He gently led me through.
Without fire, there’s no refining,
Without pain, no release,
Without flood, there’s no rescue,
Without testing, no belief.
Through the fire, through the flood, through the water, through the blood…
Through the dry and barren places,
through life’s dense and maddening mazes,
through the pain, and through the glory…
Through we’ll always tell the story,
of the God whose power and mercy, will not fail to take us through.
