Letting Grow

Really, I had everything all figured out.

After a long and arduous pregnancy, I was fairly certain how our little boy's delivery was going to go.
Surely when you're on your fifth child, some things are just a given.

I knew that I would go into labor naturally.
I knew that I would have the natural birth I had been longing for but never experienced.
I knew that breastfeeding would proceed smoothly.
I knew everything was going to be okay.

Well, one out of four isn't all that bad.

Three weeks before my impending due date, my water suddenly broke. And with that, all bets were off.

We waited for the contractions to start.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.

They never came.

Finally, I agreed to the pitocin. And the contractions came!
Oh, good heavens, how they came.

The hours went by, and when the nurse came to see how I was progressing, I was certain she would tell me that my sweet baby boy was just a moment's breath from entering this world.

I was wrong.
I wasn't even dilating.

With tears of frustration, I rolled my eyes toward the heavens and groaned.
Seriously?
After all these months of discouragement and immobility, couldn't something go the way I wanted it to?
Just once? Please?

Let it go.
The reply came gently, peacefully. It enveloped my weary heart and calmed my anxious mind.

I agreed to the epidural.

And almost like magic, my body relaxed. A mere hour later Owen was born.
They laid him on my chest immediately after delivery and I was hopelessly in love. Absolutely perfect in every way.

It seemed that everything was now proceeding according to plan. For the first time in all of my deliveries I didn't have any complications and was able to nurse my baby in the hospital. No more eye rolling. No more complaints. This time there were only tears of gratitude.

Until.

The familiar postpartum complications of severe edema caught up to me a few days later, rendering me completely unable to nurse for several days. The pain was excruciating. The frustration and depression that followed weren't much better. When my health was finally restored, my milk supply had been substantially depleted. And Owen would only successfully feed from a bottle. I tried to be a soldier and pump diligently to keep up with his needs, but when this was added to the demands of caring not just for a newborn but his four other siblings as well, I quickly became exhausted beyond any normal human parameters. Truthfully? I felt like a complete and utter failure.

Let it go.
The gently reminder returned. I bristled a little this time.

Really? Let it go?
Just like that?
I fumed.
Okay, sure. Whatever.
Don't any of my righteous desires mean anything?

All I wanted was to experience the kind of early motherhood that I had been denied in my other pregnancies. Surely that was not such an unreasonable request.

But there it was again.
Let. It. Go.

And so it has continued.
Day after day, month after month, challenge after challenge.  I see the waves pulsating across the horizon and ride out each swell as best as I can. Rolling along. Breathing in and out. Letting go.

Yet in that release, I have found perhaps the most surprising thing of all. Gratitude.

In each small moment I find I am thankful for all the blessings that I do have. Because in all actuality, I have been incredibly spoiled in this life. There is ever so much to be grateful for.

Even in the midst of difficulty.
Maybe especially so.

I have hesitated to share this story, because I know there are so many with deeper heartaches and darker trials than my own. Compared to theirs, my struggles seem so ridiculously trivial. And really, in my own life I have navigated through much rougher moments than this.

But on the other side of life's experience I see just how important this lesson was for me personally.

I don't have to be in control.
Actually to get right down to it, I am most definitely not in control.
But the beautiful thing is that I don't have to be.

For there is a far greater Captain at the helm than I could ever hope to be.
He will lead me through rocky rapids and beside still waters.

And all I have to do is
     Let
          It 
            Go.