I am an almost pushing fifty-something, audaciously authentic, Jesus loving, modestly pierced, heavily tattooed, daughter of Christ who carries a colorful past full of mistakes and second chances. I’m a part-time cupcake making powerhouse, full-time art administrator, adoption advocate, control freak, perfectionist, emoji lover, hashtag abuser, camping obsessed, sunset chasing, avid photographer, who’s completely addicted to scrapbooking. Standing beside me is my main man, my forty-something husband of over eighteen years (who’s also moderately tattooed with a colorful past), my three children ages twenty-four, thirteen, and stillborn seven years ago… and of course our adorable little poochie-poo.
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Thursday, April 7, 2016

Waiting on the Test Results

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE }

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~

Waiting on the Test Results (Feb 22, 2015)
Life continues and the days are slowly passing after our last appointment.

Our viles of blood are somewhere in a lab in California.  We are at the mercy of their time and their expertise.

Sleeping continues to be the hardest for me right now.  I lay down and all these images and scenarios flood my mind, overtaking my logic.  I have two roads of thoughts engulfing me at all times.  One, a reality I lived through sixteen years ago that still haunts my nearly every thought, and one an unknown chasm of made up horror stories cycling through thousands of different possible scenarios.

I carry this crazy fear of miscarriage, where I stand up and just bleed out. I fear the “when/where/hows” of that possible reality… It happened before. Satan has me convinced it will happen again.  I have towels and large garbage bags in all our vehicles.  I'm supposed to stay within a ten mile radius of a hospital at all times.  I carry a deep fear of my own death right now.  It's not death itself that I'm fearing, for I know I will be embraced into the glory of eternity, but it's more the fear of the life left behind on earth for my boys. What will happen to each of them, what fate will betray them if I were to die from the death of the unborn within me?

I also carry the unknown fears thinking through the details of a stillbirth and all the fears of that “when/where/how”… I think of all the different possible issues and birth defects this baby could have. Each possibility bringing a different string of life's reality woven amid it.  Many of my thoughts are focusing on Turner Syndrome, Down Syndrome, and the horror of miscarriage.  I have come to grips with the possible reality of Turner Syndrome, and feel that is a reality we could handle, a best case scenario of sorts in light of all we've been told it might be.  If I'm completely honest, I'll admit I don’t want the baby to have Down Syndrome, but of course will be more than happy to accept that if that’s what it is.  I don't know anything about Triosomy 18, and while that is something being tested, it isn't a likelihood really talked about as something the baby may have.

I just desperately pray I won’t miscarry.  Oh, I pray earnestly not to miscarry. I pray fervently the test results come back clear of all things.  Although, this would then indicate the baby may have a heart defect, which will be an entire different beast of burden to endure and enter into.

Oh the cycle of insanity just doesn't stop within.  Always turning, always burning.

I breathe in and out – willing myself to pray, to sleep, to stop thinking, to just somehow… continue.

In order to try trick my body into sleep, I take an over-the-counter sleeping pill at 7pm and climb in bed with our six year old with hopes we will both drift off by 9pm…  Most nights I wake up again by midnight, and I find it works well to then take the prescription sleeping pill they gave me, which kicks in quickly, but does not last very long, yet usually allows me to get to morning with my brain relatively silent.

I had to stop setting a daily alarm clock back at the end of January, as it is nearly impossible to get myself out of bed before 6:30am right now.  What a far cry from the seven-day-a-week 3am religious cake business work hours I have faithfully kept for the past six years.  Now, my husband showers and gets ready for work, wakes me up, making sure I know I need to get up and get going so I can get the kids and myself to school and work on time.

I find myself incredibly grateful for faithfully listening to God’s whisper back in December as I started cutting back on cakes. I was able to fairly easily step into the full time work position I was offered a few weeks ago at church.  I'm grateful my cake business, which is typically ramping into absolute overload by early spring, I have continued to to dial back on.  The days I do have to get up at 3am for cake work is absolutely killing me.

I've somehow managed to go from an overachieving, energetic, work-a-holic to a big, lazy, worthless lump-of-nothing every morning.  A big, lazy, worthless lump-of-nothing my entire day…  I feel sick all the time.  And not just a "morning sickness" sick... while I'm sure that's part of it, this is an all together different "unable-to-function" kind of sick. 

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