Leap of Faith

I have come to realize that parenting, much like marriage, is a leap of faith.  When I met my hubby I wasn't looking for marriage.  I wasn't even looking for a relationship.  Given the years of atrocious experiences I'd had dating I was only expecting to get a funny blog out of the situation (remember I was the woman who went on a date with the guy who didn't know he was gay, the guy who was dating my friend x3...I could write a book on my bad dates) so when I opened the door to my hubby it was a huge leap of faith to let my guard down and open myself up to a relationship.  Although given the speed in which I feel head over heels in love it wasn't much of a leap...it was more of a full fledged swan dive off a cliff.  Praise God for sending me a good guy to fall in love with. 

So, fast forward a few years till 2010.  We made the decision to become parents.  Certainly not a decision we made lightly especially given that we are living far away from our families and knew we'd have to rely on friends as our primary support system.  We never expected that our first pregnancy would end in miscarriage and we weathered that storm as best we could.  We got pregnant again a few months later and a LONG 41 weeks later we finally got to meet our baby girl. 

Talk about a leap of faith.  If getting married was a swan dive off a cliff then parenthood was skydiving out of the space shuttle.  Not only do you have to have faith that you will survive the first month (everyone says the first month is the hardest and for sure I have found that experience to be true, but that sleep when the baby sleeps is a load of crap), but I believe you have to have faith that your baby will survive, too.  If you've read my other posts then you know that I have been plagued by anxiety regarding SIDS.  It takes huge amounts of faith for me to close my eyes and sleep at night and every morning my first though is "phew, made it through another night.  Thank God."  I pray like I've never prayed before in my life.  I pray for God to watch over our baby girl and for her not to die of SIDS (I believe sometimes you gotta be specific in your prayers and put that out into the universe) and for Paul & I to be good parents. 

So we have survived the first 4 weeks of parenting.  To say we've gotten into a rhythm may be a stretch; however, we certainly have gotten more comfortable.  Emma is growing well now (she's up to 9lbs--yay!) and the pediatric nurse said we could start to let her sleep longer at night (not that I will sleep well yet.  I did just order a Snuza instead of the Angelcare movement monitor as Paul does want us to put Emma in her crib eventually aka before she's 8). 

May our next 4 weeks be as blessed as these first 4 weeks have been.