Normal!

What is normal? I thought I used to know. Over the last few years, I've decided normal is what you make of it! Normal is certainly not what I would have considered our lives over the last two years. However, we have had to trust on a higher power and believe that His path was more "wisdomous" (my dad's favorite word :)) than ours! Normal was not losing a baby. Normal was not suddenly being pregnant and scared 4 months later. Normal was certainly no where on the spectrum of feelings I experienced throughout my last pregnancy, and yet everything in the medical world through all of that WAS "normal"! That's the issue with stillbirth - there's usually not an answer or a reason. In one way, it's comforting that you're not carrying a fatal genetic disorder or something like that. In another, it's pure terror because there are also very few if any ways to prevent it from happening again.

Over the last few months I've had a new scare for the Devil to worry me with! (He's really good at getting me to worry!) I started catching up on some much needed dental work while I was on maternity leave in January. I've suffered with TMJ since I was a teenager, so when my jaws started hurting, it really wasn't out of the ordinary. Just another "normal". Well it went on, and it got worse! For the last 3 months, the pain was slowly grown to where some days it hurt for the wind to blow on my face. It really escalated after we got home from Hawaii. I would have spells where I would have blinding, shooting pain through my temple/jaw are that would shoot through nerves in my skull, down my neck, into my face, etc. At it's worst, I couldn't talk and couldn't see. Well, needless to say, I jumped, NO LEPT onto the panic button! I've shared before the trust that I am trying to have that the Lord will calm my fears of another tragedy. Well, I certainly didn't do a great job with this one! I was convinced this time it was me who would be the victim of a brain tumor, aneurysm, you name it! Last Sunday night, our sweet brothers and sisters at church got down and prayed for me. The pain eased some, and I finally gathered the nerve to call the doctor.

Long story short - the doctor was concerned. There was talk of MRIs, neuro consults, anti-convulsive medicine (not sure about that one!), etc. I was scared, but trying to trust what I felt when our church prayed for me. Monday afternoon last week, every pain in my head left EXCEPT a tooth!! There are some things in my life I KNOW the Lord has done for me - last Monday HE let the pain leave enough for me to know the source! I got to the dentist immediately, and they proceeded to do a root canal on what the dentist called the worst abscess he had ever seen. The mass of infection was pressing on my cranial nerves which he was 99% certain was causing all of my pain! By that night, I was like a NEW person! I haven't felt that good in literally years!! He couldn't believe I had made it through the flight with the pressure changes and felt certain that's why I hadn't been able to get back on my feet since the pregnancy.

We went ahead with the MRI as scheduled - it was clear!! I haven't had a pain all week! It's amazing! I had forgotten what it felt like to feel physically good in my body. I am not a good pregnant person, and my body was evidently not designed for it, because I am nothing but miserable when I am pregnant. So for the last two years, I've been one physical calamity after another. I consider myself pretty tough and try not to complain, but I'm sure there are plenty who know how it can absolutely wear on your nerves to try to carry on with daily responsibilities and feel like dirt! I know the release of that pressure and infection has really made a big difference in the way I feel, but I know the real source of my new normal. This was another spiritual step in that trust ladder I'm trying to climb. Once again, I jumped off the deep end and once again God was there to catch me!

His ways are so perfect! He allowed me to know His children cared about me and I have no doubt He could have taken the pain from me the night they prayed. He chose, however, to prove that He could make a way when even the doctors were confused. He made the way clear when it was covered with debris, brush and everything else I had put there! He even allowed all of this to ease another fear - my mother suffers from a congenital brain malformation called chiari. She faced and overcame a very serious surgery in 2001, and has always secretly worried that I or the girls also carried this condition. Through these tests, they ruled out that I had chiari and in turn, the girls most likely would not have it either since I don't. The Lord's ways are perfect - He answered prayers. What else can you say?

So I am LOVING this new normal!! I don't have any great pictures to post because my new normal got caught up on laundry, getting ready for Easter, etc. and I LOVED every minute of it :)

Pictures soon! Enjoy whatever "normal" the Lord gives you this week!