It's life.

The past five days have been a roller coaster of experiences, emotions and whirlwinds. Ups and downs, lefts and rights, and sometimes losing my footing. I feel a little more grounded now that it's passed, but I'm still trying to regain some composure after the weekend's events. Bear with me, this will be a long one.

So as we all know, my chest pains started to become worse and worse, coming more frequently than ever, and causing some severe breathing trouble. The doctors were perplexed, trying on different diagnoses like they were trying on shoes at Nordstrom. Nobody could seem to nail down what was wrong, what was causing the pain. Test after test was run, I even went to a physical therapist, thinking that would help... only to have trouble breathing an hour later.  

After being admitted to the hospital for the 7th time during my pregnancy on Friday night, they decided to keep me there a while, run a lot of blood work and figure this thing out. The pain was still occurring and morphine was starting to become ineffective. Fear starting permeating the conversations... "How much can her body take? When do we need to draw the line? Do we wait for the baby to go into distress?" There were talks of delivering my son this week... 9 weeks before he's supposed to join us outside the womb. Karen came to the hospital to sit with me. We talked, wondered what the hell was wrong with me, cried a little at the possibility of having a baby in the NICU for weeks, cried a little more that Erik couldn't come quickly enough. He was south for work. But Karen, always the speaker of Truth, calmed me down and assured me that no matter what happened, it would be okay and my son would be taken care of. We'd have to adjust, to be sure, but we'd be okay. I always breathe a little easier when she visits.

After Karen's visit, a call to his cell, then small talk about maybe delivering sooner than expected, Erik hopped on the bike and bolted to Portland. He arrived late Saturday night, after they had already given me Ambien to help me sleep. I don't remember his arrival, but I do know that I woke up the next morning to find him sleeping in his clothes on the bench next to me... and it was the most reassuring sight I've ever seen. He woke up, we talked, I cried, and we tried not to get frustrated with the situation. He held my hand, and I prayed silently for the calmness that can only come from God.

Then, there was a lovely doctor who visited me on Sunday morning. She wasn't my own doctor, nor was she the high-risk pregnancy doctor who had seen me previously. She just happened to be the doctor on-call that morning making rounds when she stopped by my room to chat about my pain. For what seemed like the billionth time, I explained the pains in exquisite detail: how it felt, where it hurt, rating the pain on a scale... everything you could think of. She looked at my previous blood testing results and said with perked interest, "Hmm. Your liver levels are up. Everything else that we've talked about just doesn't make sense if your liver is showing higher levels." I agreed, nodding, hoping that she'd continue. "You know what? Before we start talking about musculoskeletal issues, let's get an upper-abdominal ultrasound. We need to start ruling out each organ before we move on. I'm thinking gallbladder, but this will give us some answers." I felt discouraged at first, thinking "Great, just another test to tell me nothing is wrong with me, when there is obviously something seriously wrong."

So, my ultrasound was scheduled for later that day and we sat around and watched Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. We had some visitors, which was incredibly refreshing. You don't realize what a vacuum you're in until you see people from the outside world. Being in the hospital is weird, man. Anyway, Eric and Tara Brown came to visit, and so did Josh and Holly Butler. (As I type this, Holly is preparing to deliver her baby girl, Aiden Ivey! We're all waiting for any news about progress.) We sat around and chatted, everyone asking what's happening, what the plan is, how my pain was being managed. We talked & laughed about pregnancy and childbirth, which turned the discussion to our friend, Callie. Both Holly and I worked with Callie at the church right up until she was induced. The three of us were pregnant together, Callie being the first, Holly the second and me last. When everyone was visiting me in the hospital, Callie and Justin were welcoming their new baby girl, Mia Grace into the world... she was born early on Friday morning, just past midnight. Holly, Josh, Eric, Tara, Erik and I spoke briefly about her labor and delivery, imagining how hard it must have been (almost 30 hours after being induced!), when Holly asked, "Have you heard about Mia?"

I was puzzled, wondering what she meant. "Not since the announcement, and I haven't had the chance to go see Callie because I've been stuck here. What's up?" Holly looked down at her hands, then back at me and quickly said, "Yeah... Mia has Down Syndrome."

Have you ever had one of those moments where the word "shocked" doesn't quite do it justice? It was one of those moments. I felt like the air was sucked out of my chest, and the only thing I could manage to do was let my eyes well up with tears. Somehow I squeaked out "Oh my God." The room was quiet for what was probably only a moment, but felt like an hour. The conversation kept going, and I'm sure I contributed. I remember my mouth moving, but I don't remember anything I said. I remember Eric, Tara, Josh, and Holly all praying for Erik and I before they left, but honestly, I don't remember a single word. As we all bowed our heads, and everyone had hands on me praying, all I remember thinking about was Mia. And Callie. And Justin. And how they're doing. Are they okay? Is Callie freaking out? Is Justin a wreck? Is their family there? What kind of tests were run? Do we know for sure? "God please, don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm begging You, focus all your attention on that family and their baby girl right now." My visitors left, and Erik and I were left with a million questions and broken hearts. We were so, so sad for our friends. I debated calling them, but realized that they probably just got the news, so I need to keep my distance and maybe call in a couple of days. The best thing to do at that time was pray. So I did.

