Brave Women

No one ever told me pregnancy could have this man ups and downs. This pregnancy has caused its fair share of worry.

Yesterday at work I started cramping and bleeding. After about two hours of that, I ended up passing a huge blood clot, about 7 cm x 5 cm. Like I said, huge. And disgusting. And eerily cool. I stopped by my midwife's office to check on the baby, just in case, and it was there in all it's 158 bpm glory. Go Baby Ward!

The cramping continued into the evening when I passed another large clot, though smaller than the morning's clot, and then two more quarter-sized clots an hour later. If you've never passed a blood clot through your lady parts (if you have those), it is a very weird sensation, like a ball sliding out of a tube. Passing it doesn't hurt, but trying

The cramping and bleeding continued well into the night. As I laid down to sleep, I realized the cramping was coming and going. I soon clued into the fact that I was having contractions. Strong ones. I don't know how they compare to labor contractions, but these were strong. Enough to reduce me to tears a few times. I breathed through them, using my yoga breathing to inhale the pain and exhale it out. Thank heaven that worked. I frequently got up to pee and pass more blood. Around 1 am I couldn't take the pain anymore. I hadn't slept a wink and neither had Jeff. He gave me a blessing and Heavenly Father had one simple thing to tell me: that I was surrounded by brave women who were attending to me in my time of pain of weakness. They were there to calm me and support me through this time. Shortly later I fell asleep between contractions and slept until the sun came up.

My friend Ashley has an ongoing #webravewomen movement. I thought of the brave women in my life who support me in my times of need, and I thought about all the brave women who have given me life. I always think first to my Grandma Betty, who will never be replaced in my heart. She taught me how to unconditionally love and serve. I thought of Great Grandma Marie, who joined the church in St. Louis as a teenager, then raised 13 kids on a farm in Delta, Utah. She would later lose one of them to a horrible tractor accident. Later she developed Lou Gehrig's disease (of ALS Ice Bucket challenge fame...**shudder**), and communicated by blinking her eyes a certain number of times to indicate each letter she wanted to say. I thought of my Great Grandma Rosina, who, with one child out of wedlock, immigrated with her mother from Germany to Utah. She later met my Great Grandpa Walter. They were married and had four more children, one of whom died young. As immigrants, they were usually poor, but they got by. Then one day Great Grandpa Walter didn't come home. For a few days, he didn't come home. Then Great Grandma Rosina saw a notice in the newspaper about a John Doe who'd been hit by a drunk driver and was killed instantly. She knew that man was her husband. She went to morgue where her worst fear was confirmed. Now destitute and with five young children, she moved her family to the wrong side of the tracks. One night the police came and busted up a moonshine racket in the house next door. The police threw crates of moonshine into the streets, the bottles and wooden crates breaking everywhere. Rosina gathered up the wood to create a haphazard wood floor to cover their dirt floor. My Papa Walter used to gather old produce from markets and wander around town trying to sell it in his little wagon, as a five year old boy.

As I lay there in pain, in my comfortable bed, with A/C on, a full bank account, warm blankets, food in my fridge, loving and forlornly helpless husband at my side, I thought about all the brave women in my life who endured so much more with so much less. I love them. I deeply appreciate them. I have gone through a fraction of what they endured. I hope they will teach me to be like them.