Sunday Morning Ramble (Its All Blessed)

Somehow change seems to render me silent. I never write in journals during times like these... it only becomes inviting to me to record my thoughts after everything is worked out and still, which I realize leads to one empty journal sitting near your bed. Life is change, right?

The characteristic of mine is carrying itself over into the blog world and I find myself mum in these days of waiting. The truth however, is that so very much is going on internally and I just feel reluctant to start blabbing all of it in this public forum. I don't talk about much of it to anyone, really. Not even DH. I really try to keep my focus on the positive, on the gratitude of what is already, of all the blessing in our life. After all everything is blessed right? Even the sticky hairy parts of life, the ones we come up against with fear or reaction or that are off-putting.

Let's face it.. humanly it is tempting to not like the story of why I am where I am. I could choose to think, "Wow. This sucks. My perfect beautiful boy was ripped from my womb literally moments before birth. Nothing was wrong with him other than the fact that my body killed him. I traded my womb for my life. I have no uterus, a tied up vagina, no menses at 33. My abdomen is scarred and jagged and my heart weak. Not only is that not bad enough, I have to secure a child monetarily from another country, hope it doesn't have HIV or a future of detachment disorder, travel to dangerous scary places and risk my own life again, try to transition my one living sweet daughter to her new sibling and be ready to be asked questions the rest of my life like 'Is he yours?' And who does this hell happen to? Do you know the odds of a spontaneous rupture when not induced? And supposedly it wasn't even near my incision? And even when rupture does happen, I was on my way to the OR for crying out loud... usually babies are saved."

I have reason enough to piss and moan and feel like a victim. But I don't.

Instead I feel into Trace and I feel his blessing. He was here for ten whole months in body. Ten moths of complete and utter bliss for both of us. Sure pregnancy was challenging, but it was an altered state of reality, one where The Divine entered me and kissed my swelling belly each moment. of. the. day. Never did I falter from prayer and guidance. Never did I give power to anyone else. I caressed Trace and sang to him and him to me for our entire time together. Trace knew no pain in this existence. He knew no suffering emotional or physical. He only was cared for and loved and listened to and honored. Is there any existence, any relationship or experience more blessed than that?

And my life. I chose to live. Literally lied on the table bleeding out and spoke the words, "I will not die. I will not leave my daughter." And so it was. My life was saved when I offered willingly my womb. Blessed, truly.

And now my heart knows deep grief, the deepest ever to be experienced, which also means it knows deep love. They are two sides of the same coin. My heart is like the polished piece of seaglass. It has been beaten and torn across the bottom relentlessly, crashed over rocks and washed over and over the waves, never given a moment to catch a breath. And now it has turned from virgin state to worn smooth beauty. Only something so beaten can become so valuable and special. Reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit.

How many people get to go to Rwanda to find their child? How many people does this happen to? It is a blessed event, there is one child somewhere in this world... in one place at this very moment... working its way toward us as we work our way slowly and mysteriously toward it. What greater power could exist than that of great love that moves mountains, moves layers of resistance and fear and pity to bring two (or three or four or five) people together into family. How could we possibly be here, in this moment without being blessed the way we have in our lives? With *all* that is in our lives- what looks and feels good, and what feels bad too.

In the days before we discovered the opportunity to adopt from Rwanda, our family was planning to move forward with a gestational surrogacy. And this was special... it seemed God-given. A woman very dear to us, a woman whose life had been greatly affected by us and us by her offered to carry a baby for us. We shed tears of gratitude and sheer wonder at how things unfold and come together. All of us did. We had preliminary talks on when we would start, how it would look, etc. But then we never heard from her again. Now this was after a year of looking for surrogates and having them fall thru. I could have reacted in a variety of ways, one of which could be with anger and resentment. I could certainly have felt like "Poor me." I made a choice though to be grateful for the situation. I decided that if I was looking for open doors and being grateful for them, then I should likewise be grateful when I was shown a closed door. I sat still and allowed myself to feel surrounded with gratitude for the path that was being shown to me, and for what was being said no to. It was a different approach than I had had previously. I usually would be irate, feel rejected, inner turmoil would have set in. But this gratitude thing was amazing and left me feeling open to what was ahead, whatever that may have been. I just kept saying, "Thank You for all You are showing me. I am open to the path You set before me. And I am grateful You are showing me where not to go."

What blesses one blesses all my mother used to tell me. I got mad at that sentiment when I was five and wanted a popsicle that was prohibited. But now at 33 and after so much has gone "wrong" I can see what she meant. Sometimes in the moment we cannot see the plan thousands of miles ahead of us. But there is one and it takes gratitude and trust that we will get there.

So ya, I have fear-driven thoughts at times. I have edgy "Trace Days" where I worry I will forget him, or where I remember the loss of him and the pain flows in. I have days where I wonder what in the world I am doing... but I try not to dwell on those thoughts. They only derail me from gratitude. So I sit instead and pull light around me, a light of sheer gratitude for everything that has unfolded and and is to come. Trace was blessed and so am I. We all are. We just need to see it that way.