Being grateful...

This weekend has been wonderful. Wonderful to be home. Wonderful to feel the sun on my skin. Wonderful to plant my pots in the garden while our little girls napped. Wonderful to spend time with my husband that didn't involve us worrying over a hospital cot. Wonderful to do "boring" things like shopping for bunkbeds.  Wonderful to have family and good friends around us. Wonderful to laugh at my big girl as she plods around the garden on her Uncle Agga's mobile, and then loses it, only to be discovered later hidden under a grate!

Of course, the "wonderful" is tinged; tinged by that voice that hits me every morning when I wake up and gaze at our sleeping baby girl in her Moses basket beside us. That voice that just whispers "heart, heart, heart" every time I look at that gorgeous chubby face. It aches. I'm lying if I pretend it doesn't. But somehow, we are beginning to come to terms with this "new kind of normal". I have to. Its not fair on any of us if I allow fear to grip me... and its certainly not fair on Heidi.

So I have soaked up the good things this weekend. Appreciated the things that only a month ago, I took so much for granted; being woken by my little girl's singing and cries of "Mama? Papa?", cooking, cleaning, hanging out a load of washing, being able to carry my baby girl around without being attached to an IV line, privacy, being outdoors. All of these things I have become so much more thankful for, and as I was dwelling on this, I was reminded of a line from my friend Ruth's blog. Ruth has known suffering as she battles daily with CF... she said...

When life is good it's easy to be grateful for the lovely things you have. Of course it is.
But it's when something hard comes that your grateful muscles really have to be used. At first, because you haven't used them much before, it hurts. It hurts like crazy. How can you truly be grateful for something so hard? But the more you use them, the stronger they get. It doesn't make things hurt any less. It doesn't mean that hard things are suddenly a breeze. But your grateful muscles become a powerful part of your weaponry. And the grateful prayers that seemed so hard at the beginning come more naturally now.

She is so right.

I can't pretend I am grateful that this has happened to us... I would, of course, do anything in my power to make my baby girl's heart healthy. Anything. And yet I am grateful for what I can see it is doing to us... to our faith... to our bond as a little family... to the adoration Ava has for her baby sister... to our marriage. There is something about hard things that forces you to appreciate what is good so much more. Of course, I wish we could have learned these lessons another way, but that's when we have to trust. Trust that there is purpose in this, and that God will give our little girl the strength to cope with the frustrations and limitations that come as a result of this.

And so, I ask you again to pray for us. Tomorrow we head back to the Brompton. Please pray we will see some improvement. Pray that Heidi will be able to move onto low dose aspirin. But pray, most of all, that whatever happens, we will be able to be grateful.