I have been learning a lot lately about expectations. So many of the things I had been expecting for the past few months have clearly turned out nothing at all like I thought they would!
#1 - I expected to have an easy and normal pregnancy. We got pregnant very easily. They also tell you your pregnancy will be much like your mothers - and my mom had three easy and healthy pregnancies.
#2 - I expected to have ONE baby. Never in a million years did Nate and I expect to have twins!
#3 - I never expected my boys to be sick. I suppose this goes alot with expectation #1.
#4 - I expected full term twin babies that would be a normal 5-6lbs each.
#5 - I expected to be decorating their nursery between weeks 27 and 31...not waiting the days away in a hospital room.
The list really could go on and on.
Now I hope hearing all of that didn't make you sad for me, because there is nothing to be sad about. We have much rejoicing to be doing, friends. We are 6 days away from our initial goal for the babies.
But what I do hope you hear is the lesson that I have been learning the past few weeks. That sometimes we need to stop living our lives comparing what we have with what we wanted or expected to get out of it. That seems to be the biggest joy stealer I can think of.
It would be so easy for me to get bummed out because of our circumstances, and to be honest there have been times when I have. But in those moments, I have to stop and gain some perspective on my expectations.
Let me go back over the five I mentioned and show you the perspective I have gained through each of these.
#1 - A "normal pregnancy" Would I have chosen this? No, absoltely not. But I think of what I have learned during this time. On how it has opened my heart to being more sympathetic to the numerous women who can't get pregnant, have had miscarriages and it has opened my eyes to the miracle of life that is going on inside of me. I have also seen what is going on to us encourage those around us in their faith. Not that normal pregnancies don't accomplish the same, but I can see how God is specifically using this for his glory.
#2 - Twins. Nate and I honestly feel as though we have won the lottery. To be brutally honest there have been moments where I thought, "Lord, if you had only given me one baby - I would have had a normal pregnancy." And then I think how silly that sounds. I am so attached to my boys that I have no idea how in the world I could ever think about life without the both of them. We also know that since they are identical - it's not inherited. God really wanted us to have these twins.
#3 - The boys being sick. I saw a woman on The Today Show last week. She was a mother of one year old sextuplets. Right after she gave birth to her kids she went into heart failure and almost died. She got better and this year while raising 6 babies, she found the time to also train for a marathon. When asked why by Matt her reponse was, "I think the Lord allowed me to go through that so that I never took this year for granted, because I almost didn't get to have a year with my babies." I think our situation is similar. I am sure there are going to be many, many days where we want to pull our hair out because twins will not be easy. But we can also be reassured during those stressful moments of the hours, days, weeks, and months that we prayed for these babies. And that they truly are little miracles. And that the Lord has something huge in store for them because he chose to save them.
#4 - Full term, big babies. Nate and I visited the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit - the nursery) the other night. We saw the tiniest baby ever...and when asked how big that baby was...we were told 1lb, 10 oz. We think our little Blake is 1lb 6oz. It was a shock to both Nate and I to imagine that our baby will be that tiny. But that baby was also 26 weeks when he was born. If everything keeps heading the right way, the boys will be 32 weeks. Right after the surgery we were told if we could make it to 32 weeks we would be high fiving each other in the hospital. Now it would be really easy to be so sad that our babies will be so little and that they have to stay in the NICU for a while, or we can be so happy that our babies made it this far. They met the goal! They have done exceedingly well and 9 weeks ago today we were anxiously waiting to see if they still even had heartbeats post surgery.
#5 - No bed rest. Bed rest has not been fun or easy and I wish I could have been home getting ready for their arrival and I am sure Nate wishes he was getting homecooked meals and actually sleeping on a bed. But bed rest has really brought us together. Seeing my sweet husband is what I look forward to each day. I know that God has also used this time to slow me down. Keep my focused on him and preparing me for what is to come in less than a week.
I walk you through all of these because I really have learned that is okay to have expectations. It's wonderful to hope and dream. But what we have to learn is that we sometimes have to gain some perspective to understand them better.
It makes me think of the jewish people and what their expectations were for their coming Messiah. They wanted a king, they wanted someone to make right the years of oppression they had suffered. Their expectations were for a savior...on the earthly side.
What they got was something/someone totally opposite. They got someone who never exalted himself, but constantly lowered himself. They got someone who took on more oppression that their minds could comprehend. And most importantly they got someone who was a savior but for eternity.
I always think about how the disciples must have felt whenever they saw Christ hanging on the cross. Talk about expectations being thrown out the window.
But what I love is that their perspectives also changed. It took a while, but they finally got it. They were finally able to understand that their expectations of a savior coming were good, they just had to learn to stop looking through their own eyes and look for what God was doing in and through them.
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