two weeks to go...

I have nothing truly profound to write tonight, but I wanted to give everyone an update and to, again, let you know how we would long for you to pray.

We had our second-to-last doctor's visit today. While I approached it with some trepidation, there is a sweet calm in the season we walk in at this moment. My spirit is less at rest than it has been in the weeks before, but the reality of our day-to-day existence bears a sort of stillness that almost taunts the chaos that is sure to descend upon us in just a few days' time. All went well at the OB's: Copeland's heartrate is still very strong... she even placed a good kick against the Doppler wand while we listened, much to my suprise. She is quite restful these days, although I don't know if that's due to lack of room or simply exhaustion. I can only imagine that she grows weaker as time goes on, but with every appointment it's as if she's reminding us she's still here, not to give up on her.

Our prayers grow more and more specific as we walk down this road, mostly because as we approach the day of her arrival, our anticipation, worry, excitement and fear seem to exponentially grow. I have not asked you to pray for her lifespan before, and I don't really feel one hundred percent comfortable doing so now, but as many of you have asked me what Conor and I want, and what you can specifically approach the Father about, I will give you an honest answer. While I know some moms who've gone before me on this journey, the reality is that each of us experience it so differently. I hesitate to tell you what I, personally, most desire for Copeland's life only because I know we may not see that desire fulfilled - and because I so dread that being difficult for the other women who might have hoped differently than me. Having said that, I can tell you that Conor and I pray that Copeland might be able to breathe on her own when she is born so that our family and friends can meet her, hold her, get to experience her in whatever way we possibly can without too much medical intervention. We know what time in the NICU is like - Sellers spent a few days there, for obviously different reasons - and while it is a tremendous blessing to have such a resource, the restrictions that go with it are also fairly extensive. It would be quite difficult to spend much time with Copeland were she continually in the NICU. So please pray that she might be able to remain close to Conor and I as long as the Lord allows her to live. As many of you do know - and many of you, tenderly, have empathized with me - we are also praying that our time with her, while it is full and precious, will not be long enough to cause more heartache and agony than we might be able to process right now. I am fully aware that the longer we have her, the harder it will be to say goodbye. I am prayerful that Jesus will take her at precisely the right moment. That may sound strange: how is there ever a "right" time to let a child go? I know we will look back on this experience and our time with Copeland for years with a bit of an analytical lens and I pray when we consider the moment of her passing, we will be in agreement that, if we couldn't keep her, the Lord showed great tenderness in the time He chose to take her home.

I ask you to pray for my sense of self-worth. It is an odd request, I know, but I shared with Conor last night that as a young woman who has now had two miscarriages and will soon lose a baby, there is something excruciatingly humiliating about it all. I remember watching an episode of Oprah once where a woman talked about her inability to conceive. Her eyes welled with tears as she was asked what emotion she felt most prominently in the midst of her seeming infertility. "Shame," she wept. I can so acutely relate to this that I'm not sure I even feel totally right in telling it; I hope that that dear girl has since found a peace and a value that, whether children have come or not, she can rest in. I'm not sure why shame, embarassment - whatever you care to call it - is par for the course in these kinds of situations, or even if it is in most. But I can tell you that for me, I feel a great deal of defeat in the idea that after all of this time, I'm still facing the same sorrow I was two years ago. In much the same way that my husband longs to provide, to give Sellers and I a secure home and a sense of stability, I feel a deep and almost imperative need to have more children. It may be antiquated by much of the Western world's standards, but I unshakingly share it here with you because I believe there are many, many women who struggle silently with their sorrows over children longed for. The silence builds walls, creates the idea that you, and you alone, are unable to do what millions of women for millions of years have done, and thus you are constantly awash in a sense of failure. I believe this is one of Satan's greatest battles against our culture of late, and the only way to combat it is to call it by name and stand against it firmly. I want other women - young and old - to hear me when I say that I, too, feel like a "freak" at times... I, too, wish I could snap my fingers and "be normal"... I, too, struggle to understand why a second child hasn't come as easily as the first. It is our human nature - and perhaps the very karmic approach many of us have to Christianity these days - that leads us to question what we've done wrong, to analyze our decisions and choices, wondering what, if anything, we could've done differently to elicit the blessing from above we desperately ache for. Please pray for these broken hearts. Pray Satan will not be allowed to convince us we are failures... abnormal... insignificant... unworthy. I know that Jesus loves me, that He is proud of me, that nothing I've done wrong has placed me in this position. Pray I can embrace it every day with a renewed sense of worth in Him.

I am continually amazed and honored by your outpouring of love for Conor and I. Every day brings new cards in the mail, new e-mails, new phone calls. Even the posts on this blog astound us. While I may be unable to respond to each of you individually, I pray earnestly for you, believers and non-believers, the faith-filled and cynics, the naive and world-weary, the joyful and angst-ridden, that you might feel the Lord in your daily lives, that you might respond to Him, that somehow what we are going through with Copeland will produce eternal fruit that I am never even meant to know about.

It is with deep love and affection that I close tonight. May you be blessed.