On Faith & Family: Sometimes the hardest thing in life is not knowing what’s going to happen next
By Leah Gibson of Paso Robles
–Sometimes the hardest thing in life is not knowing what’s going to happen next. Then again, sometimes the hardest thing in life is knowing what IS going to happen next and feeling powerless to do anything about it.
The only thing I had ever wanted to be in life was a wife and a mother and I was going to get the chance to be both when we found out we were pregnant eight months into our marriage.
Then I miscarried.
This was not what I was expecting and certainly not what I wanted. We continued to try to conceive and I had so many fears. What if we couldn’t get pregnant again? What if we did get pregnant and had to go though that painful experience all over again?
Leah Gibson
With our next pregnancy, we didn’t experience any problems until week twenty-five. At that point, the doctor. told us that he was concerned our baby wasn’t growing as he should be and we went from having a perfectly normal pregnancy to monitoring two to three times a week. We were induced at thirty-seven weeks. After various complications, we ended up delivering via c-section. By the grace of God, we delivered a healthy baby boy who has grown into a very sweet two-and-a-half-year-old. He is obsessed with cars and all things Curious George!
Five months after Grant was born, we received the happy and unexpected news that we were pregnant once again! Due to similar complications, our second son was only in the 1st percentile for much of my pregnancy. During one of my fetal monitoring sessions, a nurse came in with her clipboard and told me to call my husband because we would be delivering within the next several hours.
Watching them pull my son out was one of the most incredible moments of my life and to this day I am convinced that God froze time for me to see his face because only moments after delivery, he was taken to the NICU and I was not able to hold him. Thus began eighteen of the hardest days of our lives.
When your child is in the NICU, it is part of the hospital’s policy that the staff not disclose any information in regards to how long they will be there or how close they are to going home. For me, this was a turning point in my life that caused me to cling to God in a way I never had before because suddenly I knew I had no control over anything that happened in my life.
What do you do when you’re worried? When I’m worried, I tend to do a lot of writing.
When my husband worries, he tends to work on lots of projects. For most people, this would mean putting together a puzzle or building a birdhouse. For my husband, this meant drawing up plans for a five hundred square foot expansion/remodel on our home.
To some of you, this might sound crazy but for us, it was the perfect place to pour all that stored up nervous energy.
During this time we juggled daily NICU visits, trying to keep up with our fourteen-month-old and praying like we never had before.
Our son Colton was released from the NICU eighteen days after birth and we are forever grateful to God and the incredible staff that took such great care of him. Our sweet son is now one and a half, as healthy as can be and a little ball of energy who keeps us on our toes and always puts a smile on our faces. He is also the reason we are four months into our next big adventure: our house expansion project!
Maybe you’re going through some unknowns of your own. Let’s dwell on Hebrews 12:1-3: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
