Anew

Lately, I have been in a holding pattern. I now weigh more than I did when I was nine months pregnant with my daughter. I have a house that is jumbled, messy, and stale. I have been struggling with an apathy that just isn't in my nature. I am a planner, a doer. Yet for months now, I have felt like I've been just going through the motions of my life. That bigger and better things would happen to me eventually, so why bother with my here and now.

Last week, I got a wake-up call.

I went to my yearly check-up with my OB/GYN. I was dreading it a little, knowing that she would be concerned with my weight, and also with the fact that we hadn't settled the baby decision. But the thing is, I love my doctor and I enjoy getting a chance to talk with her. Maybe because she is very caring, yet straight-forward. Maybe because she will tell you how things stand and not sugar coat things unnecessarily.

She didn't have wonderful news for me.

It seems that the results of some bloodwork that I had done show that I am not able to carry another baby full-term without medical intervention. I can physically conceive a child, but I lack the proper amounts of hormones to allow a child to develop normally. My Peanut was a one-in-a-million, God-given-miracle of a blessing. If I do become pregnant, there are medications and supplements that they can give me to try to keep me from mis-carrying, but that also carry the risk of side effects and birth defects. The long and the short of it is, we are not likely to have anymore children.

As my doctor sat there and relayed this information, I felt myself getting angry. Even though the fact of the matter is, for the last year, I have been seriously doubting whether I wanted to try for another baby. Now that the decision had been made for me I wanted to cry and rant and scream "It's not fair!". I actually sat weeping on the examination table, thinking about how I would tell my husband and what this might mean to my own identity as a woman. The mumbled refrain of "useless, useless, useless" kept running through my head.

Then I was still.

It occurred to me that even though I wanted a family and a home, I wasn't being a very good steward of the one that God had given me. I have been a lot less than I should have been, lately. While sitting there gnashing my teeth and crying "Why me?", I was forgetting the fact that God had already given me an amazing little girl and a good husband to love and nurture. And the truth is, I haven't been doing my job properly.

As I dressed, I began a catalog of the things that I have been letting slip in or sometimes slide completely from my grasp. I realized that I was crying about a reward I thought I deserved, when in fact, I deserved nothing. Any blessing I already had, was by God's bottomless grace and no other source. I felt ashamed at weeping.

So, as I pulled on my socks, I vowed that my ennui was ending there and then. No more half-done housework. No more resenting my husband's long hours away. No more seeing my mothering duties as dull drudgery and a drain on "my" time. I was going to quit my moping around and do my job correctly.

When I do my duties as wife and mother with purpose and joy, that is when I am truly happy. Feminists can say what they want about the self-deluded state of a housewife, but I can tell you that I never feel more content and fulfilled than when my home is running smoothly and my family is happy. I realize now that the thing causing me to feel depressed and zoned out was not that I didn't have what I wanted but that I had stopped doing the things that I should. My heart's dearest desires were sitting around me in a cluttered home eating dinner from a box.

Hopefully, my fire continues to burn.

I have started myself back on the track of wifely and motherly excellence. I have decided that there is no reason why I am not accomplishing the things that make me happy, other than my own laziness and lack of commitment. Keep me in your thoughts.