Boxes...

29 weeks today! YAY! Another stable day...Blood flow was absent for Kaylan but she was very active again on the sonogram. We're still hopeful for a good outcome here.

A guy at work today asked me about how things were going with Jen, the pregnancy, and the twins. I told him about Kaylan’s lack of growth and that some of the doctors are concerned for her survival. He then said, very sincerely, “Well, the bright side is, it looks like you will get one healthy child out of this pregnancy”. And while I know he was coming from a place of good intentions and trying to say something positive, it really hurt. What parent of 2 or more kids would take a look at their children, sick, struggling for life, and say, “well, this one may not live but good thing we still have that one”. Nobody. So it is no different for us.

These are our children. They have names. They have monogrammed blankets and spit-up rags. They are prayed over by name, hourly. We see them, daily. We love them. We would do anything for them. God chose us to be their parents. He chose to bless us with this journey. So when somebody suggests one of their lives is more important than the other, it cuts to the core. It really does.

And while it stung a little when my co-worker said what he said, I know he was genuinely trying to say the right thing. He was trying to “help” by saying what he thought might help. He saw the broken pieces lying on the ground, and tried to put them back in the box. He offered me his box.

I think we do that a lot (or at least I do). We try to view life inside a box. We offer up our boxes as perspective to try to help people cope or deal with a situation. We try to help by putting life’s pieces back in the box when it looks like they are lying outside of it. (I have must have read every Google search on growth restricted babies on the internet for hopes that someone else’s box might be the same box as my box.) And when things happen too far outside our box, we offer a bigger box. But it is still a box. I know over the last 2 months, I have had so many boxes. All different sizes. And I’m fairly certain that God is trying to continue to expand my box to a point where I understand that THERE IS NO BOX for Him. He is pushing me to the point where I question there ever was a box. I am not there yet, but he is graciously smashing my boxes.