So, I am having a daughter and I have spent tiny pockets of my last few days having little whirling dervishes of gladness and letting myself daydream of what I would like to prepare for her and also trying to let it seem real -- It's been such a long-standing desire that having it put in my hand I can barely believe it is really there. Meanwhile, I've had big sections of the last few days spent in crying. What?! No really. Let me explain a little:
Many of you know this, but at the beginning of this pregnancy I found out that my thyroid's not working right -- I've got hypothyroidism. Since then I've been taking Levothyroxin (synthetic thyroid hormone) in increasing dosages to regulate the levels back to normal. I have since found that it is not uncommon if you have a genetic predisposition to thyroid abnormalities (my mom takes the same hormone and my grandmother did as well) to have problems arise during pregnancy, especially when pregnant with a girl, strangely(?). Anyway, it is a long process since you have to wait 6 weeks in between increasing dosages and taking blood samples and re-adjusting. I've been so ill from this. I am thankful that I haven't had to experience this with the boys' pregnancies and that I don't have gestational diabetes or edema or any of the other awful things so many women have to go through during pregnancy. God has been so gracious to me in this. These last few weeks though have been so rough. I had 16 weeks of what was, for me, the worse all-day "morning sickness" I have had of any baby. Then I started to feel relief from that but this thyroid nastiness just seems to go "in and out" giving me a fairly good day and then a stretch of yuck days with a few insane ones thrown into the mix. The really bad ones feel like something has taken over me -- not just a sheer exhaustion/lethargy but also this heavy, thick, dark "thing" pressing hard down on me -- I can objectively know that the sun is shining and it is summer-like outside and my children are wonderful and my husband is loving and involved and smack-awesome and I am having a healthy baby girl! and I am so so so happy in my life and yet I spend the entire day between crying and emptiness unable to think or make decisions or interact with my children in any rational, healthy way. Sin is sin -- there is no excuse for it. I've been just pushing myself back and back and back again to Christ's full mercy and atonement . I have no other plea for the way I have been responding to this trial. I've been thinking of Paul in 2 Corinthians, "I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it [the hard trial 'thorn in the flesh' he was being given] should leave me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses...For when I am weak, then I am strong." Well, I am not at the point of boasting gladly about my weaknesses -- I'd rather be going about my day with a joyful, sunny disposition despite my physical/mental smog; I'd rather treat my children cheerfully and patiently and gently; I'd rather be singing as I go -- rather than weeping in a confused frustration. BUT I will be glad that any tiny victory I have in this is from, in, through Christ's strength -- I hope I am closer to Him in my deepening dependence on Him and I hope His strength is somehow made brighter and famous-er because of my need for Him.
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