Jealousy hits (the post I'll have to repent for when I post it)

10.8.13-10.9.13

      Let's be real: by absolute biggest struggle right now is with the green monster jealousy. It hits at weird times, but it is nearly debilitating. Up until this week I had been in a cocoon of time stopping, meaning that everyone else's life stopped, too. Sure, I was still getting updates on my facebook page of people resuming their regularly scheduled activities, but until this point I felt like I was still somewhat the center of attention and people were sending messages that they were thinking about us and whatnot.

       Maybe I should back up a little bit: When I found out I was pregnant, I was one of about 5 girls around me that were pregnant. Three of these girls worked in one office, and we all use to joke about not drinking the water since we all spent significant amounts of time in the same place. Elizabeth, that I talked about in an earlier post, had her beautiful baby boy at the beginning of July, my due date was in September, and a girl named Kaitlyn was due a whopping 3 weeks after our Kaitlyn was due (you know where I am going with this). Side note: we had the name Kaitlyn Sophia picked out for our baby girl 2 years before we even talked seriously about starting our family. (More about that at another time.)

     It started with an innocent facebook post on Alex's birthday, the 8th. Kaitlyn was getting close to delivering her baby (which in a cruel twist is also a baby girl, and also a halfsies as I call them- half Hispanic, half white) and she wrote "my biggest fear is pooping on the table when I deliver" or something along those lines. This was the first clue to me that I should have anticipated what was coming up quickly, but instead I just kind of got indignant about it. I know this girl, and she posts that THAT as her biggest fear?? Not that she's going to show up at the hospital and find out that her baby is no longer alive? I mean, I was seriously, SERIOUSLY annoyed with it and wanted to be really snotty and write "Really?" on her post to make her feel bad. I had to vent to Alex for nearly a whole day about it because I was not in a good place and felt pissed that somebody wouldn't think about who was reading their posts before they posted it.
    Ok so now that I have calmed down, I know that she was in no way targeting me and I was severely overreacting. The night before our birth my status could have easily read "I'm really scared about getting an epidural and being paralyzed by somebody who doesn't know what they're doing", not something as morbid as "Hope we both make it out alive." Plus, its her page so she can say whatever she wants to.
    The second thing is that if I start outwardly reacting the way that I feel, then people are going to treat me like they expect that reaction. People won't be able to help me resume "normalcy" if I continually react with snide remarks or sarcastic comments. I have to beg for grace from God to help me not react this way in the first place, and I am still working on that.

   The next day, Kaitlyn had a beautiful little girl in her arms and a picture to document it on facebook. I can honestly tell you that I have never been so overcome with jealousy, and it is a nasty, nasty place to be. I wanted to throw things. I wanted to curl up in a ball and completely ignore the rest of the world and feed my jealousy. I wanted to scream so loud that it would echo off the mountains in El Paso, and that Alex would not have to go to work anymore so that he could just stay home and take care of me. It was just not fair that somebody else had a healthy birth and I didn't. It wasn't fair that I didn't have my 3 week old daughter in my arms that minute. It wasn't fair that I had done everything right in my pregnancy, including going a little O.C.D. about things that were perfectly fine (like cutting out 100% of my caffeine intake from day 1, eating a salad every day the first trimester, walking a mile every day until the last 3 weeks when we knew she was breech).


   And then I got outside of myself, or rather Alex pulled me outside of myself. When I had first seen the happy pictures of Kaitlyn with her daughter, I was by myself in his room and I immediately started crying. I had asked for prayers from some close friends because I was just overwhelmed with such grief and envy. Alex came home from work to find me still in bed and miserable, and I told him what had happened. "Its just not fair," I said to him, and his reply was, "We don't get to decide what's fair." Attitude altered. I'd like to say that that simple sentence from my husband changed my attitude for good, but I'm not going to write like this is easy. I am still battling jealousy every day. Every time I see a baby, I am jealous. Every time I hear a baby cry at a restaurant, I am jealous.
   And every time I am jealous, I am questioning God's plan for us. Every time I am jealous, I am letting doubt creep in. I know where my daughter is, I know that she is sitting with my God, and I know that she is well cared for (better than anything and everything we could have provided for her here). I know that God is using her for His greater purpose. I know that He is shaping me to be glorifying for Him. I know that Kaitlyn's story has touched people that I could never have dreamed of.

I cling to His promise in Romans 8:28- "And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him."