trusting

When I was in nursing school, we learned about Erikson's stages of human development. Erikson said that we all go through certain life phases that involve a "conflict" that we must successfully resolve in order to obtain a certain virtue of our identity (the phrase "identity crisis"? Credit this guy for that). The very first one we go through as human beings? Trust versus mistrust: as an infant, you learn whether or not to have trust in your caregiver that your very basic needs in life will be met. It rests at the very core of who we are and how we relate to this world, knowing that above all else, we're taken care of.



This week has been all about trusting, and I'm not sure it's my newborn son who is the only one learning to resolve that conflict.

Being a new parent has been one of the most intense life experiences I have ever known. From his grand entrance into this world via emergency c-section - a story I will share at a later date, I promise - my heart and my head have been flooded with emotions, both exhilarating and overwhelming, sometimes terrifying. Aidan is my precious son - my SON - and being his mommy has completely changed my life and my perspective. I was prepared, I think, on some level for the amount of love I would feel for this little man with his delicate fingers and toes, curious blue eyes, wrinkly face, and round little belly. It was an enormous amount of love like nothing I'd ever known before, but I figured that would happen. I love it.



What I was not prepared for was the other side of that intense love, what my dear friend Jen likens to "your heart running around outside of your chest": the incredible, almost too-overwhelming sense of responsibility for this little person's life, the fierce desire to protect him against enemies both real and perceived (as well as the rational and irrational), the realization that, although you can try your absolute hardest, you cannot protect your child against everything, whether those things are illnesses, bullies, rainy days, heartache, bruises, or any other kind of injury. And it tears you up inside, it does.



I know a lot of these harder feelings are the result of some pretty intense hormones, that pretty much any new mother has felt these same things and can relate, and that the emotional onslaught is temporary, that things will calm down in my heart eventually, but it's hard to see that from this point in the game.

Since our arrival home from the hospital, we've spent every day in multiple doctor's appointments, running all over town to make sure Aidan's jaundice would not run out of control. Because of some significant bruising as a result of his position in my pelvis (up against it, really), he was at a higher risk for jaundice, so he was sent home with us with a somewhat elevated reading, a bili light bed, and the assurance that it would "go away". It did not, at least not like we expected it to. Every day, we went to our pediatrician's office, had Aidan's heel stuck and blood drawn, and hoped for the best. Each day, his bilirubin levels slowly rose. I cried at every visit. Our pediatrician was disturbed by the levels, and the seed of fear was planted in my heart: was my son going to be okay? We kept him under the blue lights as much as we could, upped his fluid intake by breastfeeding AND pumping, and prayed. Still, no improvement. Plus, we found this rather disturbing black spot where his circumcision was performed that neither Jason or I could remember how it looked in the days we were at the hospital with him, so we were also sent to a pediatric urologist for consultation.



And, in addition to all of that, we were also still these two first-time parents learning how to care for a newborn, a huge challenge alone. Breastfeeding was challenging - the supply was bountiful, the hunger and suck factor very present, but the technique rough, and I ended up needing to use a nipple shield for him to latch on correctly, something from which I am finding a huge challenge to wean. There was the challenge of coordinating and rearranging your entire life around someone else's pooping schedule, maneuvering a squirmy infant at every diaper change, learning how to negotiate the finer points of both disposable and cloth diapers (note: LOVE the cloth. A post for a later date, but I love them. So much better than the disposables...), and of course, the endless analyzing: is he pooping enough? Too much? Should it be this color and consistency? Is he pooping out all the bilirubin?

And then came Wednesday night, after a long day of running around to doctor's offices, drugstores for unexpected last-minute baby purchases, and trying to live this new life: Aidan's bilirubin was STILL elevated, and he wasn't responding to the home phototherapy treatment we'd been giving him, the pediatrician told us. Aidan has always been a pretty mellow baby - not much of a crier - but his increased "mellowness" that day at her office also greatly concerned her as well, and it was time to take our little one back to the hospital. So off to the hospital we went, stayed up with Aidan overnight and into the next day as he was hooked up to an IV, put under more intense phototherapy, and had lots of tests run.



Thursday afternoon, when we returned home, I was pretty sure I'd hit rock bottom on my emotional threshold. I was completely exhausted, scared, anxious, almost to complete panic. My trust level was not very high.

Today, on our way to a follow up appointment with the pediatrician, one of Orlando's finest examples of bad driving decided to ride the back of our car as we were exiting an off-ramp from the highway. I mean, really tail us with his black SUV, seemingly just inches off our bumper. There haven't been many days that I've lived here where I haven't come across someone like this on the road, but today, I panicked. My heart started racing, because all I could think about was Aidan riding in his car seat in the back, blissfully unaware of this idiot who couldn't keep a safe distance, and how Mr. Black Escalade was endangering my son's well-being. Jason muttered some sort of comment about idiot drivers and looked at me, only to find me gasping for air and then crying uncontrollably. Was every day an accident waiting to happen? Would we wreck and end up like so many of my patients, dependent on a ventilator, fighting for life, with an infant doing the same in an pediatric ICU? There wasn't anything I could do about the horrible driver behind us, and it rocked me to my core. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I'd made a mistake on this whole parenting thing, that emotionally, I just wasn't equipped for it, that this perfect little person was born to a wreck of a mother, and that I would spend the next 18+ years in a constant state of hyperanxiety, fearful and worrisome over every little (and big) thing. I didn't think I could handle it.



Enter Jason, my wise husband. In between my hiccupy sobs and tears outside of the pediatrician's office, he held me and stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be okay. And he said that not as some shallow platitude to get me to calm down, but he reminded me of God's great love for me, that I was still His child, too, and had a day ever gone by when I wasn't loved, provided for, had my own needs met? No. Days have gone by, plenty of days, where I have seen very dark places, experienced great struggle, felt some serious pain, faced my own demons and bullies and illnesses, and I've come out stronger of heart, more blessed than before, surer in my walk with Christ. And for as much as we love Aidan, Jason reminded me, God loves him infinitely more, and He is taking care of him, too. That we're not alone on this journey of parenthood, that our needs will be met, that even in the face of all that is or seems dark and scary, God has this little precious life - and ours - in His strong, protective hands, and that He is not only watching over us, but is intimately connected with us every step of the way.



I'll confess: even as I type these words about trusting God, tears still come to my eyes, and I worry. It's a hard habit to break, I guess. Despite everyone's good advice and my better judgment, I still get anxious over things I can neither predict nor control, from the immediate (should his poop be this solid already? Is he constipated?) to the far-reaching (what if he gets bullied and picked on in school?). It's all a strong reminder to me that trust is not a one time act, a lesson to be learned and then forgotten, but a daily exercise. Every time one of those thoughts comes through my head, I have to learn how to trust all over again. I remind myself of a song a youth group band wrote based on Proverbs 3:

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart
Lean not on your own understanding
In all of your ways, acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.

Don't worry about tomorrow,
He's got it under control,
Just trust in the Lord with all of your heart,
And He will carry you through.

I pray that God will grow Aidan up to be a man of strong faith, of pure heart, of unfailing faithfulness and a fire for the Lord that cannot be quenched. I pray that God will keep his protective hand over my sweet little bundle and protect him from harm. I pray that Aidan will never go a single day of his life without knowing how much he is loved, how much of a gift he is, and how he is God's precious son even more than he is our son.

And even through the fearful moments and tears, I pray for daily grace and strength from God, that I won't forget that He is with me, my son, and my husband every second of every day, and that I can be free to enjoy every warm snuggle and smile and tender moment with my little miracle.



Amen.