Princess, the first baby, was all natural, but after her birth, I developed complications with my Fallopian Tubes. Hence, both Sweetness and Duchess are IVF babies with very different journey’s.
Riddle me this, how does an innocent, perfect, 3yr old angel, smuggle a bottle of hand lotion into her crib, without her parents seeing it, at bed time? Wait, there’s more! How then, does she have the presence of mind to form INTENT, and wait until her parents are settled (I was not asleep, but Merrill was, just saying) then pull out said bottle of hand lotion, and commence to spreading it all over the crib, her body, her hair, her blankets, her pillows, THEN say, “Mommy, I yucky” . Yes baby. Yes you are.
Four years ago, as I lie on my back, in that horribly uncomfortable bed, I turned my head to Merrill sitting in the corner of the room, and with tears forming in the corner of my eyes I simply said to him, “It is what it is” . The road to that bed, in that room, had been a long, painful, emotional journey, but we were done. Well, Merrill was done. I, for whatever reason, was hell bent on self-destruction, at all costs. He wasn’t going to watch my journey of destruction anymore. He just wasn’t, because as a man he should be able to fix me, protect me, make me stop crying, but alas, he couldn’t. He was just as helpless as I was, and he didn’t understand why I was so focused on destroying myself. We KNEW that the consequence of FAILURE was going to be the mind numbing, crushing blow to my Spirit. “After this, we’re DONE, right?” he asked me on night through tears. ” Yes, Doll, we’ll be finished. I promise”. When I finally, in defeat conceded to his authority, he agreed to the injections, the hormones, and the mood swings. All that went through my head, as I lie on that bed and looked over to him. The realization of the finality of this situation, had just happened settled in, and I wept, because either way, the search was over. Forever!
IVF isn’t just about two people wanting a baby, it’s about the soul crushing process to be a mommy. Many and I mean many of you take that ability for granted, but for the few, for whom the Lord did not bless with fertility, the non-ability to have a baby is devastating. We were successful with Sweetness, 1st time, but it took us another SIX, SIX grueling years to do it again with Duchess. Now that she’s here, we’ve been the on-our-toes kind of parents one sees in the Dennis The Menace Movies. LOL, Duchess The Menace. I like that. The OB/Gyn who had given us Sweetness, had given us Duchess with our last two eggs and cautioned us, with the steely gaze that only a woman whose done this for a lifetime can give, that the chance of success would be only 15%. I had played my last hand, my only cards left, on 15%. Sigh. I remember it like it were yesterday. “It was, what it was”. The two eggs took, one egg split, so two turned to three, back to one in the blink of an eye. Can you imagine the panic of losing two babies invitro, then begging to keep the 3rd? So, back to last night, as I turned on the light and gazed upon my beautiful little Menacing Angel, I saw the white thick lotion coating everything within her path and thought, Thank you Jesus! Thank
you! I was indeed blessed. Friends, I beg you to take this with you today:
1. Perspective is everything
2. What you’re stressing over today, someone will desperately want tomorrow.
Okay, I gotta go. We wiped her off and now that she has baby smooth skin, we’ll shower her. “It is what it is” , and it was what it was, at all costs. Well even then, it almost WASN’T. What on earth would I write about if I didn’t have her? I will caution though, that I’m thinking she’s a mutant. Some nuclear mess must have happend in that dish,
because she is soooo smart. Be Blessed. Remember you set the Tone, you ARE the Example. BE KIND to each other. Show GRACE and MERCY to all those who cross your path today. With your Daily Affirmations complete, enjoy your Saturday.
