Falling Off a Mountain
Sunday, February 11, 2018
I needed a lot of help working through my fears with this pregnancy. I talked to the baby every day asking him or her to be healthy. I talked to therapists, did positive affirmations and meditations, created a Birth Team, worked on my fears and doubts around trust, and read pretty much every birthing book and video known to mankind. I listened to the Birth story of every woman who would tell me.
When we found out our sweet little baby was sick and needed to go to the NICU, it was like falling off a mountain that I’d just spent months climbing. I had to work my way through a lot of really hard emotions. Anger, self pity, guilt, sorrow, and mostly the big fat fear that was slowly taking over and choking me. Now, a few days into holding my daughter in the NICU surrounded by loud beeping machines and other sick babies, having not slept in days, I’m beginning to see things differently.
This experience wasn’t what I thought it was going to be or prepared myself for, and yet it’s mine. It is shaping and molding and deepening the woman I’m becoming and the woman I want to be. The work I did the whole pregnancy on trust and self care and faith has sustained me these past few days. I take the learnings, even if they weren’t what I thought I wanted or needed, and welcome them.
This entire week has shaken me, and through that shaking I feel a deep growth and understanding around my body, my baby, my partner, and my life. Is this the Birth and post birth experience I would have dreamed about and meditated on? No, but it’s the one I got, so I welcome it with acceptance. Is it fair? No, it’s not fair. But I learned a long time ago that life doesn’t play that game.
I’ll take my stories and learnings, the strengthening and stretching, the wisdom I’ve gained, breathe it into my bones and pass it on to my children with a knowing that the only way to have gained it was to have gone through it myself.
Hanging here for a bit longer with lots of light at the end of our tunnel which we are ever so grateful for. I’m so proud of Jeremy and me. We are stronger than we ever knew and such a rock solid team. Thank you for all the love you've sent from around the world, it means everything to us. So proud of our Kopila family this week.