Plans

I got thrown into a tailspin of grouchiness this week, all due to the most innocent of emails.

I come from a long line of Disney fans. As of October, as best I can calculate, I was on trip #15 to Disney World. (It made trip #5 for Mike, #3 for Jeremiah, and technically #1 for Parker) We have recently joined the RunDisney movement-- using fun races as an excuse to plan a family vacay. I've done three half marathons (one with a Parker in my belly) and a 5k down there, and I absolutely love it. This week, I got a heads up that registration was opening for the First Annual Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Ten Miler in September. "WE ARE SO THERE!" I thought to myself.

Except not.

At first blush, it seemed perfectly reasonable-- I'll be 4 months postpartum and that's plenty of time to get myself whipped back into shape. Parker will be 4 months old, so he could either come with us or we could have a grown up weekend and leave him and JB with the grandparents. That mindset lasted all of .25 seconds.

Yes, 4 months will have passed since Parker's birth. There is every likelihood that we could still be chilling in the NICU 4 months later. Even if we are at home, we might be dealing with oxygen tanks and/or feeding tubes, not to mention the weakened immune system. In short, I have NO IDEA what my life will look like in September. And it makes me grouchy.

I am a planner. I like to have things laid out well in advance, and I like to know what might pop up so I can have contingency plans. If nothing else, the last few months have been a tremendous lesson in leaving my own plans for my life and giving up control to God and trusting His plans and timing for our family.

For some reason, this week resulted in me throwing a pity party for myself. I can't plan ANYTHING past mid-May. I don't know when our next vacation will be. Wah wah wah. Temper tantrum and resulting shame at childish behavior.

It's carried over into my preparations for Parker's arrival. Thankfully, I kept Jeremiah's nursery as it was, I just shut the door and had it lie in wait for Baby #2. I have everything I need to bring Parker home, it's just all put away in storage. Still, as much as I love planning, I also love shopping. Under "normal" circumstances, I would have disregarded the 14 SpaceBags of Jeremiah's old clothes and started buying new things for Parker. I would have purchased the new stroller I have convinced myself I MUST have. I would have gladly agreed when my dear friend Catherine offered to host a mini-shower for me in April.

I just can't.

There is a huge part of my brain that knows we might come home without Parker. As of now, all the baby things are hiding behind closed doors and won't be dragged out until we know he's on the way home. What if we never have a reason to drag it out of storage? Will we ever want to try to have another baby after having our world rocked with this one? My original plan was to go ahead and get my tubes tied while having my c-section- 2 kiddos has always been our plan. I can't even do that now... what if I someday need my "tubes" again because Parker doesn't make it?

All of this from a ridiculous email. AN EMAIL FROM MICKEY MOUSE, for the love of pete. I tried to cut myself some slack this week-- I haven't really had as many freak-out moments as I have been expecting, and I have remained optimistic and upbeat the greater majority of the time. I know that these down days are going to come, and I know that to ignore them would be ridiculous. Still, I am not a wallower. I never have been. I believe you make a choice when your feet hit the floor every morning- I am going to get bogged down in my problems, or I am not. It might not always work out the way you plan throughout the day, but I have always found that if you let your problems get a head start on you, they quickly multiply and swallow you up and you wind up in a place you don't even recognize with a self that you don't like very much.

**I should add here that I am not one of those "Make lemonade!!" people. Those people annoy me. I find myself suspicious of the constantly jolly. There's a quote on Pinterest that sums up my view:

I am done whining. I have picked myself back up and moved on. I've done a lot of praying this week, and I have repeated Proverbs 3:5 ad nauseam.


I haven't let go of my dream of one day standing on Main Street with my completed family of four, I have just acknowledged that it might not be happening as quickly as I would like it to. I have also turned it into Phase Two of Bribery for Parker. Once he is born, he will be cut off from his donut addiction. He will need a new motivation to behave properly and get stronger, and so this is it. Some people promise ponies. We are promising the most magical place on Earth.

Hear that, munchkin? Once you are well, WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD! So hurry up. :-)