A Weekly Liam Update

I feel like a title like that should be followed with some very official news music.

This just in!

But, you know life isn't really like that. And since people keep asking me how he's doing, I thought maybe I should try to address it at least weekly.

Right now it's partly how he's doing, partly how I'm doing. He seems to be doing great. I need some kind of Tellytubby type TV thingie that I can turn on at will and see inside my uterus. Can a girl get an in-home ultrasound? No? Well, fine.

He kicks me like crazy, especially when I lay down to sleep. He's got me sleeping like some kind of stretchy cat, because he is NOT happy unless he's given as much room to stretch as possible. And he still thinks kicking me directly in the cervix is just the best time ever.  I may not be entirely on board that party train.

What that makes him as far as my pregnancy experiences go, is normal.

Me? I spend most days going about this like any other pregnancy. Most of the time, I'm fine. Then I see something like a woman in labor and I cry because I can't have that. Not just the labor (part of me won't miss that at all) but just the ability to give birth to a perfectly healthy baby and not think about anything else.

Sometimes I let the fear get the best of me, and I think about his surgery, and if he'll be okay through it. I pray that his ventricles don't get bigger, especially since I don't know exactly what it would mean for his prognosis if they do. I pray that his encephalocele gets smaller. I pray that he can just have the surgery and be as close to normal as any child of mine has the possibility of being. To put it bluntly, I'm like a freaked out pregnant woman. And I've decided that's okay, too.

I'm allowed to have moments of fear and doubt. I'm allowed to worry about a baby that I love so much already. I'm just...allowed.

Tonight was the full moon and the girls and I did some healing work for Liam. If nothing else, it's good for me to feel like I'm doing something for him.  It's important for me, since getting a diagnosis of a major birth defect does a lot to make a mother feel completely powerless.

Again, for all those interested, we gratefully accept prayer, good wishes, positive energy, rain dances, or anything you feel like sending our way.  It's nice to know that people are thinking of us, and wishing good things for Liam.