Hope

We've all said it, and probably had it said to us...don't get your hopes up.  We say it to our kids, in regards to getting something they want...we say it to ourselves, such as in hoping for a snow day...we say it when we're in a tough situation, worried about what the outcome might be.  I have said it to myself over and over again.  But now I'm starting to wonder...what really is the harm in getting our hopes up?  Isn't hope one of those positive things that can get us through a tough spot?  Will we be less disappointed in not getting something if we hadn't hoped for it in the first place? 

I think back to when we headed to the hospital when I was having contractions with Brady.  We didn't stop and say we'd better not get our hopes up.  Those few days we were in the hospital, all we did was hope...hope that what the doctors and nurses were doing would stop the labor, and that Brady could cook in there at least another week or two, and hopefully more.  When that didn't happen, it hurt...it hurt like hell.  But I don't think it would have hurt any less had we not hoped.  We knew that there was a possibility I would still go into full labor...we knew there was a chance he would be born too young to get to the NICU...we knew even if he made it to 24 weeks and was born he'd face an uphill battle.  But we kept hoping anyway.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, we hoped.  We hoped the surgery would take care of it...we hoped that the treatments would take care of it.  When I got put on bedrest with Henry, we hoped.  We hoped we would make it past 24 weeks, then past 28 weeks, then into the thirties, and maybe even to 36 weeks.  Sure, we knew that we could lose him like we did Brady, but we kept hoping.  And when Henry was diagnosed with cancer, we hoped.  We hoped that the treatments would take care of the cancer, and that the dialysis and medicines would help get the fluids down so he could start coming off some of the paralytics and breathe on his own.  We hoped that the ECMO would give his body the rest it needed so that he could continue his fight.  Even that night, when we knew we were probably facing the worst, we kept hoping.  In all of these situations (except bedrest, of course), the outcome was unimaginably painful.  But I still believe that having hope didn't make this outcome any more painful.  It just made the journey to that outcome a bit more bearable.

Even now, we hope to get pregnant, we hope to become parents again.  That doesn't make it more painful each month when we find out we're not...it makes the whole month more bearable.  What is life, anyway, without hopes and dreams?  That's what we work for, what motivates us, what keeps us going.  So, despite all that we've been through, we continue to hope.  And although I may still say to myself at times...don't get your hopes up...I don't think I quite mean it anymore.