Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy
16 "A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me." 17 So some of his disciples said to one another, "What is this that he says to us, 'A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'; and, 'because I am going to the Father'?" 18 So they were saying, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We do not know what he is talking about." 19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, "Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, 'A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me'? 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
I heard J's sermon on the above text on Sunday and knew--as he did--that God never does anything by accident (including timing certain readings with certain life events of certain congregants). That being said, I'm getting a little tired of waiting during this "little while" for S to show up. At least Jesus never fails; we've had several--well, not failures, in the last days. Just false starts, so to speak.
Friday afternoon and evening (April 24) I began experiencing continuous back pain--sometimes a sign of labor. I got excited; I took a bath; I walked a few miles with Gma E. I went to bed hopeful, as did J (who gets so excited about a backache? Expectant parents, that's who). I woke up Saturday morning, and the pain was pretty much gone. I was bummed, but hey! We were still one day from the due date!
Sunday afternoon I woke up from my pretty-much-required pregnancy afternoon nap because I was experiencing back pain. It was definitely more intense than Friday's. I also noticed that I was contracting practically continuously (hard belly that never relaxed). After a few hours of this, I began thinking this might be IT (that is, ACTIVE labor). I called the midwife, who told me to wait an hour and if the pain continued, I should come in. I was rocking back and forth while I stood, or walking, or sitting for 30 seconds and standing up, which my mom pointed out was what I did when I was in labor with P. So we left for Sanford, got into triage at about 11, and spent an hour and a half walking around, seeing what would happen. In the wee hours the nurse (in consultation with the midwife) said I WAS contracting every four minutes, but the peak of the contractions was lasting about two minutes, which was why I felt like the contractions never stopped. Basically, I wasn't dialated enough for them to accept me--UNLESS I wanted to be induced. We had told Steph (the nurse) when we arrived that we wanted to experience a natural birth if at all possible, and with this in mind, we decided to stay in Sioux Falls (by this point it was about 2am) and go to my scheduled appointment on Monday morning. In the morning, the back pain woke me up again but subsided before my appointment, at which we found that I'd dialated a little more (to a 3 with 75% effacement), but again not a whole lot. We were crestfallen, to say the least. We decided to go home and wait.
Fast forward to today. I woke up due to contractions--the more predictable, peak-and-valley sort, and started timing them at about 7:30. They were five minutes apart. We called the midwife who said to come in, which we did. We saw her at about 10am, and were crestfallen--AGAIN--to find that I was still a 3 at about 75% effacement. She recommended we take a bunch of walks, eat a light lunch, and see what happened. So we did. Mall walking--with a nice, distracting stop at Old Navy--followed by a lunch in which J was convinced my contractions were coming every 4.5 minutes, followed by an hour long walk in fresh air, followed by our current stop at Barnes and Noble--our second stop here in four days. We hadn't been here for months, maybe even half a year, before that. I figured I'd catch up on blogging and fill in those who want to know the silly details of S's progress toward using his lungs and crying (and finally showing us his face so we can kiss it!!).
Needless to say, I'm feeling impatient, frustrated, and annoyed--not the least of which is self-directed, because I know a zillion other people are experiencing much, MUCH more stressful things at this time (and have before). So who am I to complain? Even the contractions, which are stupidly painful, aren't enough to make me a zombie yet. So with that in mind, I commend the following list of thankfulness for this experience:
-Good health for me and S. S has been terrific in all of this. His heart rate has been steady and strong, he's still moving at a healthy rate, and basically he's never shown any indication that he NEEDS some help being born due to any health risks. As his Aunt J says, he's like his Daddy -- taking his sweet time. :)
-The time I've had with J. Despite the let-downs and frustration, we've had time together to talk, to walk, to be quiet together. He's awesome.
-Support and prayers of many family and friends.
-Excellent health care. I truly can't wait to actually get admitted to the hospital -- the L & D unit and the Birth Place are like an exclusive spa. Pics to follow whenever we're actually there.
So there you have it -- early labor updates! God willing S will appear sometime today, or early tomorrow (hey, nine hours of five minute contractions have to get us somewhere, right?), and all of us, will be like the woman Jesus talks about: "[When] she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."
Oh, right. That's the last (really, the first) thankfulness: that Jesus is with us, and always will be, in all of our waiting.
1 comment:
I think Sam knows what a wonderful mommy he has, and he just wants you to hold onto him a little bit longer before you start sharing him with the rest of us. Who can blame him? I love you SO much, Em! You, Jon, Paul and Sam are all in my prayers.
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