Sorry...Not Sorry.
I write this post because it is necessary. I write what I wish someone had written or spoken it to a mom 11 years ago.
10 months seems like an eternity. 40 long weeks to grow a baby to full term.
Your life does not stop once you become pregnant.
You are still you when you are pregnant.
A mom was like many other pregnant women. She may have wrestled through a variety of emotions as well as through her options. Although the pregnancy was not planned, she decided to keep her pregnancy to term.
She may have tried to eat a little better, maybe add a little walking to her daily routine. Maybe she even browsed through a book of baby names with her significant other. She might have dreamed of the day that she'd hold her baby and see the best version of herself.
But life doesn't stop when you are pregnant.
You are still you when you are pregnant.
One drink. Aren't there pregnant women who take a drink now and again and give birth just fine? Most everyone on the internet agrees that one drink is nothing, right?!
A little wine, maybe a small shot. Another drink, a little bigger this time. What harm could a little more do?! Who would know, who is getting hurt anyway?
What harm could alcohol do? It's not like the surgeon general requires warning labels. Don't most women drink wine to get pregnant and before they even know they are pregnant? Besides the pregnancy is almost at term now. Who's idea was it to deny yourself anyway?
Weeks pass and delivery day is here. So is the child.
He is born early and deformed. His face has a large hole where a nostril and the top of his mouth should have been. His cry is bone-piercing.
WHY?!
What kind of a God would allow this to happen?! HOW could this baby look and act so strange?!
WAIT.
How many little glasses of wine was that? Was it one small shot or two?
The horror and shame overwhelming. Too overwhelming to admit during the hospital intake.
Almost a year passes and the baby is soon to become son in a new family. This mother reads the doctor's report with her husband. The official diagnosis is four little letters that shatter the dreams that they had for their son.
They wrestle through a variety of emotions, sifting painfully through their options. Although the baby was not theirs, decide to keep him and make him forever son.
Ten hard years pass and the family endures much. The once baby bone-piercing cry has developed into a blood curdling scream with violent and often physically destructive rage. Two expensive stays in psychiatric day treatment facilities, lengthy meetings fighting to keep him in special ed with one school district and countless hours working with another to get all the necessary paperwork and endless meetings to make a workable plan. The bruises on this mom's body have faded...the scars on this heart in process to heal.
So many challenges and at times debilitating grief. This family refuses to give up. This is forever. This is a SON.
WHY?!
What kind of God would allow this to happen? How could this son look and act so unusually?!
WAIT.
CRY out to THE LORD. He brings relief and restoration. His timing is perfect. His plans are good. He is the giver of grace and creator of new dreams. Grace for a mom and grace for this mom.
God has brought some relief and once broken hearts mending. Several lives changed forever in that one drink.
Do NOT drink when you are pregnant. 40 weeks is not permanent, brain damage is.
Sorry...Not sorry.
Facts and definitions worth reading Expectant Mother
There is Hope
