Life is a long book, with many chapters, plot twists and turns, characters that come and go, good and bad. The thing I am trying to accept is that all that happens in chapters one through ten affects all the chapters that are to follow. Good or bad, and that's ok. I would say about 95% of what has happened in the first chapters of my life has been completely positive. I grew up in a wonderfully perfect family, on a peaceful little farm. My parents were amazing and some how I grew up to be an upstanding citizen in society, making good decision, and doing the right thing. It's pretty amazing, looking back on it now with the eyes of a parent.
But as time went on there were twist and turns, broken dreams, life lessons learned, and loss. Basically life happened. Things that I could have never foreseen happening did, good and bad. I met an amazing guy at a random convention in high school and now we are a family, unbelievable. I live hundreds of miles away from own family, doing a job that had you told me ten years ago I would be good at or would be doing, I would have most likely punched you in the face. I have a miracle child for a son, with a scar on his chest, but no memory of all he has been through. I survived a parent's worst nightmare, with what I would like to think was an amazing amount of grace. I'm twenty nine and my father has been gone for two years, unthinkable.
Now as our little family begins writing a new chapter I am continually frustrated by the fact that all we went through changes the current experience. When I got pregnant I had some sort of hope for a do over. A chance for a "normal" maternity leave, without doctor's visit's, funerals, and surgeries following close behind. I have tried so hard to give this baby it's far shot, trying to picture the perfectly healthy baby, a ride home from the hospital filled with joy instead of phone calls to cardiologists. But all of it changes how you experience things, it just does, and that's ok. But it's different. When people found out I was pregnant the initial excitement was closely followed by concern. "How does the heart beat sound?" "How many ultrasounds do you have to have?" "Are you scared?" Then the conversation always end with "Oh don't be worried, that's crazy, it will be totally fine." Obviously it isn't that crazy if that was their first thoughts and it isn't even their child.
People tell me it's irrational that I am worried about something being wrong with this child. But it's the only experience I've had with parenthood, so I don't think it's too far off base to think it might happen again. It's just like how I can't imagine this child looking anything other than exactly like Zane. That's the only baby I have ever had, so of course all my other kids should look like that. That is genetically impossible, but everyone thinks that with their second child. This baby having a heart condition or something else wrong is more likely than it being a clone of Zane.
Don't get me wrong I'm not consumed by worried and fear all the time. It won't cross my mind for long periods of time, then something happens, like the above mentioned conversations, or me bursting into tears at the thought of an ultrasound, or getting a slightly sick feeling in my stomach when I hear the heart beat instead of the pure joy like when I heard Zane's. That's when I am reminded how much the whole ordeal of Zane's heart condition really has affected me. It makes it different, it puts me on edge, and makes me seem like a terribly negative person, when really I'm not. That's just my story and I pray for happier chapter ahead.
That is my hope as well; that more of your upcoming chapters will be positive and joyful. Like Garth said, "...life is like a river..." we have to keep looking in the direction we're flowing. The trees we ran into earlier, around that last bend, are behind us now and yes, we have dents in the canoe, but we face the way we are heading. You are a brave woman and richly blessed. When my grandmother died, while I was pregnant with you, the one paper I found on her refrigerator was this one: Count your blessings every day and let the rest go. Good advice. Your name means what her name meant, Noble strength and happiness, which was her personality, and yours as well.
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