Round Three, part 4

Sometimes life is just plain hard. And there's no way around it.

Just 7 days after being discharged from my c-section, I am alone with two rambunctious kiddos. And everything that could go wrong, does.

Scott ran me to the hospital this morning so that I could drop off my milk for Porter. We came home and Scott had literally just walked out the door for work when I realized I didn't have any more storage bottles for my breast milk. The NICU is very strict about how breast milk is handled and they require moms to use fresh storage bottles each time we pump. We are not allowed to reuse them, so when I realized I didn't have any more there was only one thing to do. I had to drive myself to the hospital with the kiddos in tow. I'm not supposed to be driving. I called my neighbor, but her kiddos were napping. I called a couple of other friends who were either unavailable at the time or the call went to voice mail. I had less than two hours until my next pumping session, so driving was inevitable.

Both Ella Beth and Landon are completely on edge right now. Telling them to load back up into the car was like telling them they could never have dessert again. Not to mention the slightest correction from me and they are a mess of tears. I wish their little hearts could have been protected from so much during the last 12 weeks of this crazy year, but this is a fallen world and sometimes life is just plain hard. Even for our children. They have missed the normalcy of life; the ease of being 5 and 4. Homeschooling on a routine schedule, field trips every week or so, playing outside on beautiful days, having Mama home all of the time. But life hasn't been routine or normal here for quite some time. And they still haven't met their baby brother who they pray for every day. I know it's hard on them.

It's hard on me.

Every day for the last 10 days I have been without my youngest son. I didn't get to see him for more than 12 hours after he was born, and every day since I have had to leave the NICU without him. In my post-partum room I could hear other babies crying in their mothers' rooms, only to be picked up and comforted. Those mamas gave birth and got to be with their babies right away. It's unfair to be separated from my tiny baby that I just brought into this world. No matter how "prepared" I was for our NICU stay from over two months of preterm labor, it is almost unbearable. Sometimes I don't know where the strength comes from for me to stand up and keep going; nothing is easy emotionally or physically.

The pain of healing from a c-section is rough, but add on top of that going back and forth to the hospital on a daily basis, caring for two emotionally strung out kiddos, and pumping every 3 hours around the clock...and the pain just adds up. I know I should be doing less and resting more, I just don't know how to work either of those into my life right now. When I am home, I have two needy children who want to be by my side every single minute. They want to "help" with everything, they want me to play, get them food and drinks, go outside; they get sad when I can't do it all, and they don't understand why. Ella Beth often says, "I wish it was like before when your belly didn't hurt and you could play with me." :( When I am at the hospital, there is a tiny little fella who needs his Mama. Or is it his Mama that needs him? Alarms and monitors are always going off, sweet nurses are  coming in and out, I am pumping or nursing (or both) every 3 hours around the clock there, too. I don't know how to fit resting and healing into my days. And it hurts.

Tonight I had to give the kiddos a bath on my own. I got them in the tub with just the right amount of water and bubbles. It was time to pump, yet again, so I left them alone for all of 10 minutes. Now usually there will be a little water on the side of the tub from innocent playing, but not tonight. No, tonight there was a huge mess. Landon went to the potty before he got in the tub, but his little bladder decided he needed to go again. So he peed in a play cup. Instead of just leaving it until Mama came, he and Ella Beth decided to pour it into the potty. Well, they missed. I walked in to find a huge puddle of pee all over the floor next to and behind the toilet. Unfortunately for me, a puddle of pee is not something that can just sit until Daddy is home to clean it up. And letting the kiddos clean it up just wasn't an option. So here I am on all fours cleaning up pee all around the toilet. I am having to stretch and reach, and I can just feel my incision screaming at me. I am fighting off tears as much as possible because I have two overly sensitive kiddos watching my every move.

I want to scream at them for making me have to do this. I want to curl up into a ball and just cry over the pain and frustration that I feel. I want to shake my fists and just get mad.

But what's the point? Sometimes life is just plain hard.

And it is at times like these when I can do nothing more than cry out to God for mercy. To let Him know that I have reached my limit. At least for today. Tomorrow will bring its own set of trials, but I can't think of those tonight. Tonight, I just have to choose to believe that God is molding me with fire. Fire is hot, and it's unrelenting. But in the end it can produce great things, great outcomes. So I make up my mind over and over and over again to trust that God knows what He's doing.

"When you can't see God's hand, trust His heart."