Shower!!

I just had to post today about all the fun I had yesterday. My mom and several of my close friends collaborated to throw me the most wonderful baby shower ever!  I was so thrilled to spend the day with so many very special people! Evangeline is one lucky little baby with so many who care about her, root for her and who gave so generously to help her Momma get all the million and one things that a first baby needs to be safe and happy. 

I was blessed with so many beautiful things including: a glider, a crib, hand made ruffle socks, a complete travel system, a baby tub, an electric breast pump, a bassinet, tons of outfits and too many other precious little things to name!  I think that my baby is spoiled and she isn't even born yet. She may have spent the first nine months naked, but she certainly has a wardrobe worthy of a tiny fashionista now. I can only hope all this glamour doesn't go to her head.

We had some really great food at the shower as well including the fab spinach dip my bestie makes, my mom's pinwheel sandwiches and of course, the baby buggy watermelon my mom saw instructions for on line and just had to try her hand at making.  (I think it rocked!!) There were also lots of other scrumptious things including cupcakes and cake and meatballs and pasta salad and.... wow. I'm getting hungry just writing this all out.  Lets just cut this part short and just say the food was yummy and plentiful. ;)

There were shower games, of course, planned and executed by another friend who kept everybody laughing and entertained. Plus it was just nice sitting and talking in between to people I care about and don't see nearly often enough since work and pregnancy related sleepiness keep me fairly occupied.

I suppose I wanted to post about something as "ordinary" as a baby shower because I know that for a lot of women who get the news I got all those weeks ago, its a struggle to get back to anything closely resembling ordinary.  You feel out of control, like you are in a dream. Your emotions get jerked around from excited to frightened to angry to numb to deep sadness and back again in no particular order. Its easy to understand why, when you add in typical pregnancy hormones, some women have a hard time pulling themselves out of the roller coaster ride that is a spina bifida diagnosis to find themselves back to that place where they started- excited and eager to meet their baby.  That place where no other emotion exists than the one of bliss when you think of that little person bumping around your belly- that combining of you and your partner's DNA.  I get it. I really do. Bliss free from worry is a rare commodity to come by for any parent- especially for one who has to face the idea that all their ideas about being a parent have suddenly and irrevocably changed.

I want to post this to encourage any other women who walk this road behind me. Your family and friends can be your biggest asset. You can draw encouragement from them just as you draw strength from your faith. It may take a while....but you CAN find that excited feeling again. It might be work to get there. A daily exercise in laying down your fear and picking up your smile...but really...has worry ever helped change anything?  I am learning each day that worry has been an over-rated part of my life. Like an emotional appendix, serving no real purpose.  Our babies are stronger than we know. Our Creator is bigger than we guess. And every fear will eventually be conquered by reality...that basher and smasher of all things rooted in the future. What we fear will likely never be an issue. What we don't know will eventually become clear. I just want to encourage every lady out there that with support, patience and determination you WILL find that excitement again. You will do ordinary pregnant woman things.  All things are possible...even this "small" thing.

As one final illustration of what I mean, I will tell you about the ninja show my husband was watching for a while. It was a televised competition where men tried to complete this course in  the fastest time to win a title. All the competitors were athletes. Not a one was unfit in any way. The course was brutal. But the hardest part was saved for last when the competitors were already tired.  They had to use their finger tips to move along this ledge barely wide enough to grip, then they had to fling their bodies from this tiny ledge to another ledge further up in the air. From that ledge, they had to jump yet again and land between these two walls, throw their bodies straight out and wedge themselves between the walls....since the walls had neither hand nor foot holds.  They then had to spider crawl along between the walls to the finish line.  Many couldn't get to the final challenge. Some that did, fell off the skinny ledge, some couldn't make the jump...but at the halfway mark of the show NONE had successfully made the body fling to stick between those walls.  Finally, this one competitor was interviewed (just as all the others had been)  and he was a wiry, but cocky little guy. "I will finish this course" he said with Japanese subtitles, "I have seen myself do it." and sure enough, this guy climbed like a rehus monkey, jumped like a spider, and stuck the landing perfectly. He made it to the finish. Seeing him do what before was presumed impossible, gave energy to the other contestants. After him, many more made the landing. They all knew it could be done!

 For my situation, that wiry little competitor who helped pave the way for me has been my mom. From the moment we found out, even while my brain was mush and reeling, my mom's excitement to be a grandmother was never diminished. She wasn't worried about the challenges the baby would have. She knew we would meet them. She visualized it in her mind. She showed me it was possible. Even my husband who was just as close to the situation as I and who was just as knocked backwards jumped up before me, ready to put fear aside and take the challenge. I followed after.   But I COULD follow, because I had seen it done.

So, I guess what I'm saying with that is even if nobody else is excited about your situation...if you become excited, you will show everybody else its possible.  Somebody has to be the first one to put down worry and pick up a victorious mental picture of your baby thriving and your family rallying arround to support. Once somebody does. Everybody else then knows how to follow.

 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. Mark 4:26-27