my little roaring lamb

In the past three weeks, two days, and ten hours - our little lamb has grown into a mighty fine baby. She's certainly gone from docile newborn to fierce little lady. As I type, Nick and I are passing our little bundle back and forth - she's in one of her pissy moods & we're feeling a little like pawns in her infantile chess game of life.

I've been thinking a good deal about her over the last four days or so. Somewhere around Thursday, she started looking just really beautiful & almost enchanting to me. I think most of that phenomenon is due to the fact that she's growing out of her little baby-face & growing into her little-girl-face. Where everything on Elias is thick like porkchop limbs, all of Glory's body parts are long, slender, & lean. When she's awake, every few minutes, she stretches her arms & legs erect in front of her - taunting me with her skinny little body - reminding me that one day I'll sit at home terrified that some man other than her daddy is noticing her tiny dancer body.

But also, I know partly she is looking so beautiful to me because my heart is finally able to be vulnerable with her. I was so scared of her, of being hurt by her. Since we first heard about the possibility of Trisomy, my brain just switched to tactical and pragmatic - my emotion and deep love for her only came to the surface for a brief moment when she was born. I remember looking past my sister, into Glory's face, while I was still being operated on - and saying over and over again "she looks like me! she looks like me!". But then for weeks afterwards, I couldn't see it. Just last week I was able to see it again - she has my ugly sleeping habits, my same fussy face, & every once in a while I really feel like I'm looking back at myself. In so many ways, she makes me appreciate my own awkward smiles & silly grins - just because they are so breathtaking on her.

So today we got some test results back from a recent brain ultrasound she had, and it's been confirmed that she has mild hydrocephalus. It's nothing tragic and it isn't at all life-threatening - worst case scenario she'll need to have surgery to have a shunt installed to drain the fluid from her brain. Even still - sitting on the stairs this morning, on the phone with the pediatrician, I felt that desperate crazy love for her welling inside of me. I was angry, angry, angry with the Lord for a few minutes until my sister called with a good word. She was praising God for a whole other situation and telling me that He is ABLE, and when I finally broke down and told her what was going on - she encouraged that crazy desperate love in me, reassuring me that Glory needs me to love her that crazy way. She needs her momma to fight for her in prayer & in life.

So tonight I'm thankful for my little lamb, my beefy hunky son, and the intense scary love that God put in me to be their momma. They & their Daddy hold my heart and that is vulnerable and uncomfortable but it teaches me to rely on Jesus & it teaches me how big His love is for me.