Fear of abandonment

I have been meaning to see a professional....mental....helper (read counselor, shrink, etc) for months (years) now and one of the issues that needs to be dealt with is my fear of abandonment. It surfaces in the strangest places in the most secure relationships and gives my mind a workout (in the unhealthiest sense of the word). Greg and I will be somewhere (ie...Denver this week at a restaurant) and he'll go to the bathroom and I'll think...I wonder if he's sneaking out the window right now and leaving? Before I type anymore...Greg, if you're reading this, I know that you love me and would never leave me....it's just my super creative, hilarious imagination talking :) Anywho....so I'm there with Ben, thinking...we can do this. We can find food....(I've just way over eaten...don't need to be thinking about food for days, but my 95th percentile baby will be getting hungry again eventually!) shelter, work...we can survive. I think this has something to do with my need to feel competent, like I can get through any situation with my big brain and creativity.

This is all so irrational b/c I've never really been abandoned before. I've been surrounded by good, loving people my entire life. Until this week. And it happened in the most unlikely way. I got a text, from my dear friend Jodie, telling me that my OBGYN (I can't spell out the words b/c I don't know how and b/c the sounds of the GYN word grosses me out) is leaving her medical practice to do "consulting" in Asia. Consulting? Consulting? Why did she not "consult" me and my hee haw before making this (irrational) decision? I LOVE Dr. Hsu. She is the most encouraging (you look GREAT at 39 weeks!), supportive (you'll be FINE during delivery), compassionate (literally holding me crying as the realization of my second miscarriage set in) doctor my hee haw and I have ever known. (albeit we've only known two others and the first was a man....no offense...but ewww.)

This is kind of funny. And kind of serious. I had such a good experience with Dr. Hsu while pregnant with Ben, and after. And she knows what I've been through the last 7 months, and I wanted her to be with me as I so nervously approached the thought of trying to get pregnant again. I don't want to find another Dr. And I don't want anyone to say anything other than "you are perfectly healthy and able to have as many children as you want with no more complications." I don't want to tell a new Dr. about our two losses this year, and see concern on their face. And have them see fear on mine. And I don't want a stranger sticking their whole fist....ewww!

I honestly have so many reservations about ever going to the doctor again with another pregnancy. Because all I've heard at my appointments this year has been bad news. "The baby isn't measuring big enough. The heart beat is too slow. It doesn't look good." I hate the fuzzy black and white ultra sound screen. That damn gel that you can't get off your nether region with out a shower. The look on the technition's face and silence in the room. When she doesn't want to tell me what she doesn't see. But has to answer when I ask...."is there a heart beat?"

Maybe it is time...for me to morph into my alter (eco) ego and go all natural. No doctor. No medicine. No machines. No epidural. WHAT?!?!? That might be taking it a step too far. Surely Greg can administer one at our home like I asked him very nicely to do when I was in labor with Ben. He refused that time but I think it's ONLY because we didn't have any iodine to sterilize.....anything.

This is too much to think about on my last day of vacation with only minutes (no minutes now!) remaining of Ben's afternoon nap. I will put more thought into this and let you (all my readers) know what your role will be in the home birth of our (Lord willing) next baby.

Grace, grace and more grace.

I am in Colorado at my parents' house for two weeks and trying to steal vacation moments on this trip. You know the difference. I need not explain.

So far so good here. (especially b/c I got to do yoga at the club and capitalize on their really good lattes this morning, so I'm in a happy, peaceful, caffeinated, place). My brother was here for a few days and the two of us went to the Vail Church on Sunday and heard a message that we both so needed to hear, and we needed to hear it sitting next to each other. We have only been to church together a handful of times in our lives. We did not grow up going to church, and we got saved at different times in very different places. But (praise the Lord!) we both know the same Jesus. In spite of that, we both know many of the same sins....intimately. Anger. Hurt. Envy. Bitterness. And apparently the Lord had plans to kill two (angry, bitter) birds with one stone (of truth).

The moral of the sermon Sunday is that we are called to extend endless grace to those around us. To those that hurt us. To those that make us feel insignificant...and unimportant. Those that do not know us, for who we are. That do not see value in what enjoy, because we enjoy it. That do not make the effort, to love us the way we need to be loved. We are called to extend grace to them, everyday, forever. Even if it is not recognized as grace. And we are not thanked. And our efforts are not noticed. Even if (this is the hardest one) they do not see Jesus in it. Or see Jesus ever.

Lord, please give us the strength, vision, and faithfulness to see Jesus and extend grace because of the unfathomable amount grace you have poured out on us, everyday, always, and forever.