Waiting, Praying, & Reflecting

AKA a very long two week period.

If you missed my last blog post, Helpers in a Foreign Land, I'd encourage you to go back and read it now. This will give you a lot of information about Ruth's heart problem as of May 13, and our visit with the pediatric cardiologist. I also talked about our second meeting with our geneticist, and how part two of our amniocentesis results would take about 10 business days to synthesize and return to her office. Meaning that by May 26, we should know something. You can BET that date was circled on my calendar.

In the mean time, I had no more appointments. I was 25 weeks into my pregnancy at this point, so my next traditional appointment would be at 28 weeks. That is a very long time to wait to hear from your next specialist about what is going on with your baby. And because the pediatric cardiologist didn't really tell us anything more, and because we didn't have genetic testing results back yet, I couldn't even google anything. The more that I think about it though, this was probably a blessing in disguise.

We were left to sit and wait and pray and soak up life as it is before everything changes. (Don't get me wrong, I know that going from one kid to two kids changes life anyway, but we were about to have some major day-to-day changes in a few months.) As we prayed and waited, I began to look back on our lives and try to see God's goodness in all of this chaos. So while this post doesn't give a lot of update on Ruth's condition, it does give you all an update of what's been going on in our lives.

Backstory: I quit teaching high school in 2017 to commute to university to get my Master's in History. We both felt God leading me in this direction so that I could teach survey of history classes for our local colleges. Because God led me to quit my job, I was able to get a GA position at my university, an office, a paycheck, and a steep cut on tuition. The most important thing, though, was that I was still bringing in income. Then I graduated, and I immediately got a job teaching on campus for a local college; again, bringing in income. Then, after the birth of Alora, I was suddenly a stay-at-home-mom. This transition was really hard on me mentally for many reasons, but mainly because I was not bringing in any income. You can write to me, explaining how important it is to be a SAHM, and how I was bringing in income because of the savings of not having any childcare and XYZ; but FOR ME, this was an extremely difficult transition. I've had a job since I was 15 years old. I NEVER expected to be a SAHM. I also missed interacting with people on a daily basis! So I was beyond thrilled when my college offered me an online teaching job for Spring 2020. In late February, I was already talking to my boss about summer/fall courses, and then Covid-19 came in like a literal wrecking ball. All courses had to move online (meaning tenured professors get those teaching spots first), student enrollment dropped, and I was not able to teach in the summer/fall of 2020. I didn't even get to teach in Spring of 2021 because things were still slowly opening back up, and there was no space for an additional history instructor.

But the craziest thing happened without my realizing it. ONLY by the goodness and grace of God, I was becoming okay with being a SAHM.

I don't think I even noticed this newfound contentment until my former boss, the principal at the high school, called in late March, early April 2021 to let me know about a job opening. MY JOB OPENING. The job that I had wanted on for five years. The job for which I thought I went to grad school. The job that would allow me to be fully employed, teaching honors and maybe even some college dual enrollment. I felt like this job had fallen out of heaven and landed on my lap, especially knowing that my old boss was willing to work around my pregnancy. I told Kane that I felt it could be one of three things: God saying it's time to go back, God saying wait and trust my provision without it, or God saying no altogether. We prayed, but ultimately I never felt a peace about going back, so I did not apply for or take the teaching job.

Then, in the middle of April 2021, my old boss at the college emailed me about doing dual enrollment, JUST dual enrollment, at the high school about ten minutes down the road from my house. Was this the perfect job? Was this why God wanted me to wait? This job would be about two hours a day, four days a week, right up the road, and a mile away from my husband's office. Unfortunately, though, they were less willing to work around my pregnancy, so this opportunity fell apart. Overall, I wasn't that upset, though. Like I said, I was finally getting used to being a SAHM. In retrospect, this was God's goodness preparing our hearts for something big about to drop. We learned of Ruth's birth differences in early May, barely a month after having two job opportunities thrown at me.

You see, God's goodness started preparing me for being Ruth's mom long before we even thought of her. I didn't have to quit my job or have that difficult adjustment to being a SAHM now that I have a child with complicated health issues; I'm already there.

As for Kane, he's a very active member at our church (shoutout to Bridge Church). He leads a small group, he's a deacon, and he leads Bible study at an addition recovery program every other week. In April, he was approached about being in an intense discipleship program that would begin, in earnest, in August. We prayed about it, but truly, I just didn't feel a peace about him doing this. He's already so involved in so much, and I worried about him devoting so much time to something else when we were supposed to be bringing home a new baby. Call me a terrible Christian wife, but I asked him not to do it. So, on the morning of May 5th, Kane had to call and let his would-be discipler know that he could not participate. That is the same date that we found out about Ruth's complications. I got the news from my doctor literally three hours after Kane made that phone call. Kane wouldn't have to quit any of his important responsibilities at our church now that he has a child with complicated health issues; God already prepared him to have more time at home.

There are more things that I could say about God's goodness in this season of our lives, but these were the biggies. And I would highly, HIGHLY encourage you to just stop in the middle of a crisis (or the mundane, or the highs) and look for the goodness of God. He's there, and He is good, even when it doesn't feel like He is good.

In the middle of the wait for our next appointment, I got a call from someone new in Savannah. It was from a woman named Sarah Ray, a perinatal navigator with Memorial Health Savannah and my high risk OB office. This job title was entirely new to me, so I wanted to mention it here just in case it interested anyone else because she has been very helpful to me! It also seems like a very cool career path for anyone planning to pursue or currently in nursing. Basically, Sarah became my case manager/point person for all of my appointments (whether in Savannah or Atlanta) and communications with doctors. We talked a little about what I'd learned so far, and then she set up a NICU consult for us on June 24th, where we would talk with neonatologists and nurses who would help us with Ruth after delivery. If covid restrictions lift, she will even help us get a tour of the Savannah NICU. I'm telling you, her position is awesome and she has been a blessing to me on this journey. I've included a picture of the job qualifications in case anyone reading wanted to find out more about becoming a perinatal navigator!

By May 26, I had still not heard anything from my geneticist about the second part of our genetic testing results. I couldn't stand it anymore. I called her. The results had just come in about an hour before my calling and I couldn't believe what I was hearing - no genetic abnormalities found. This was more great news!! Obviously, we knew that we still had a long road ahead of us, and that we were clearly looking at (at least one) surgery. But in all of our unknowns, we were hopeful and trusting that God was good & faithful. Our last round of amniocentesis testing would now look at each individual gene in Ruth's body and search for individual mutations. I'm probably not the best one to explain it, but: all her book's chapters (chromosomes) are present & perfect, all her pages (DNA strands) are present, but now we will look to see if each word (individual genes) on each of those pages is spelled correctly. This part could take up to two months to complete! That's a lot of genes.

So, much like the beginning of this post, we were back to waiting, praying, and reflecting. Sometimes, that's just the best place to be.