Motherhood Monday: Waiting for Me.

I wanted to share one of the reasons that I haven't posted in several months.

September 2016, at 10 weeks pregnant, our fifth baby earned its wings. It was a really painful and poignant time for our family, yet through it we saw how God brings sweetness to bitter experiences.  

At the time I decided to share some of my thoughts from that day in the hospital--

Well, a little over a year and a half later we are expecting again!  We are overjoyed and feel incredibly grateful.  As I write that, it dawns on me that this little one is due right around Thanksgiving and what appropriate timing.  We are indeed SO very thankful.

In part I wanted to share this news here because my mental health has been part of the journey.  We wanted to try sooner for a baby but I felt strongly that I needed to take some time for myself to get my health in better order, especially my mental health.  How far the Lord has brought me this last year!!  I feel so much more stable and capable.  And although I never feel "ready" for a baby, I have confidence that the Lord is preparing me and my family to lovingly welcome this little one.  And that in reality this baby has been excited and ready to come but has been waiting for ME.

Honestly, although not nearly as sick as many women, I always had such negative associations with first trimester and have dreaded it.  Because of several factors I didn't feel as sick, but still felt like I needed to take it easy yet had a lot of anxiety the first few weeks.  I realized I was living under the assumption that I wasn't "doing first trimester correctly."  My GI issues were aggravating my symptoms as well.  One particularly hard day I recorded this video about loss & pain and new life.  I'd love for you to take a few minutes to watch it.  These feelings are so close to my heart and I hope you feel of my love, but especially the love that the Savior has for each of you in your personal sufferings.

Click here to watch video.

  Thankfully a few weeks in to first trimester, I was able to meet with my therapist and talk through my thoughts and anxiety.  He suggested that I'm always happier and more at peace when I do things in my own Sarah signature way and to trust MY body and my needs.  It took awhile to shift my thinking, but as I did the anxiety subsided and I felt more at peace, even if it meant napping frequently, clearing my schedule or taking rests between activities.  My therapist also recommended that I could create new associations for first trimester.  I had been abstaining from my favorite foods, music and activities because I didn't want to associate them with first trimester nausea and discomfort.  But I hadn't realized that I'd done it with black and white thinking and had inadvertently been removing joy from my life.  I realized that I could allow the joy and the discomfort to coexist.  How often do we brace through the hard times, waiting for them to pass and get to better times?

One morning I was laying in bed next to my daughter. I felt so tired and yucky.   I decided to give a voice to all that I was experiencing in that moment:

"I feel nauseous and tired, but I am grateful to have a comfortable bed to rest in.  I am thankful to have my sweet daughter next to me, to feel the breeze blowing in through the window and see the sun shining outside."

It was simple but helped me to find joy in a moment that I usually would just survive or try to escape.  It was a powerful paradigm shift for me. 

I am now in second trimester and am so grateful for the ways my therapist helped me through first trimester.  It still was a bit of survival on the home front, with my husband taking over a lot of responsibilities with our other four children and household needs.  But thankfully much of it was anxiety free and I look back on it with sweet memories instead of negative ones.