Beautiful Prayers

I sit here in my bedroom, fighting back tears.  Riley is down stairs watching TV, too much TV, but it is all I can do right now.  Just let her watch TV.  I am overwhelmed and angry.  I have to switch one of my medications this week, 36 weeks, because it is not safe to take it and have an epidural.  It could cause paralysis if I did.  So I am supposed to switch to one that is safe to take with an epidural.  I have to search and try five pharmacies before I can find one who has it and when I finally do the medication comes in multi dose vials that I have to draw myself, rather than the pre-filled single dose syringes I have been using with my old medicine.  I ask the pharmacist if these vials have preservatives in them as I know they usually do.  He says he will check and call me.  Sure enough, he calls me back later and tells me it does have a preservative that is not recommended in pregnancy.  I research it and the FDA clearly states pregnant women should not take this preservative.  I am so mad.  I have to check, check and check again all the time or doctors and pharmacists will just give you this stuff without a second thought.  So I refuse to take the medicine and have a call into my doc to get a script for the preservative free form of the medicine.  This could take days.  I will keep taking my old medicine until then.  If I go into labor in the mean time then no epidural for me, which actually seems like a pretty good idea right now.  Anything that poses a risk of paralysis to me and harm to my baby is just not worth the pain relief.  I have been through enough pain just getting to this point.  I'm sure I can handle labor and delivery without pain meds.  All this just makes me feel anxious.  I don't want to have to take all these meds and worry about them hurting my baby or paralyzing me...can't I Just have the baby now??!!  Babies born at 36 weeks do quite well I am told. 

My mother in law is in her final days the hospice nurses tell us.  7-10 days is what they expect.  A baby, a birth, a new life.  A death, a good bye, an ending.  All at once.  It is so much.  It overwhelms me.  I fear every day that I am going to lose my baby.  This past week has actually been harder than the last several months.  I am so far.  I can't lose her now.  The stakes are so high and so the fear is much worse.  I just want her here safe and healthy...now.  And I don't want to take any more medicine that could hurt my baby but "the benefits outweigh the risks".  Great, that is a lovely place for a mother to be in...this medicine could hurt your baby.  Yet, if you don't take it, you could lose your baby all together. 

I think of the lyrics to Amy Grant's "Better Than a Hallelujah":

God loves a lullaby
In a mother's tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

God loves the drunkard's cry
The soldier's plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The woman holding on for life
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The tears of shame for what's been done
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

This describes my prayers for the past five years, but especially lately, not so much words formulated into sentences and requests put before God.  But more desperate pleas, cries in the middle of the night (or afternoon while your child is watching too much TV).  Prayers come in the form of exhausted sighs, feelings that have no words to describe them, broken prayers that Jesus takes to God and makes perfect on my behalf.  I hope God really does love those kinds of prayers better than a hallelujah sometimes because He has been getting a lot of them from me.  What do you pray for when your husband's mother is suffering and has no quality of life...a miracle or mercy that takes her swiftly?  What do you pray for when your choice is to take a drug that may hurt your baby but if you don't you could lose your baby?  How do you ask God over and over and over to please bring your baby safely into your arms without starting to feel like a broken record?  I suppose you don't. And your prayers become formed out of "the beautiful mess we are and the honest cries of breaking hearts".  Thank you God, that you can turn my mess into a beautiful prayer. 

I love you always and forever and no matter what.