Thankful for the past

I have been feeling a bit reflective and it has got me thinking about how it is so easy to spend our time being anxious about the future or angry or upset about the present. Sometimes our past gets a bit forgotten by what is going on right now or what is about to happen. I am trying to focus right now on being thankful for what is in my past rather than being nervous about what is coming. I am so thankful beyond words that I have Xavier. The more that my life unfolds the more I realise just how miraculous he is. I watch people and hear about people going through try after try of IVF with no success, and here Joel and I are with a beautiful little boy who we were blessed with on our first try of IVF. I think back to when we went to pay for our very first IVF cycle. We handed over a big cheque, and were handed a big bag of drugs and syringes and wished "Good luck!" by a smiling receptionist. The experience I remember was really strange and I hated it. It made me feel like a weirdo. But then to think this magnificent boy came out of all of that is just amazing. Thankyou Lord!


And something else I am thankful for is the experience of pregnancy and of giving birth. If any of you knew me in real life while I was going through my pregnancy that statement would make you laugh. I was so sick and kept being put on bedrest which i hated. I couldn't go into a supermarket because seeing so much food made me vomit. If you wondered where I was, you could probably guess in two guesses max. I was either in the bathroom throwing up, or asleep in bed with my cat. But you know what? I look back on it with such fondness. I never thought that would be the case at the time, but it is. When I was on bedrest I had to be looked after because of course I couldn't get out of bed. Because I wasn't working, Joel couldn't stop working and so I spent a lot of time at my Mum's and she took care of me. A lot of hours were spent on Mum's couch watching DVD's or just chatting, she drove me around from place to place for my OB appointments and so forth. I was determined to do my Christmas shopping myself so I did a lot of it online. When I think back to all that it seems magical and I can't believe I was so lucky to have that happen to me, because while a lot of people would hear that story and just think "wow you poor thing, how inconvenient and how sick you must have been!" I just think of that special time of my life when I was waiting to meet my son.

I remember the nights I couldn't sleep and would get up and have a bath, because the warm water settled my sick tummy. Sometimes it would be two in the morning, or three or four. There was something magical about sitting in a bathtub while all the world was still asleep and watching your son's foot move across your belly. I remember the night before he was born. I was laying in my hospital bed and touching my belly. I could feel his foot pressed up against it, and I could feel each individual toe with my hand. I shed a few tears that this would be his last night in my tummy, and thought "I can't wait to meet you tomorrow and see those toes!". I even remember simply all the quality time I got to spend with my mother and I am grateful for that. We would watch movies and she would drive me places. We went shopping for a pram and for clothes for both me and the baby. Sometimes if our movie watching would run too late into the night I would sleep over. Joel always said he missed me in bed but really I know it gave him a much needed break from me taking up all the room, and getting up 50 times a night to pee or to vomit or because I had heartburn.

I am so happy Lord that you let me have all these things. Sometimes it is easy when I see people around me have those things again and again, and I only get them once, to feel cheated or mad. But I am not cheated, I am so so so blessed and so so so thankful. Those things might not be ahead of me again in the future, but thankyou that you saw fit to let me have them once so that they are now part of my history.