coffee cans + needles = trust?

well, i have successfully filled my first folgers coffee can chalk full of lovenox shots. the first of many. ian looked inside the make shift sharps container yesterday and was amazed at how full it had gotten so quickly. he was overwhelmed at the mere sight of so many needles laying upon so many needles. he looked at it and simply said, " wow, if that isn't perspective?"

i have been doing my daily injections for 12 weeks now and my belly shows the bruises and scars as a result. with sydney, i found out i had factor five at around 4 months pregnant. i was given a few weeks to decide if i wanted to do the injections, back then, my case wasn't strong enough to know then that i needed them stat...it was more, a decision we could make on our own, not a doctor mandated choice...so we weighed the pros and cons for weeks and went back and forth...there are some crazy odds of nasty side effects and long term effects in some people and we had to think of all the options ..sadly, we did not know of the time we wasted with that decision making. we finally decided on the shots, we wanted to make sure we did everything possible, no regrets.."if something were to happen or go wrong down the road, you might kick yourself for not choosing the shots, " we were told by our doctor....

we filled out all the necessary paperwork and submitted the prescriptions and waited. and waited. only to hear back from blue cross blue shield that they would not cover such injections and that i would be on my own to cover the cost....the shots are over $1,000.00 a box for a month's supply. that was not possible, unless i highjacked a bank with my big belly and a bunch of tears for sympathy....we were then directed to try and apply for pregnancy medicaid. filled out the necessary paperwork and turned it in. and waited. and waited.....several months had gone by since my factor five diagnosis....months of time wasted and a baby girl going unprotected from the evils of my body and it's evil condition...

finally, medicaid came through. we were given the green light for the shots and we were so blessed to not have to pay for them, to not have to worry about having to make such a decision, money over the well being of our daughter.....so i began the shots, i filled my coffee can. but so much time had been wasted, that my coffee can was nearly half full before we made that devastating trip to the hospital that dark november day.....i had only been on the shots for a month, maybe two....what ever clots had built up in my body in the months prior we did not see. how ever much medicine was in my blood, was not nearly enough to keep my body from going to emergency levels of clotting and abrupting......

i went through many months afterwards of wanting to call blue cross and yell at them with all i had in me. the many bills and calls i had to make to them regarding the hospital stay were always covered with tears and bitterness and sarcasm and pain. i was so livid that so much time had been wasted......i wasn't at the place of understanding yet, that God is truly sovereign over ALL things...even stupid insurance companies that said no, over me and ian with our fearful contemplating such treatmeant for those weeks following my diagnosis, over the ordained destiny of that little girl that rested in my belly....HE was in control of ALL of it....but in those first months following her death, i kept remembering my doctor's words..."if you decide against these injections and something happens, God forbid, you might struggle with kicking yourself for not doing it..." what an understatement.

so a year and a half later, i sit here with my belly full of new baby, blood laced with lovenox blood thinner, my first coffee can full of needles and a tummy full of bruises....i have the rest of this pregnancy and 6 weeks following delivery to fill more coffee cans, that's a lot of needles to come, that's a lot of folgers cans....i sit here and can only HOPE and PRAY that our efforts will be fruitful this time, that our choices and our (MY) daily stabbing my stomach in pain will in fact not be in vain...but by the end of this pregnancy, i will have four full coffee cans of needles and a baby in my arms.....but i can't trust in a coffee can full of used needles. i can't use that as my proof that all will be ok this time. i cannot trust in any other thing than my Lord, as often as i want to convince myself that all my hard "work" will pay off, my faith is not in needles or medicine or even in my body's ability to overcome my condition....my faith must alone rest in God and His plan for me.

it's hard to do my shots each morning and not think of her....to feel sad or even guilty somedays, that she didn't get the "extra advantage" that her baby brother is getting now....i look at her face on my wall and think, "if only...." my heart begins to sink with the what if's and the enemy whispers in my ear that i failed her. that we failed our baby girl....

then i am reminded with GONG resounding truth in my ear from my Lord, that He is Sovereign over ALL things...and He reminds me that His plan for sydney was not thwarted by two human parent's medical choices or red tape from a stupid insurance company like i make it in my mind so easily at times....that HE in fact, was and is the designer of our baby girl's story back then and her journey was mapped out long before she was even conceived and i have to rest in that....and i promise you with ALL that is in me, it is not of my own will that i can do that. it is only and i mean ONLY by God's sheer divine Grace that i am able to not revisit that guilt place in my mind each morning....i know i did the best i could with what i had..for her at that time....it still hurts, but i know i can't change it. and His peace covers me then. nothing of my own accord or from my own trying...His peace, and only His peace covers me and points my heart and my tears and my eyes towards Heaven. where our baby girl lives now....with her Jesus.

so, with all that said, i know that no matter how many coffee cans i may fill for this little guy, that his story is also already written as well....i can sit in pain each morning and pray for fruitful blessings at the end of this. i can sit there in stinging pain on the edge of my bed everyday and think sarcastically that this better be worth it, that all this pain and worry and effort of my body AND heart better do the trick this time......but then, the gonging sound rings again, like a familiar song in my ear....

yes, i know. TRUST......i am WHOLEheartedly trying, i promise. it is a DAILY thing. to die to myself and ALL my fears and trust the Lord with my heart. with our baby. with it ALL.......


"Don't be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Lord Himself will fight for you. Just stay calm."
Exodus 14: 13-14