Day 46 and counting

I received the Your Pregnancy magazine in the post from Discovery. They still think I'm pregnant. I noticed on the cover an article on preemies. They say parents of premature babies may have questions like 'Will my baby die?'. But they shouldn't worry because that is normal. Great. Who needs a shrink when you can get advice like that for free?

I think every day until the operation will be stressful now, because I can see that the doctors worry, and the medication that she gets to control the fluid makes her sick and the pressure building up is obviously causing discomfort and who knows what other bodily functions are affected by it. Sitting and waiting is so hard. All of this is hard I'm not gonna lie. I want to take a break from it but then I realise that no matter what I do I cannot take a break from it. I'm sure that's true for all mothers, and parents in general. No matter what you do or where you are you will never be free from worrying about your children. So I'm getting used to my new life although the introduction may be a bit extreme. 

Platelets are still quite low, but I went to see the doctor about it and they can't seem to find a valid cause for the falling platelets. She doesn't seem to have any new illness or infection. The only thing they haven't checked is the CSF fluid itself for a possible infection. So after our chat the doctor went to extract some CSF from the spine. It seemed all clear which is good and it was sent to the lab for tests. Most of the day she seemed to be doing fine until the afternoon when they struggled to keep her temperature up and then she vomited twice. After that she was ok again. They took an x-ray of the tummy but it seemed fine. I don't know what's happening, and nobody else seems to know either. Could be the diuretic medication making her nauseous. 

Some people think Christians should not have to suffer, that all is well when you find Jesus, and if not you don't have enough faith, and the sufferee feels guilty. Suffering AND guilt, that's just terrible. I don't want to go into this because I'm tired and want to go to bed early tonight, but shortly all I want to say is that Jesus said  

 'In this world you will have trouble.' (John 16:33) 

And then Paul says in Romans 5 that  'We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us.' 

I can't say yet that I rejoice in my suffering. I might endure it at this stage, I'm new at this. But I want to tell other people also facing pain and suffering to know that the world is full of suffering, but its not in vain. I know we're not the only ones, neither is our pain more painful than what other people may face. I think of people struggling with cancer, chronic physical pain, parents who have lost a child, other parents with sick babies at the NICU and people like my brother and sister in law who has a 7 year old daughter with cerebral palsy. If happiness in life was our ultimate and most important goal and we manage to be successful in attaining it, we might lack character and never get to a point of having hope in Jesus. And what gain is there if you have everything but you loose your soul? I think that is where the rejoicing part comes in.

If this doesn't encourage anybody else, its ok, its encouraging me!

Wearing a spring outfit today.