Learning to be content

For the most part, through this journey, I have not really thought of my boys as preemies.  I read about women who were grieving their decreased pregnancy times, their inability to bring a baby home immediately, the NICU time, etc.  And I've had my moments with that, but found them few and far between.  Compared with my last pregnancy, I made it 6 weeks further and my boys survived.  What more could I ask for??  And I was already big and uncomfortable...definitely not missing out on getting even bigger and even more uncomfortable. (though I absolutely would have if it had been an option to keep them healthier)  And I knew long before they were born that I wouldn't be taking them home with me the first time.  The days did begin to drag on, but I never doubted they would make it.

But this weekend, as I'm standing in church surrounded by families, I felt as though I was grieving for the preemie state for the first time.  Sure, I've been frustrated with the feedings and thought things would be easier if they were born later, if I could have had even 1 week into the 3rd trimester.  But this weekend, I really felt the weight of all our family missed out on because of their prematurity.  Because of isolation, there are only a handful of people outside the family who have even met our boys, much less been able to hold them.  I don't get to show my boys off, bring them with me out in public.  We have had so much support from our church family, but it will be another 3-4 months before they will be able to see these blessings that were prayed for so diligently.  When we knew we were having twins, I dreamed of sticking them in our carriers and bringing them to church and small group, putting them in the stroller and heading out to just walk in the mall, just to get out again after all the bedrest.  I always swore I wouldn't be one of those moms who would never do anything or go anywhere, whose child had to sleep in his crib at exactly 9:00 or the world would end.  I wanted my boys to be able to nap in the car on the way up to meet Daddy for lunch in the park, to be able to continue their nap in the stroller while I jogged.  Of course, I completely underestimated the task of breastfeeding multiples.  Absolutely no way to do that discreetly in the park while we nibble on sandwiches!!  But I've still worked hard to try to keep the boys sleeping schedules and such flexible, even though their eating isn't so flexible, and we have no where we can go...

I found it odd that the pain of this, of not just me being housebound but the boys, would hit while I am finally able to attend a church service for the first time in 6 months.  Devil works constantly, tempting me to be discontent after the boys slept for nearly 12 hours at night and had a great morning feed, allowing me to get out of the house.  Church is also still one of the places I feel the pain of losing Reagan the most.  It's the only place we'll still go where she would have come along.  Again, we have some wonderful support from there, but also a lot of hurtful things said to us from those who were once friends from there.  After the sermon, we sang 2 songs.  The first was one I had never heard before and spoke to me about trusting God when we cannot understand.  The second was It is Well with my Soul which is a simply amazing song, but one we sung at Reagan's memorial.  And I couldn't stop the tears from flowing.  (for anyone who doesn't know the story of Spafford and how he wrote the hymn, you can read it here.  So powerful.