FEARS: Miscarriage and Medical Complications

My Family.

Yesterday was overwhelming because of two pieces of news.

First, an acquaintance of ours miscarried. She was seven months pregnant and this was this couple's second attempt at in vitro fertilization. Now, I will be blunt; these people are not friends, they are acquaintances and I don't actually particularly feel friendly towards them. Nor do I believe they are friendly to me.

However, today, if there was anything I could do to comfort them, I would do it. My heart aches for them because they are trying so hard and facing this horrible misfortune. Goddess, please smile upon them. Grant them the things I want in life: love, serenity, family, friends, prosperity and if it is Your will, a child.

I don't understand how this works. Laura and I know three couples who are having tremendous difficulty concieving. All three are worthy people. Why can't they concieve after trying so hard, when out of the blue we concieve? Hell, it's taken most of this pregnancy to accept the idea that I will be a dad and I'd be a liar if I said there were not some reservations in the back of my head. All of these couples are ready, overready, to be parents. They would do very well with children but they cannot have them. Why? What sense is there in this?

Maybe after all, She created the world, breathed the spark of life into it and stepped aside to watch what may come and it truly is no more than evolutionary and biological rolls of the dice that we are here. But then, why step in when I called Her to help me become and stay sober?

I think it is somewhere in the Bible that has the story of the prophet wandering the sea shore, thinking, trying to contemplate the mystery that is the Divine. He comes across a boy who has dug a hole in the sand and is running to the sea, filling a bucket with water and dumping it into the hole. What are you doing? he askes the boy. Trying to fit the ocean into this hole. responds the boy. The prophet laughs and tells the boy that is impossible whereupon the boy turns into and angel and says: Nor is it possible for you, a mortal man, to fit all of the Divine into your mind.

The prophet takes the point and spends the rest of his days drinking, partying and doing hot chicks because, hey, if thinking about God is pointless, why not? Okay, I made that last bit up.

I'm joking because the next thing I'm going to tell you really does frighten me and have me upset. Laura's doctor is not happy with her blood pressure and her thyroid levels are a concern. Because of Laura's age, she is considered a high-risk pregnancy anyway. Finally, Laura entered her pregnancy a with a little extra, um, how do I say this? I believe in hip-hop parlance, one might say: baby got back, if you know what I mean. Okay, most of my readers are hopelessly white through an unfortuate series of genetic errors; so, think of the Spinal Tap song where they are all playing bass guitars.

I am so dead if she ever reads this post.

Anyway, they are not going to let Laura go full term. They are going to induce her. The possibility of a C-section shoots way up. The pain level of the labor shoots way up. I'm suddenly very frightened.

And to top it all off, looks like my parents want to be involved in our lives again.

Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Thank You for my life, my wife and my sobriety. Blessed Be.