Blessed Be Your Name

These are the days I hardly know how to put words to.

The last few weeks have been so hard.  So, so hard.

They’ve been excruciating physically; but even more, they’ve been a mountain emotionally.

In retrospect, I’m choosing to look back and call them weeks of healing instead of weeks of anguish.  What essentially fleshed out as sky-high anxiety that morphed into deep, can’t get out of bed, can’t stop crying depression also fleshed out as serious soul searching and an uprooting of deeply seated shame.

I am forever grateful.  For my sweet friend, Jeannine, who met me in the Target parking lot to do a quick drop off. Our interaction should have taken two minutes and instead, she took one look into my eyes, hugged me, and prayed over me. When she finished she said, “Michelle, is this physical or emotional?”  And suddenly all the words I’d not been able to utter to anyone came tumbling out.  She didn’t say much.  She just listened.  Spoke a few powerful words of deep truth and direction.  And then she hugged me again and sent me on my way, but the cycle to healing had been set in motion.  Outside in a parking lot next to the clothing drop off bins.  You never know when or where Jesus is going to work through His people.

A few days later my sister asked me how I was doing a bit more insistently.  She’d been asking.  I just hadn’t answered and circumvented the subject.  But that day was the darkest of the dark and she didn’t quit.  I typed between sobs and finally got to where I could talk.

That night David and I decided to switch from our current home birth plan with a midwife to an OB/GYN and hospital birth.  I was not feeling safe and realizing how much the anxiety was stemming from that single factor.  But it took those two conversations for me to realize truth.

I made the decision to home birth for a few surfacey reasons (one of them being able to hopefully avoid antibiotics for group B strep) and for a much deeper, shame based reason I never told anyone.  But mostly, I made it because I was running away from something, not toward something.

It ended up being a terrible fit for me.  But instead of realizing it, I kept trying to power through.  I thought the anxiety was my fault.  That God was trying to teach me how to let go of control and trust.  I was convinced if I could just give up my need to control, I could learn to trust Him and it would all be fine.  But instead of me being able to work through my fears, my anxiety skyrocketed.

God kept giving me words like, “I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord,” as I lay in the darkness.  Over and over I read verses like, “When you walk through the fire, I will deliver you.”  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was up against something life threatening.  I was terrified of losing our baby even though most of the verses seemed to be about my life.  Finally one morning I was convinced I just needed to get out of Isaiah so I randomly flipped to Psalms expecting to see words of praise.  Instead the words were so similar it was uncanny.

That week as we talked it over and decided to transition, the anxiety began to fade away like the morning fog when the sun burns through it.  Over and over, I caught myself letting out enormous exhalations and the muscles in my upper back loosened.

The only problem was, I was 35 weeks gestation and when I called the office where I’d delivered the boys I couldn’t even get past the receptionist.  The next office said I should send records for them to review and they’d call me back if a dr approved me (they never did).  Had it not been for a friend from nursing school who knows all the L&D people and who sent texts to my Dr every hour begging him to take me, I would probably still be stuck. She’s the biggest advocate for women I’ve ever seen and this isn’t even close to the first time she has helped me out, just because that’s who she is.

Over and over as I told people about our decision, I heard words of profound affirmation.  They came from my hospital birthing friends and my home birthing friends.  The one person I wasn’t going to tell was my homebirthed her four kids, somewhat anti-medical chiropractor.  At the very next appointment she’d barely started working on me when she asked, “What did you decide about delivery?”  Nothing like point blank.  So I told her.  “I’m so relieved,” she said. “Pregnant women need to listen to their bodies.  You weren’t feeling safe and I felt really anxious about you trying a home birth.  I told _____ (her secretary) that you are planning a home birth and I just feel really anxious about the outcome if you go ahead with it.  I can see and feel the difference in your body.”

Meanwhile, baby boy moved into a better position in utero within hours of our decision.

I’ve always known our bodies and brains are connected, but the astronomical difference was mind blowing.  I started sleeping most nights instead of spending most of them awake.  The intense fear of death and the constant verses about walking through fire ended.  And even before I told anyone about our decision, friends started pouring out blessing after blessing on us.  I looked at David in disbelief.  “Where is all of this coming from?  It feels as though God simply opened up the kingdom of heaven to confirm his approval.  Because probably if this would have happened earlier, I would have been sure it’s a sign I should keep pushing through.”

