Bring the Rain

I recently found the blog of Angie Smith, the wife of Todd Smith, one of the vocalists in the group Selah. It was brought to my attention by one of the members of a preemie parenting forum that I participate in and details the store of Audrey, their fourth child, who only lived for 2.5 hours after her birth.

And it brought it home to me.

How blessed I really am.

While Elisa never had any of the problems little Audrey did, things could have been very different. They could have turned out way worse than they did. Elisa could not be here right now, sleeping peacefully in my arms.

It reminded me of things I didn't really put down into words at the time we first began this journey. When I originally landed in the hospital at 26 weeks pregnant and in imminent danger of delivering. The doctors were preparing us for the eventuality. And I remember the terror. I remember thinking she's less than 2 pounds. It's too early. I remember asking Andrew and my parents to tell the doctors to put me under for the c-section. I did not want to be awake when they took her out. I was so afraid of how she would look, I was so afraid of her not breathing. I would have much rather been asleep during the process and woken up to find she had passed than to have had to watch it while prone on the operating table.

But God gave me three more weeks to prepare. He performed several miracles during that time. He baffled the medical staff as things that occurred just DON'T happen. Dialation does NOT go backwards. But it did. Twice. Full blown labor, contractions, dialating stopped completely for 2 weeks.

So as traumatic as these last few months have been, it COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE.

I thank God for what He's done. For where He's brought us. I pray that He would use my experience in whatever way He needs it to be used. I don't know what that is yet. But I don't want to miss it.

For those that are interested, here is the link to the blog: http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html