My Story Part 2 - Do you have the stomach for it? I don't.

Fast forward a year. I was feeling great, so my husband and I decided that it was time to think about having a baby. We were lucky enough to conceive in the first few months of trying and even though I had a tough pregnancy due to my previous surgery, my wonderful son, Caleb, was born happy and healthy in the winter of 2011, weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz.

As most moms do, I stayed home for several months with my baby boy, but had planned to go back to work. Thus after 12 weeks of maternity leave, I hired a nanny and went back to work part-time. It was great, at least for a few weeks. While I had been gone on mat leave, my organization had started the process for a reduction in force, un-beknownced to me. I distinctly remember the day I got called in my VP’s office and offered a severance package or a different job. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. Our family needed the money and I loved to work. I had no idea what to do.

So, I asked for some time to think and then got in my car to drive home. As tears of panic, anger and panic streamed down my face, I turned on the radio. A song came on. It was God – God telling me it would be okay, which of course made me cry even more. The song? It was “Blessings” by Laura Story.

What if my greatest disappointments Or the aching of this life Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy What if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights Are your mercies in disguise

While part of me rebelled against hearing it because I didn’t want to accept that this might be the end of my job and maybe even my career, I knew it was the truth I needed to hear. It was meant for me, and I needed to accept it. So, it was after some additional prayer and, of course, many conversations with my family that I decided to take the package and stay home with my baby boy. Now I can say, “best decision ever!” and God knew it too. It wasn’t the best decision just because of my son, but also because God knew what lied ahead in our future… change and lots of it!

If I’m honest, being a stay-at-home-mom frightened me. First, I didn’t know if I would be a good mom and the thought of staying home all day changing diapers and making baby food scared the crap out of me. Would I get bored? Would I do it right? Would I lose my purpose? Would my brain melt from lack of stimulation? You see, I was an older mom – I didn’t have my baby until I was 36. Up until that time, I have my two step-kids and my career. The 50/50 custody schedule for them, allowed me to be both a mom and a career woman. I “had it all”. I had always identified myself and a working mom, and never actually thought I would wear the “stay-at-home-mom” hat. Again if I’m completely transparent (which I always want to be), I was one of those mama’s who somewhat looked down on “stay-at-home-moms”. Now before you stop reading or start throwing tomatoes at me, I changed my mind and did so very quickly! Being a “stay-at-home-mom” is HARD WORK! I know now my aversion to this role, had nothing to do with “stay-at-home-moms” themselves, but rather my own spiritual baggage with regard to purpose and meaning. More on that later…

Ok, back to my timeline. It was October of 2011, we were hurting financially and my oldest step-son was struggling with significant issues because of his ADHD and ASD (Autism spectrum disorder). Again, more on that in another post…To that end, we found a private, special education high school for him, but the price tag on that was exorbitant and not something we could afford without me going back to work. So, again, after much discussion, I decided to go back to work. Caleb was now 8 months old, and we found an amazing nanny from our church for him. Thankfully, I was able to find a job relatively quickly, and I started as the development director for World Concern. The job was everything I had hoped for as the next step in my career – a promotion in title, travel, a larger team and a chance to make a real impact on issues I cared about deeply. We were also able to afford to send our son to private school. Yea!

So a few months went by, Christmas came and went and the start of the New Year promised to bring good things. Well...that lasted only a month. On the last day in January, I woke up and started to get ready for work. I didn’t feel so well, but tried to push through it. Dressed and makeup on, I made my way downstairs to get the kids ready for school. However, that didn’t happen. I only made it to the bathroom.

I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but I’ll just say that “things” didn’t stay down, and I was in a world of pain. Then blood. Lots of blood. That was it. To the emergency room I went. After IV Zofran, pain meds and a CT, the docs discovered that my previous EG junction fix literally burst open. It had weakened due to the pregnancy and has now opened a giant hole in my diaphragm. My stomach moved up into my chest cavity and was pushing up on my heart. The internal integrity of my esophagus was now compromised and was bleeding. Into surgery I went...