I’ve learned so much in these past few months.  While I wish our sweet baby would not have needed to be privy to the cortisol load coursing through my body, I refuse to feel shame for being such a slow learner.  As my chiropractor would say, “Don’t read that script.”

I’ve learned (again) that my default can be to assume the toughest option will always be what God wants.  I know exactly where it’s coming from; but it’s taken a lot of healing and rewiring to realize He is a God of so much grace, love, and mercy.  While it’s true that we are always needing to learn more, He sees me as valuable, intelligent, capable of making a good decision, and worthy.  This is not the default script that runs through my head.  I’m guessing I’m not the only one who struggles with a shame based mentality, am I right?  Over and over I wonder what would get unleashed if we lived out of who God sees us as without holdbacks?

(Cannot wait to get rid of those compression hose once and for all.)

I learned that it is very, very important for women to get health care and birth where they are comfortable.  This is not about the importance of hospitals, but about being where you feel safe.  Feeling that level of anxiety made me understand women who feel that kind of anxiety about a hospital birth.  It is a real thing. And you are not just going to mentally power through it.  This may not even look the same for different births.  It’s very possible that you will do one delivery one place and feel more comfortable with another in a subsequent pregnancy; but listen to your body!

And I learned again the incredible power of women speaking into each other’s lives. In the Target parking lot.  Across voxer.  At church.  In Facebook messenger.  The power of being fully present … enough to help someone understand their own heart … is the power of community.  It’s where truth is revealed and healing happens.

Now here we are, a little over two weeks later.

I’m dealing with the normal trepidation about labor and delivery, but the overarching anxiety is gone.

Physically I’m so uncomfortable I can hardly walk.  I haven’t been able to sit in a recliner or on a couch for weeks and even a normal chair means leaning forward because the pressure is too intense to sit against the back of  the stool.

I don’t know why this pregnancy has been so difficult.  Every woman who has birthed while over 40 always nods knowingly and says, “It’s different when you’re 40.”  Maybe that’s it.  It just feels odd to me that Bella was my easiest and I was 38.  How can that make such a difference?  Maybe it’s the 3 in five years in your upper 30’s.  And maybe it’s just an unknown.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it really didn’t matter.  It’s hard.  And that’s ok.  Trying so hard to find the reason was a little like saying, “If I can just find the reason, maybe I can fix it.”  Maybe my body does feel weak and broken this time and maybe it’s not, but this time is just hard.

About that time, someone I follow on Instagram posted about the demands of life and referenced an article called, “Move over, Sex and Drugs.  Ease is the New Vice.”  I read her words and slowly realized how much I want to run away from suffering.  I don’t want pain.  I hate being so uncomfortable all the time.  I don’t want to think about being pregnant for another two to three weeks but neither do I want to think about labor. (Or as Adam put it, “Sounds like you’re between a rock and a concrete berm.”)

But what if suffering is not something to shy away from, but an invitation?  It is through suffering that we come to understand the depths of grace.  In our weakness, the most simple acts of care and kindness feel like angels of mercy and the pouring out of the heavens.  And it is only in suffering that we come to know how very much our God can carry us through.  We come to know these truths in direct proportion to the depths of our suffering.

So rather than running away, I need to pray for strength to walk boldly, willingly, and voluntarily into what we know is every woman’s personal Gethsemane.

This song has become my mantra.  Because really, this “suffering” is due to the biggest gift and blessing on the face of earth.  The gift of life.  Unspeakably precious.  Undeserved.  But so loved and cherished.

And so I sing,

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there’s pain in the offering

Blessed be your name.

Every blessing you pour out I’ll

Turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord,

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord ….

Because I can still hardly comprehend the fact that God is giving us this treasured gift of life.  Suffering always ends in redemption when God is part of it.  But rarely does it also include such a beautiful, incredible, life changing gift.  I hope this sweet boy knows how fiercely, intensely, enormously he is loved.  And how grateful I am for the gift of healing I experienced because of him.

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