Word of the Week

The word for this week is: Catawampus

I was at a small group meeting tonight, and a new friend used it in a sentence. It's bad when you're trying to pay attention to someone's story and your mind is thinking "Ooh, I can use that as my Word of the Week - I wonder if I'll find it on Dictionary.com."

My last W.O.W was hyperemesis, which unfortunately means "severe and excessive vomiting". Gross, right?

Six weeks after God placed an amazing little life inside me, I became intimately acquainted with the diagnosis that I was experiencing a "hyperemic pregnancy". Throughout the next 7 months, I do not recall a day when I didn't lose every ounce of nourishment I attempted to put into my body. Several times a day.

On the "good days", I would try to go to work or run an errand, only to be sideswiped by a wave of nausea and summoned to my knees for hours. Once, I had to call my mom to drive me home from the parking lot of a drug store when I ironically became too naseous to wait in the pharmacy line for my anti-nausea medication.

On another occasion, my brother had the privelege of rescuing me from the ladies bathroom at the grocery store, where I'd attempted to pick up a few items of food to feed my poor husband. I was no match for the deli department, though... thinly-sliced turkey is a formidable foe to a weak stomach.

Needless to say, the sweetest words I ever heard were the doctor's proclamation that we had ourselves a baby boy. Mainly because it meant that I'd apparently survived the pregnancy; and at a hefty nine pounds, Drew seemed to have weathered the waves pretty well, too!

While I attempt to color my memories with shades of humor, I also feel a need to be transparent about the experience.

I never knew depression until I carried this child for nine months. I never experienced such a blow to my "I-can-do-everything" ego until I couldn't do anything at all but sit on the cold tile floor of my bathroom. I never thought I'd make irrational choices when my own child's life was at stake until I heard myself begging the doctor to "deliver him NOW", six weeks before my due date (they didn't, by the way. Thank goodness doctors tend to ignore irrationally hormonal pregnant women).

The good news is that I've never known that kind of depression again since the day my son took his first breath of earthly air, and my days are filled with tremendous joy. I've never experienced such assurance that "God can do everything" until I realized I couldn't do anything except pray for this beautiful gift He's loaned me. I never knew what it felt like to be gladly willing to give your life without question for someone, until I met this boy.

Three years have passed since my hyperemic phase of life. I'm happy to say that the memories aren't quiet so vivid. Perspective has set in, and I'm realizing that my experience has made me more empathetic (I certainly have a soft spot in my heart for young moms who are at a certain stage of pregnancy and a certain shade of green).

Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for the experience. And I still feel victorious when I'm able to complete my order at the deli counter!