Two years ago.



Two years ago I was sitting with Sarah in a hospital room at Parkview Noble Hospital in their maternity wing. As soon-to-be parents, we were anxious, stressed, and (I was) a little scared. Sarah was 34.5 weeks pregnant and preeclamptic, and for the safety of mother and child, Sarah was being induced.

We were unaware that the next twenty-four hours would be an emotional whirlwind, as we would come to learn within an hour of Kizzy’s birth that she would be transferred to the newborn intensive care unit at Parkview Regional because she could not maintain body temperature, and she would unexpectedly stop breathing. On our first night as (baby-out-of-the-womb) parents, our daughter was in a different zip code from us.

Time passes quickly, things change rapidly, and lessons learned add up. Here are some of my favorites:

  1. It does not matter to Kizzy how good a singer, guitar player, joke teller, runner, etc. I am. What matters to her is that she is an active part in my world and that I want her to be there.
  2. I have a long way to go in developing grace, patience, focus, and a sense of humor; toddlers are good at pushing all the right character buttons.
  3. Time moves way to quickly to get fixated on trivial stuff or to get wrapped up in things like ***gasp*** Facebook. It feels like only last weekend that Kizzy was tiny enough to lay across my lap and fit there perfectly.
  4. I still do not appreciate all the personal elements to the Gospel of Jesus, but after having a daughter, I understand them a little better.

How things change.