{"id":861,"date":"2007-12-17T15:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T20:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-december-17-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-12-17T15:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T20:56:00","slug":"monday-december-17-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-december-17-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday December 17, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I am engulfed with grattitude<\/font>.  You don’t realize how wonderful “normal” is until it disappears.  <\/font><\/p>\n

For over a year, we slaved away at building our house.  All chances at a social life and family disappeared in time spent at the house.  I knew I had friends; but sometimes I had no idea what was going on in their life because I didn’t have the time or energy to pursue friendship.  Relationships are not something I live well without.  The last five months were the worst.  Puttying nail holes, caulking, and sanding for hundreds of hours left me feeling more like a redneck then anything remotely feminine.  Even after a shower there were ragged fingernails, dry skin, and probably paint somewhere that got missed.  But I was too tired to care.  The only non-house place it seemed we went was church.  David Lee and I decided to save money by not buying clothes for either of us for the year.  Where would we have worn them anyway?  He said the discipline would be good for us.  Maybe it was but I secretly thought he was almost a glutton for punishment.  At the same time, I really wanted to save money so I agreed.  (And I still refuse to be trite and say, “it was really good for us” even though it probably was.)<\/font><\/p>\n

In the last few weeks I have celebrated a best friend’s birthday with more good friends, gotten a hug from another best friend who saw I was not doing well emotionally, talked on the phone with family and friends, and in general felt very, very loved and cared for.  Today I got the nicest email from another incredibly good friend.  I know there are people who live hermit lives and think they don’t need other people.  Not me.  Today I am overwhelmed with gratitude<\/font> for friends and the ability to have relationships.  (And today I am thinking of my friend, Gina, who is in that last, frantic stage with her house.  If you can, visit her <\/font>here<\/font><\/a>, and give her three cheers.  They’re almost done.)<\/font><\/p>\n

For a year and a half, David Lee and I waited and prayed for a baby.  It was probably the longest, most painful journey of my life.  I watched both my sisters and all three sisters-in-law have their babies and seemingly every woman in church was pregnant or had a baby.  Yet every month brought a fresh, heart-wrenching grief for me.  A grief like death.  I wondered if God cared.  I wondered if it even helped to pray.  And as my odd phsyical symptoms magnified, I wondered if I would ever be normal.  We spent more money on our infertility workup then many people do to have a baby and had no more answers then we did before we started.  I dreaded holidays and family get-togethers with fat babies and beaming mommies and all their stark reminders of what should have been and wasn’t.  I felt startling, knife-stabbing pain every time a pregnant woman walked into view … even if I knew I was going to see her.  I sobbed uncontrollably and mercilessly before young marrieds activities.  <\/font><\/p>\n

In August, God asked me to pray very specifically about our infertility.  I didn’t want to.  I was afraid of becoming bitter if my prayers went unanswered again and told Him so.  Still, I felt His spirit asking me to pray that we would conceive a baby that month.  Finally I gave in, crying and asking God to help me ask.  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt a warm flush through my abdomen.  God’s prescence was as real in that moment as the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the french doors.  I really sobbed then and sang in worship through my tears.  Two weeks later, my pregnancy test showed positive.  Today my tummy bulges and the baby kicks.  Every day I am overwhelmed with gratitude<\/font> with the sheer wonder of a gift I never expected to experience again.  (And today, as every day, I remember the new friends I made through this journey.  Many of them have been on this road so much longer then I, and have experienced gut-wrenching losses I never faced.  My heart cries for them in their pain, especially now at Christmas with all it’s family gatherings and celebration and I hope you join me in praying for them.  If you have a friend who is facing infertility, I hope you give her a hug and let her cry and tell her how much you care about the pain she is going through.)<\/font><\/p>\n

For three months this summer, Adam and I both suffered from a strep infection that kept beating us down in spite of antibiotics.  I was exhausted all the time and by the end of the three months it wasn’t uncommon to experience heart palpitations or to get winded from going up two flights of steps.  Finally, finally after a round of antibiotics that cost us well over one hundred dollars, we tested negative.  The symptoms continued for several weeks; but finally I was beginning to feel normal.  Then I got pregnant.  And while I was overjoyed to think of having a baby, I got sick fast and hard.  Sometimes the past four months feel like a blur of misery.  There were days I wondered if I’d make it to the end of the day and days I almost hoped I wouldn’t.  But now things are getting better.  And even though I was so sick Saturday night I wondered if I was still human, I’m having good days sprinkled in with the bad.<\/font><\/p>\n

Today I am overwhelmed with gratitude<\/font> at the simple ability to do housework, to eat most foods, and to smile.  (And today I am thinking of people who face life-threatening diseases like cancer, stroke, and even diabetes.)  <\/font><\/p>\n

Today I thank God for the good things …. good, normal things.  And today I ask God not to let me forget the bad moments so that I will appreciate normal for what it really is.  (Maybe trite quotes are more accurate then I give them credit for.)<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I am engulfed with grattitude.  You don’t realize how wonderful “normal” is until it disappears.  For over a year, we slaved away at building our house.  All chances at… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-dT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}