What I Didn't Know I Needed

Isn't it funny that sometimes things happen that you didn't realize you desperately needed until after the fact? For a while now, I've been trying to find a time to stop by my OB office to visit Brooke, the one who did all our ultrasounds with Ellie. We had several attempts but it just didn't work out with busy schedules. But, today the stars finally aligned and we got to stop by for a visit. And it was the best!

If you're reading this, you likely know that our pregnancy was complicated and far more eventful than we had hoped. My OB office was like my home away from home, especially from ~27weeks until Ellie was born at 34weeks. The silver lining of this is how close we grew to the staff there. On some of my very worst days, I was always met with compassion and love. It made a lot of really hard things feel just a little bit easier. And, because those women walked through such a challenging, vulnerable season with me, it is genuinely sad not to see them anymore. 

In the months since Ellie was born, I've done a lot of work to process all we went through. It has been hard and scary and overwhelming at times. Thank God I have an incredible therapist to help me on that journey. I have grown a lot in the past 6 months. And, there have been times along the way when I've really allowed myself to feel the weight of all I went through. I've voiced the feelings of failure and been met with grace. I've realized that I felt abandoned in some of the scariest moments along the way despite having an incredible support system. I've acknowledged the grief of our story, while also pausing to look at the beauty as well. I've done a lot of inner work, AND most of the times I intellectualize it so I can keep the actual feelings and emotions at arm's length. 

At this moment, I have 6 different medical journals open in my browsers as well as several different pages from the CDC's website. I have listened to podcasts, read books, read medical journals, and more, all in an effort to understand our complications. Really, a lot of this hyper-fixation on research and learning has been my continued attempt to understand why all these things happened to us. So, I stay in my head about a lot of it. I'm really good at thinking about all of this stuff without really feeling any of it. Until I go to my OB office - then all bets are off... 

My first appointment back, at 6-weeks postpartum, I anticipated crying and getting hit with the emotions of it all. We were still in the thick of it with triple-feeding, fortifying milk, and navigating life as a family of 4. I wasn't surprised when it brought up all the feels. 

The same was true when I had a follow-up appointment to see my doctor about lingering abdominal pain. In fact, that time I knew I was going to be an emotional wreck because I also got to debrief our pregnancy and birth in more detail. It was the first time I got to talk with my OB about the pain and grief of it all. And, this visit got my chart the fancy addition of "history of birth trauma" to it. I got to bring Ellie with me, and my doctor got to hold her and it healed something in me. 

When we went by to visit Brooke today, I had no anticipation of it being anything more than a happy visit with a friend. And it certainly was a happy visit with a friend. Except, then we also got to go in to the back to see so many of the nurses and doctors who walked this journey with us. And, let me tell you, the way they lit up and simply delighted in Ellie was the greatest gift. I didn't realize how much it would warm my heart to see them love on her (and us).

You see, a lot of the appointments I go to with Ellie are riddled with stress and anxiety. I generally leave them feeling discouraged or like I'm somehow failing her (again). The focus is on Ellie's weight and how she isn't on the growth charts and how "she's not growing as fast as we'd like her to be." It's like they don't even really see her - they just see numbers. But, that was different today - not a single one of the nurses or doctors commented on how small Ellie was. Instead, they commented on how big she's gotten - on her smile - how happy she is - her strength - her beautiful blue eyes - how much she's grown. They actually saw her. They celebrated her and honored how far she's come, how far we've come - they honored all it took to get her here. They called her by name. And it cracked something open in me in the most beautiful way.

I needed this visit even more than I knew. I needed to remember that providers can delight in and love on Ellie in the same way we do. I needed to feel loved and held by women who have helped carry me through some of my toughest moments. Heck, my doctor even took time to hug me and ask how I've been doing. And, until she asked me that, I hadn't realized just how much I've been holding in. I joked after we left that I should've known that I just can't leave that office without crying. Except, these were tears of healing and tears of gratitude. These were tears of being overwhelmed in the best way possible. These tears were a long time coming despite seeming like they came completely out of the blue. These tears were exactly what I didn't even know I needed. 

The dream team