Tantrum

I threw a tantrum today. I was working in Ellie's room - hanging some things & admiring her dresses in the closet. Will was "helping" me with his tools and he became frustrated as he tried to work his pliers. Ultimately, he ended up on the floor just frustrated and mad. I get that. Sometimes I get frustrated too - I love watching him do life & be resourceful & creative as he figures out how to do things with only partial hands & 3 partial fingers. However, with that resourcefulness & creativity, comes huge batches of frustration. He is so determined to do things all by himself (& we are determined to let him) but he can get so frustrated as he tries to figure things out. Things that he knows should be simple rarely are.

So, he laid on the floor and screamed.

I started to tell him to go to his room & choose happy.

Then, I reconsidered.

A tantrum suddenly sounded really, really good to me. A release of my own frustrations.

I had been quietly crying all morning. Why not just let it out?

So, I lay down beside him, kicked my legs, & screamed.

Before I knew it, Will was giggling hysterically. I was sobbing uncontrollably.

And my husband had walked in convinced I was losing it.

I probably am.

He suggested that there might be other ways to handle my emotions.

I suggested that perhaps life had pushed me to the edge and it would be okay to just scream for awhile. I also reminded him that I am hormonal & pregnant.

It felt so good. But I keep crying today.

Maybe it's Mother's Day looming ahead of me.

I'm thankful for a God who can take my fits and my frustrations. I can't even really put words to it - it's just groanings from the depths of my soul.

Maybe it's the fact that my week of ZERO doctor's appointments is over. From now on, I'll have weekly ultrasounds to determine if Ellie's swelling is progressing & when we should deliver her.

Maybe it's the article I found yesterday. I was googling various descriptions of things we've seen in our baby. We heard back yesterday that the remaining tests that we had run were all negative. So, technically, Ellie is not "sick." Every infectious disease report has come back negative. Every chromosome report has come back negative. Good news? Yes, I suppose. Except we have no diagnosis and therefore no treatment plan for inutero or at delivery. I don't know who we need on hand. I can't prepare my heart adequately or know what to prepare for (will I get to hold her or should we send her to surgery, & if so, to who & for what?) And yet, we continue to see such scary findings on her ultrasounds that show us that something is definitely different and potentially very, very bad.

So, without a diagnosis, I just google descriptions - "prenatal...fill in the blank". Yesterday, I found a medical journal which I paid a membership fee to have online access to one of their articles. (There were two articles which seemed pertinent but I only had access to one with my fee.) Anyway, I printed it out for my doctors and as I read it, I realized that Ellie has several of the same symptoms as this baby did in the article- the tendon issue (which is not necessarily lethal) & the head edema. The baby lived 44 days - in the hospital.

Today, I just lost it.

I'm frustrated. I don't know what to do with my heart. I don't know how to prepare or plan. I don't know what to tell Will. It occurred to me earlier that when I had ankle swelling towards the end of my pregnancy with Will, I was rather uncomfortable. What if Ellie is hurting inside me? Might she be uncomfortable? Can I not even properly take care of her and soothe her in the womb?

I keep reading that babies with this tendon issue require Cesarean delivery. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, although the idea of surgery scares me. But, what if I'm stuck in a recovery room post -op and miss out on precious moments with her. What if everyone else gets to meet her but me? Selfish, I know. It's just where I am today.

It's just one of those days.

Sometimes, even 29 year olds need tantrums.