I did a lot of praying this weekend.

So 3:00pm rolls around and I got wheeled to my ultrasound, letting the sonographer push hard into my ribs and back, all the while praying that something would show up on that screen. She was a sweet young woman, probably about my age. She even asked me of she could do a quick ultrasound of my belly for me, just so I could say hi to my boy for a moment. He was beautiful, his heart beating strong, and still leading me to believe that he'll come out with my nose. He even waived at me... or so it seemed. Knowing the normal actions of this child, he was probably pissed and starting pushing back against the ultrasound wand, screaming "Get that damn thing out of my face, woman!" He's been a little hellion when it comes to movements. There are times when I swear he's purposefully head-butting my cervix.

So, after waiting a short while back in the room for results, the telephone in my room rang. It was the lovely doctor from that morning! She had results. She almost yelled into the phone, "I know what's wrong with you! You're full of gallstones, just like I thought!" Hallelujah! They know what's wrong with me! We have a true and real diagnosis! Sure enough, I looked at the Mayo Clinic's website as well as WebMD (because I confess I had no idea what gallstones were, or why it mattered that I had them), and some of the first symptoms that show up in gallstones are severe chest pains underneath the breastbone and in between the shoulder blades. "Of course! Gallstones!" I said into the phone, pretending like I knew what she was talking about. "So what's next?" I asked. She replied "Well, at some point you'll have to get your gallbladder taken out, but for now, you need to change your diet pretty seriously. Absolutely ultra-low fat, and no dairy. Got it? Both of those things will really inflame it and cause chest pain again. And if you get an attack that doesn't go away, which is how this is progressing, then we'll need to deliver Junior earlier than you want."

So, that's the diagnosis. Gallstones. No fat, no dairy. Got it.

Wait. What? I'm sorry, did you say no dairy? There's dairy in ice cream.

And you said ultra-low fat? Dark chocolate-covered almonds are pretty high in fat, huh? So is ice cream?

SONOFABITCHYOUHAVEGOTTOBEKIDDINGME! Well, that blows. I'm almost 31 weeks pregnant and my one cliche pregnant food that I love is now out of the picture? Of course it is! Why would the last weeks of my pregnancy be normal? Why would I ever be cliche? It's a little late to start that "normal" crap anyway, right?

So, after the diagnosis on Sunday evening, they let me out of the hospital, wrote me a prescription for Dilaudid (practically morphine in pill-form), and sent me on my way. We got home, spent the night snuggling on the couch and enjoying each others presence, and got a good-nights sleep.

Labor Day came quickly the next morning. We slept in and went out for breakfast. When we got home, I decided to call Callie and get an update, and just to hear her voice. I hadn't talked to her since before her inducement, I only got updates from her sister's text messages in the middle of the night during her labor. I needed to know how her & Justin were doing, and how Mia was progressing. I got her on the phone and we talked for a long while. Callie was doing GREAT. She was emotional, because Mia still had to be in the hospital and under the lights because her Jaundice was too bad to send her home. The new mama couldn't hold her baby girl except for 30 minutes at a time to feed her, and that was incredibly hard. They were so anxious to take her home. But the news of Mia's Down Syndrome, while felt like a shot in the chest to me, seemed like it was but a deep breath to Callie. She was so calm, so joyful, and so peaceful about it. So was Justin. They were in love with this little girl. While nobody would ever want to see a child suffer with a disease like this, I can't imagine it happening to any other family so perfectly suited to care for Mia. Justin has always had a strong & big heart for kids with special needs, and Callie's patience and gentleness is unbelievably fitting to care for this little girl. It's overwhelming to see God's grace and love in the midst of such pain. I was so relieved after hanging up the phone.

We spent Labor Day playing frisbee golf out in Hillsboro, eating Sushi with my brother, and making a run to Trader Joe's to buy me all sorts of dairy-free treats. The day went by quickly, and work arrived this morning. It was a full day back in the office, then I came home to have dinner with Erik only to quickly realize he was leaving again. Right when my heart starts to calm down from the stress of the weekend, he has to leave to go back to work. We've done this a thousand times this summer, and we're only a few weeks away from being finished, but it doesn't matter. Every time he closes the garage door and I hear his engine start, the tears come and I cry deeply. I never imagined that this summer would be so painful. Erik and I know the pains of long-distance, we are old veterans of that battle. I never imagined how hard it would be to watch his tail lights drive up the street and feel his son kick me at the same time. Every week, I grieve his absence... even if it's only for five days. We're anxious to finish this summer schedule, and it's coming quickly. The first weekend of October will be our first weekend together after the summer at OTT comes to close. I'm hopeful & waiting for that day.

So, the past weekend was a bit of a ride. Hospital stays, endless tests and devastating news... all mixed in with sweet moments of coming home, a final diagnosis and joyful friends who have a beautiful baby girl. Ups and downs, lefts and rights. We lose our footing every now and then, but at some point, we pull it together and move forward.

It's life. Right?