Instincts?

They say "maternal instincts" kick in when a baby is born. Now personally, I'm inclined to believe that's a load of horse manure. Unless of course, the only maternal "instinct" is to ask a boatload of questions about subjects with no clear answers. Love for her? Got that in immeasurable quantities. Cuddles? For as long as there are hours in the day. Clues? Not so many. Maybe my instincts would have come in with my milk and I got gypped twice. Either way, the longer I do this mom thing the more I wonder what's actually going on around my house.

For example: Is she allergic to her formula because she sneezes when she eats and seems so gassy afterwards?  Should her poop actually be the consistency of glue? How much head growth is an acceptable daily gain and how much should I panic over? Is there a way to pack a diaper bag so that I'm not, in fact, packing full-on luggage containing everything in her nursery?  If she's fussy and stops when I pick her up, does that mean all she wanted was to be held, or is there still something else wrong and I'm just not psychic enough to figure it out? At what point does fussiness become a sign of hydrocephalus and when is it just gas?

Gee, a lot of my questions lately revolve around gas and poop. And hydrocephalus. Can't forget that one. I wish I wasn't so easily frightened, shaken to the core, about possibly missing the signs for something I don't want her to have in the first place. It doesn't help that I keep hearing Dr. Aldona explaining that once the swelling in her back goes down, we'll need to be extra vigilant about the hydro as it may show its self then.

Well, the swelling has gone down. Beautifully in fact... and I'm too spastic to let myself celebrate the way I should. This morning I nearly had a stroke when I did her head measurement and it came out a full cm larger than the day before. That kind of growth should take a week, not a night.  I measured twice. I measured three times. I called her dad in to measure. He was, after all,  the one who measured the day before.  Sure enough, when he measured the size was up but only by a few points of a centimeter.  Wow. what a relief! But still, I made him measure again. Then show me how he measured. We'd both received the same instructions for measuring, yet got different results.  It was maddening really, to realize that so subjective a thing was my only tool to ascertain a potentially huge threat to the most precious treasure I've ever been entrusted with. After my heart stopped sinking into my stomach, I handed the whole situation over to God yet again. Why do I do that? Give something to God and then take it back without even realizing it until I find myself in some sort of panic? If God has something in His hand, I don't need to worry about it.  That goes along with "casting your cares on Him for He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7) If he's carrying the weight of my worry, and the trust of my heart to care for the thing I hold most dear, then why (WHY!) do I let myself get sick with concern over a potential occurence that I can't actually change? Is this also some kind of maternal instinct? To worry and wish with all your being that you could control something that you have no way to influence? If so, maybe I do have instincts after all.

More likely though, I think that is human instinct rather than mom instinct. Learning to trust your Maker is not as easy as it probably should be. For me (and I think most people) its day-by-day. Its not something you can do once and then go, "Yay! It's done. Lemme check that one off the old to-do list." Like a relationship, it takes time to build. You have to give Him your fears, experience them again the next day, and then hand them back over again. And again. And again. The only upshot is I don't think God holds any of this against me. Courage isn't the absence of fear, its the ability to act in spite of it. Faith is a little like courage. If you saw your answer clearly, if you were unafraid of the outcome, it would be easy to trust and have faith. Its when you can't see; its when you have the most to lose- that faith becomes faith at all. And so it is with trembling hands each day that I take up that tape measure. And it is with a trembling heart that I hand her, each time, over to God.

11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” 13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” 16 The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” Judges 7