One of the songs pushed me close to an edge I've been living by for over four weeks now; one of the songs held the prayer I couldn't pray when I should have and I choked over the words on Sunday standing next to Nate, holding my sweet baby.  Not my will but yours be done.  The closest I could get to that prayer was Prepare us.  It was all I could get out when I walked from the pediatrician's office to the small town emergency room.  When I climbed from the roof into the front seat of the helicopter, my baby on a stretcher with cords and tubes and beeping all around her.   God, people have died on that thing.   Prepare us.  And then, when we were up days and nights and days and nights stopped beginning and ending, just ran into each other while nurses ran into each other and medicines and oxygen ran into her, my prayer grew.  Prepare us, keep us.

I've prayed Keep us before, but not often.  When life has seemed particularly hard or marriage especially full of distance or when a family member has gone somewhere dangerous and the potential for my world crumbling is close, Keep us has been my wisest prayer.  Keep us together.  Keep us on the path.  Keep our feet from turning, our knees from buckling, our hearts from straying.  Keep us. 

 For five days I sat in the chair by her little plastic box.  For five days I heard sad baby cries from other rooms, watched toddlers walk the halls with their IV stands and bags and pale, pale skin.  I can tell you what didn't matter during those days: washing my hair, fitness, the weather, mirrors, carbs, my self. 

They say that even though you can't imagine loving another child as much as your first, you will.  As soon as you hold her in your arms, they said, she'll be in your heart and your heart will burst and all of a sudden your love will just grow I guess.  It didn't happen like that, not for me.  I remember feeling ashamed of myself right after she was born when I told Nate If something awful happened and I had to choose between the two, well.  But then something awful did happen and love roared inside me.  I sat on the hospital bed holding her while they tried to find her veins, tried to shoot medicine to her heart over and over and tears poured down my face while her little body shuddered and raced and shuddered.

With Brennan I knew I wouldn't be able to be Abraham, would fight God hard if ever I needed to give him up.  With Audrey I hoped my love was purer, I prayed harder and longer and swifter than I ever had before.  With my son I was birthed into motherhood gently; with my daughter I had to grow fast, lean hard.  I had to give away control (do we ever really have it?), pray from the humblest, rawest parts of myself.

I had to forget my self.

She has given me many gifts since being born, but that is the greatest gift yet, and it is a gift I am still working on receiving.  Happy seven weeks, baby girl.  We do love you exponentially.

p.s.

Still have baby fever, still want seventeen more.