Don't Miss the Dance

My pregnancy was the perfect pregnancy. I gained just the right amount of weight, I continued to exercise, my medical profile was perfect. My son, Todd, and I would dance in the living room, play in the yard, and bike ride. I worked, re-did furniture and painted the nursery preparing for the arrival of our baby.

The minute I saw Sophie’s face I thought, “oh – that baby is the spitting image of Todd.” When the doctor told us the baby was a girl, Jim began to cry saying, “A boy and now a girl. Life is perfect!”

As time progressed we, of course, learned of Sophie’s medical needs. Undiagnosed seizure disorder is what the main medical diagnosis became and over the next few years, a wide range of other medical issues that unfortunately became part of our daily life. Sophie did smile in between the constant screaming so we began to see a little person who interacted with us occasionally. We also became accustomed to spending hours in the hospital during inpatient stays or outpatient visits.

Little did I know that God would again challenge us with the birth of premature twins and subsequently the death of Claire just 18 months after Sophie's birth.

Some people would say that either I really needed a wake up call or the devil was just out to get us. I have come to realize that it isn’t about a person bearing their cross for their wrong doings, or being sought after by the devil. You see, we’re all given a chance in this life to prove ourselves. Regardless of the hard knocks that come our way, it’s what a person does in response to the hard knocks that determines their path in life.

People would often look at Jim and me and say, “how do you do it?” Our learned response now is, “We had no choice.” I guess that’s not totally true. One of us could have left the other one to deal with it. One of us could have responded with anger or addiction to drown our sorrow. Thankfully, we did not. We have both stuck it out and have actually fostered a greater love & respect than we had for each other before our children were born.

So why did we have this happen? Jim may have his own thoughts because, even though we’re in this together, we’ve had our own personal experiences to draw from. I believe God had figured out long before I had even planned my pregnancy, that my path in life would not be the traditional parent path. Does He know how we will respond or choose to respond to the paths He sets for us. I don’t believe so. I feel He sets that path and we can choose to snooze and lose or rise above and make the most out of the situation at hand. Perhaps some of us need an extra push. Perhaps some of us just need to be reminded that He is in charge.