Hope

Hope. 

Hope is a powerful thing. It has the power to keep you going through the toughest of situations, but it also has the power to crush you.

Let me explain.

I have hoped for a long time that I will someday get pregnant. However, it is a very abstract hope. It is the hope that some day, in a very indistinct future, that I will have a baby. Or 2. Or 5. It's enough hope to keep me afloat. Enough to help me make it through day to day.

But that hope is changing... and I'm terrified.

It all started quite a while ago now. My sister's husband, Damon, hurt his back somehow. (I don't remember how.) He was in the hospital and everything. Shortly afterwards, he discovered this chiropractor, Dr. Aaron Afrostrom, who believed in "Maximized Living." Maximized Living is a system of chiropractic, I believe. They don't treat the symptoms. They find the cause and fix it. To do so, they take x-rays and look at the spine. The spine is supposed to be shaped a certain way, and any misshapenness (new word) can cause problems with certain parts of the body, based on where the spine is misshapen. For example, the very first few vertebrae are connected to immunity and immune organs (spleen, liver, gall bladder, etc.), among other things. So someone who has a too-straight neck might suffer from lowered immunity. Slightly farther down on the spine affects your heart, so that person might experience high or low blood pressure, irregular pulse, palpitations, or even heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes. The thing is, you only feel about 6% of your nerves... the rest are internal and you don't feel them. So by the time you experience any pain, it's because the area affected has gotten large enough to affect the surface nerves, which you can feel.  Anyway, Damon had HUGE success with this chiropractor, and he and Julie have been going there for quite some time now. Even Liam gets adjusted every so often.

Back to my story. Julie and Damon recommended that Jon and I go in and get x-rayed and see how awful our spines are. We did. My main complaint was headaches, with tension/anxiety being a close second, and intestinal issues rounding out  the top three (constipation alternating with diarrhea). Jon, though, has extreme joint and muscle pain, migraines, stiffness, soreness, and just general pain almost constantly. The result was very surprising. I have way fewer physical issues than Jon, but my x-rays were worse.

My neck was too straight (I'm sick all the time!) and, most of all, my lower back, which should have a 45 degree curve toward my stomach, was completely straight. As in flat. No curve. None. Huh. So what does that mean? I asked.

The lower part of your spine affects your digestion and intestinal tract and fertility organs. Guys, I have AWFUL menstrual cramps. I typically have 12+ hours of severe cramping when I ovulate. I have been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 1/2 years. Your lower spine affects fertility???  What if by fixing this I get pregnant?!

And that's where the crazy new hope comes in. Doc Aaron anticipates significant recovery in just a few short months. I could have a baby by this time next year! Aah, my dream feels so close!!

...but what if fixing it doesn't help me get pregnant? Then my hope will be crushed. And not just gently buried in the ground with love. I mean dashed upon the rocks, stampeded on by a herd of buffalo, then tortured into submission. It will not die. I will always have hope. It just may end up as this mangled, crushed shadow of what could have been.

I'm looking forward to this new venture toward getting healthier, and hopefully toward pregnancy. What will happen if this doesn't work... I don't know. I guess we'll see.

The other night I had the song that starts "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." I just need to remember that. Jesus may use the chiropractor as a means to get me pregnant... but he may not. He may say to me, "No, I want you to keep waiting, to keep learning to trust, to keep Me first." He doesn't ask any more of me than he is willing to give--and he gave his life for me, to save me from eternal damnation. What is a few more years of waiting for a child? What is never having a child, compared to that?

Huh. I didn't expect my thoughts to take that turn, for this post to be so... hopeful. Funny how that works! 

May your hope always rest in the greatest Hope of all!