I Can't

I've always been told that pregnancy is a great way to prepare yourself for the sacrifices of being a mother. After all, you are sacrificing your body, space, personal comfort, and sometimes dignity while growing another human inside of you. I understand the point (although sometimes I find it a bit disheartening, especially when I'm struggling with the sacrifices of pregnancy), and I'm not a pregnancy expert by any means, but I have taken away something completely different from this experience: sometimes, you just can't.

What do I mean by that? I mean, you can't do it all. Or even half of it. Or sometimes, any of it. Forget the elementary school mantras of "you can do anything you put your mind to," because when you've suddenly gained 20+ pounds and can't remember where you put the milk (in the pantry) or the cereal (in the fridge), your mind and your body are two entirely different organisms working against each other. Sure, you can think about all the things you used to be able to do with ease, and for the first few months you can (usually) still accomplish them; but as time goes on, this ability quickly diminishes. And that's hard.

What makes it challenging is that we're always told that we can do anything. If we just try hard enough, push through, persevere, believe enough, wish enough, work enough, we can accomplish anything. The only thing holding us back is ourselves! As a ropes course facilitator, I have had the chance to see people of all ages push through mental blocks to be able to overcome great physical and emotional challenges. I know that, with the right mindset, a lot of things are possible. But there are also those people who really just can't do it. For whatever reason, they start to climb the ladder and they simply cannot go on. Of course, once they return to the earth, we always encourage them in their efforts and tell them they did a great job challenging themselves, but a small part of me has always thought, "If you had just pushed a little bit harder, you would have been able to make it all the way up and had a great time."

I've now discovered that this simply isn't true, and I've discovered this the hard way. I spent the first 2/3 of my pregnancy trying to do everything I used to do, just like I used to do it. Sure, I took precautions (or, at least, I tried to). I even tried to think ahead. While continuing to work in a very active job, I made some accommodations: I stopped leading hikes (although I still "take up the rear" - very slowly - behind the kids); I asked other people to help me carry the big box full of rocks and minerals; I didn't teach more than one class in a day. I tried to "cut back," but felt guilty about it. I felt like I was wimping out - after all, wasn't there a woman a few months back who ran a marathon and then gave birth a few hours later? If she could do that, why couldn't I climb this ladder to tie up a rope? Why couldn't I jump up and down leading silly songs at a campfire?

So I tried to navigate through the small ways that I cut back, while still putting as much effort into proving that I still could do anything if I just tried hard enough. And then this week, my body simply said NO. Actually, it screamed it.

It started on Sunday night, when a cat attacked the baby robins on my porch at 3 a.m. I wasn't sleeping anyway, so D and I were able to go out and rescue three of the four birds. But this resulted then in anxiety about the future of those poor birds (because I'm pregnant, and have an odd emotional attachment to animals who have no idea I'm alive.) So that meant little sleep. Monday brought a busy day at work, followed by a picnic in the evening. Tuesday was another busy day that required me to be a lot more physically active than I have been lately - hiking back and forth to the creek and the lake. Oh, and I was still not sleeping because I have been so concerned about these darn baby birds. So by Wednesday I was exhausted. Unfortunately, this coincided with one of my long days where I was supposed to work until 10pm leading students in high energy activities. It also happened to be the day that all of the mistakes I've been making lately started to show up. Remember what I said about your brain and your body being totally separate? That might be because, at least for me, my brain has completely dissolved. I can no longer problem-solve, I miss important details, and I can't think through anything far enough ahead of time to make it useful. It's not even that I'm off daydreaming about the baby; it's really just that I'm not able to think about anything. This became apparent Wednesday morning, and unfortunately my inability to think through and communicate these details were going to make everyone else have to work a whole lot harder to make up for it. So I was upset with myself, exhausted, and facing a very long day.

D picked me up for our prenatal appointment that afternoon, and the moment I got in the car and he asked how my day was going, I burst into tears. And I cried the whole way to the midwife. I sat in the parking lot for 15 minutes before my appointment trying not to cry - with little success. I knew I was just plain exhausted. My body was angry with me for not letting it rest, and unfortunately that manifested in ugly, snot-dripping sobs. My midwife recommended some herbs to help me sleep, and told me to start taking it easy. One of the nurses cautioned me about working too much or too hard, and how she did never took a break and her when baby came four weeks early, she was almost too exhausted to be able to care for her son. When I got in the car to go back to work, I knew I couldn't do it. I did not have the energy to stand up in front of a group of students and be excited for another six hours. Instead, I took the night off. This ended up putting added pressure on the two other staff who were working that evening. Their night was more demanding, and this of course made me feel guilty. But ultimately, I could not do it. I had to get to a point where I could say, "I can't."

Perhaps part of the reason it is so hard to admit this conclusion is because I know there is a part of me that loves being lazy. I try to fight this instinct as much as possible, but it's still there. So I feel guilty when my motivation is laziness; I don't want to cop out of something just because it's hard or I'm not really feeling up to it. But there is a difference between between being lazy and not wanting to do something, and literally being unable to function. I hit the latter this week, and it has been humbling.

The good news is, despite all of my efforts to be able to do ALL things and falling short, God does not consider me a failure. Even without pregnancy to remind us of this, it is only when we get to this point of admitting our weakness and our inability to do something that God can work greatly in our lives. He is strong when we are weak. Sometimes, we just have to throw our hands up in the air and cry out, I can't do it anymore! These are the times when God works in big, wonderful ways. It might not happen immediately, or even in the way we expect. I find, for myself, I don't even recognize it until later. But He is always at work, and it is these times, when we are absolutely unable to function and need to cease our own efforts, that He shows Himself most. This is the time when God shines big.

I hope, once this pregnancy is all said and done, that I remember this the most: I can't. I will not be "super mom," I will not always be happy and cheerful, I will have dirty dishes and dirty diapers and dirty floors. I will have times when I will not know how to comfort the baby, or when to call the doctor if she's sick. I will not know how to show love to my husband when I am exhausted. I am sure this list could go on and on and on, but through all of these times when I can't do something, I hope that I remember to step back and let it go. Because it's not always a case of mind over matter. It is a case of God over me. And when I hit that wall - physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually - it will not do me any good to keep on banging my head against it in self-defeat. Instead, I just need to admit that I can't do it and then turn it over to God. Because all of the greatest stories ever told all have the same theme: He can.