Expectations

I have been wanting to write this blog for months, but every time I sat down to try, I just couldn't. Partially the wounds were too raw literally and figuratively, and partially I just didn't have the time. My time now revolves around this little human who tells me when I can and can't do things. Anyway's, she's currently taking nap, and our days have slowly become more routine, and I finally feel okay enough to write this all down.

The first few months with H have been amazing. She is so special and sweet, and I constantly just stare at her wondering how in the world God saw me fit to be her mom. The first couple months though, were extremely rough. What they don't tell you when you're pregnant is that you can try and have all the best intentions and do all the "right" things, and you're still probably not going to get what you expected.

Let me start there, with expectations. My eyes have been opened up greatly to the expectations I had about labor, and motherhood throughout these past few months. I had no idea I even had expectations. It wasn't until they were shattered and my emotions caught up with me that I realized I had greatly fallen into sin. I had thought that my plans were better. That I had done what I was supposed to and therefore all of these things should be going the way I had planned. That was my first downfall. I planned without a strong grasp on the fact that God's plan isn't always going to be what I or society says is best. His plan is still and always better. Even if it's not what I wanted.

Now let me reiterate that I knew this truth, I had the head knowledge, and I knew that based on past experiences he wasn't surprised by anything that happened because he is sovereign over all. Yet I still somehow fell into this "plan" and I was shaken to the core when it wasn't going the way it "should".

That's the beauty of the Christian life though, we can "know" a lot, and believe it, and yet our own sinful desires come out when we least expect it. We still need the Gospel every day because of this. Our eyes and hearts must be renewed. We need things to break us and show us our sin, and we need Jesus every day. His mercy and grace are the only things that can get us through this life.

My desires were not bad desires, they are your typical desires for pregnancy, a natural birth, rooming in with my baby, taking her home from the hospital with me, and breastfeeding her for the first year. All things that our doctors and fellow moms have all probably recommended or had with their own children. Where my own sinfulness came in was in the fact that I never considered the fact that all of that could be different, and the different wasn't necessarily wrong or bad. I was holding so tight onto what I wanted and expected and had seen in others own births and mothering experiences that I wasn't even open to the idea that God might not make that our story. I, in the process of having my own ideas of what birth and motherhood would look like had completely elevated myself to a position of knowing what was right and made myself a god in the process. I had become a victim to my own idolatry.

But God, knowing what was best for my daughter and me changed our story. She didn't come out like I wanted, she didn't spend her first hours and days with me in my room but in a completely different hospital, and breastfeeding barely lasted a month from the time she came home. All these good things I had pictured, were completely changed and nothing like I had imagined. It felt like a dream. One that wasn't making sense.

Now looking back on our first few months, and processing through it with God and with Trey. I have realized that my expectations led me to feeling wronged and emotionally drained. While I don't believe that my planning led God to do this to us, I believe that this was his plan all along and that he wanted to grow me through the process. I just was holding too tightly to what I desired and wasn't living open handed to any other experience. The highly emotional response I had just let me see that I had sinned. I didn't cause the hard things, God is sovereign, and his plan was better. His plans are always better, and I am continuing to learn this day in and day out.

Eventually, I will get around to writing out her birth story and about our breastfeeding journey and where God has shown me his hand looking back because it's amazing. God is good, our little monkey is healthy, and God is growing us all through the process. Praise God for good blessings and sanctification!