Dan and Mindy Lawlor Family Blog: Anxiety

Usually by 34-35 weeks of pregnancy, I get really anxious. I get a little impatient, mainly because of how uncomfortable it gets to be pregnant. But this time, I am not anxious about that. I am grateful to still be pregnant and grateful to be able to carry to term without too many complications. I think that is something I have always taken for granted. Lately, though my anxiety lies with the questions of "will the baby be ok"? "Will I be ok"? What if something happens? I have heard just recently so many people that I know that are going through challenging times related to pregnancy or births and it makes me really nervous to think that maybe something bad could happen to any of us at any time. It is hard not to think of those things. All of the "what ifs". Dan is a huge comfort when I get like this, I have never seen any one have such a take things as they come kind of attitude like Dan does. It is pretty amazing to witness. Another reason for my anxiety is the fact that we are having another boy. After Zach was born, I was told by my dr. that boys don't do nearly as well as girls, as far as breathing goes. When we had Zach, he came out at 9lbs and 4oz, seemingly normal. But shortly after he was born I noticed that he was having a hard time breathing. Like he had fluid in his lungs. So my nurse took him and said "it's probably nothing, but let's just check". Shortly after that, the head nurse of the special care nursery came in and didn't have him with her. I knew that was a bad sign. She told us he may have an infection, that he stopped breathing when he was in the nursery, so they had to put an IV of antibiotics in him. Well, they couldn't get the IV in his hand, so she said, just to prepare you, it is in his head. "It looks a lot worse than what it is". Then a couple of days later, shortly before we were to be sent home, he stopped breathing while I was feeding him. We believe that he was choking, and thankfully he was hooked up to all of the monitors so all the alarms went off, and nurses came runnning, but that bought us a few more days in the hospital. So we ended up being there ten days total. I still remember the first day (actually it was in the middle of the night) that they made me go home. I was no longer a patient at the hospital, and I had to leave. I cried the whole way home, and almost couldn't bear it to see the empty basinet, and all of the things that we prepared for him. It was a good thing I was so exahusted, otherwise I don't think I would have slept at all. It is still amazing to me that during that difficult time, the amount of peace and happiness I felt, even though he wasn't home with us. I keep looking for that now, it is kind of funny in an interesting way that I don't feel that peace now, and nothing is happening. Nothing is really going wrong, in fact it seems like everything is going perfectly, with the pregnancy that is. There is still a lot of things that we are dealing with that just won't work out for some reason or another. I think the frustrating part about all of that, is that we still aren't sure where Heavenly Father wants us to be right now. Anyway, that is a whole new can of worms, and best saved for another posting. Here are some pictures of our Zach in the hospital, and then some when he was a couple of months old. I remember in the blessing that Dan gave him the day that he stopped breathing, he blessed him to be healthy and strong. He ended up being such a big baby it was sometimes really hard to carry him. I am grateful for those experiences in life that remind you that Heavenly Father is aware of you, and remembering that time is bringing comfort to me now, as I am getting ready to go through this all again. I keep thinking about this new little guy of ours, who will be here in just a month. He must really have something special to do here, at this particular time. Now I feel better. There really is something to be said about record keeping and remembering the experiences that you go through in life to see how you have been watched over, and carried even during the hardest of learning experiences.