It's an honor to have Joy from Joy in this Journey sharing a glimpse of what it looks like when all you've planned for in parenting flies out the window and you gain the wisdom to raise the unique child you hold in your arms:
From the moment the test turned positive, I studied and prepared for pregnancy, delivery, and motherhood the way I did for everything. I learned the ins and outs of any new venture so I would be armed with every answer I needed. I wouldn’t take any sass, would squelch rebellion early, and would map out the sleep schedules by the third trimester. I was going to be the perfect parent, the one who made just enough mistakes to prove I was human and give us all a nice laugh. I followed all the rules, took all the vitamins, and wrote the detailed birth plan. But even with all my prep, something nagged at me.
At lunch several weeks before my due date, I told my coworkers, “This pregnancy has been too easy. One day it is going to come back and bite me. Our child is probably going to be a super-rebellious teen.”
When our baby girl slid all goopy and squirmy into the world two full weeks before her due date (two weeks I had filled with important things like choosing the perfect pediatrician), it was the first of many clues that Elli had a mind of her own, and she hadn’t read any of my plans. Unpredictable was her trademark.
Within hours, a doctor spoke the words “heart murmur” and ordered x-rays and EKG. The next day, she developed severe jaundice and lost an alarming amount of weight. She wouldn’t stay awake to breastfeed. Next thing we knew, I was huddled in an exam room chair, delirious from hormones and the screams of my baby as a nurse tried to get an i.v. into her tiny limbs for the tenth time.
As I buried my head in my arm to shut out the horror, I vowed silently, “When we get out of here, we will live like gypsies and never see another doctor.”
Three hours later, a cardiologist sketched out his best guess at Elli’s heart anatomy and warned us she would a transplant. Six weeks later we finally brought her home after a terrifying code blue (her heart stopped beating for 30 minutes), a 12-hour open-heart surgery in which the chances of success were a mere 20%, and the onset of infantile seizures. She needed oxygen, 8 different medicines, and round-the-clock feeds via a tube inserted into her nose and threaded down into her belly.
I threw out all my plans, and my husband and I created medication charts so if one of us got up with our baby while the other slept, we would know who had given which med. I nursed her two or three times after she got home from the hospital, using a hospital-grade breast pump for six months until my milk was gone.
We took her to occupational therapy to learn how to suckle a bottle and eventually how to eat from a spoon. One day the therapist got out a sugar-sweetened artificially-flavored applesauce to try with her. I’ll never forget the look on her face as she asked, “Is it okay to feed her this? I know you don’t like sugar.”
I shrugged. What did it matter? She needed the calories. I would have agreed to feed her pure butter if I thought she’d take it.
Those days, weeks, and months broke me of every expectation I had. They also bolstered my backbone against the mommy wars I knew were raging around me. None of my carefully-laid plans fit a child with complex congenital heart defects and a brain injury. We had to rely on the expertise of doctors, nurses, and therapists to learn to care for Elli’s medical needs. Her knack for surprising everyone taught us early that we would do a lot of trial and error. She needed us to see her and learn her the hard, in-the-trenches, praying every moment for wisdom way.
That’s really how it is with every baby, I’ve discovered. We can learn things from books, but our children need us to study and learn them. Each child is unique, and part of good parenting is learning how each individual thinks and asking God for the wisdom and discernment we need for each one. I am thankful for those unspeakably difficult days with Elli, though it still breaks my heart remembering them, because they empowered me to listen to my gut.
Joy writes naked (it isn't what you think) on her blog Joy In This Journey. Her focus is in living a fully-dimensioned life of faith within the context of real life: suffering, dirty laundry, doubt and questions about theology, parenting, women’s issues, and church. She has been married over 14 years, has four children (three still living), and has been writing since the second grade. Twitter Facebook
My family takes a vacation nearly every Spring Break to somewhere warm. Over the last few years we've been to Mexico a few times and Puerto Rico. We're a busy family, on the go with careers, sports, school, camps, music, swimming lessons and on and on. In an ideal world we could catch up at home, relax and "re-jell" as I like to put it. But, that is never the case. Projects call from all around, family fun days can easily become family workdays. The laundry and the "to do" list, endless. The week of vacation is always nice. But, there is one part that is always my favorite. 
It's the magical minutes where my children greet the ocean for the first time. It's usually on the first late afternoon or early evening. We've survived the trek from Minnesota, most of the time with our luggage, sometimes not quite fed, and always ready to be revived. 
The first time they greeted the sea this way I thought it was a magical once in a life time moment. But, they do it year after year. The waves churn and their voices dance in the air together. Their ages are all spaced around 3 years apart. At any given year there are more differences than similarities. They are different ages and stages, apart. But, as they run to the sea, their ages and school years disappear, whether they are the littlest, girl, or boy, teenager, or tot, thinking of college or thinking about the first time they will get their ears pierced, all their differences disappear. 
They unify and become brother and sister again. They become one family. 
And that is my very favorite part of my vacation. Every year. 
