For all those that are the help and support.

I sometimes hear women talk about how their husband wasn’t there for them or wasn’t doing enough for them during the birth of their children. The husband often was stressed about the financial pressure of the new dependent. He was supportive in that he worked over-time at the job to bring in more money. He did useful and helpful things. But the thing that looms large in a pregnant lady’s mind as she is sitting on the couch and can’t get out is that he was supposed to be home at 5:00 pm and he isn’t. Now, I have to pee, my whole body is screaming in pain and I don’t have anyone to help me get out of this couch.

My story is like this in that I was the pregnant lady but I had volunteers come to help me in place of the husband. The not so good part about that is that truly nobody or a massive amount of people giving even a fair amount of support would barely make up for the support of a missing husband. I’ve encountered triplet Moms who are suddenly single and the only way the babies are raised is by another individual stepping in to help Mom full time. One meal a week for a year is a tremendous commitment from someone but the truth is for the single mom you’ve got 6 more days a week to go and then there is all the other stuff that has to happen as well. The point is not that the volunteer is negligible; it is that the partner living in the house is irreplaceable.

I truly did get help from people. People brought food. The neighbor donated an old computer and set it up so I could have internet and I used it to find organizations and loans to fix the broken things in the house. A church group came to clean the yard in the spring. A friend brought me to the hospital and was with me during the C-section. She gave up her whole day and she helped me celebrate it when all I wanted to do was pretend it wasn’t happening this way. She was my advocate and told my story to the church group who donated money to buy the baby supplies. Through that connection I met one of the biggest supporters of all time, a woman who herself went through single mothering of young children. She came with her daughter twice a week for two years, bringing dinner and quiet support. One of my sisters took the babies every other weekend when they were infants. The other sister moved into the house when the twins were toddlers and stayed for a year. I would not have survived that winter had she not been there. People came and cleaned the house here and there. My mom cleaned the house while I was in the hospital. A friend came over and did daycare for me when I first started working. Other friends helped at the hospital and were informational resources. The twin club I joined was truly a blessing. Strangers and friends alike giving clothes. My married sister offering to take the twins for a week so I could rest and do the dangerous repairs around the house.

This was all amazing.

While other parts of my story focus on the hardship of the moment and the injustice people in my situation experience, I would never want those who contributed and sacrificed so much to feel inadequate because they couldn’t make it go away for me. The load was lightened. I was tremendously grateful. Here we focus on how redemptive that is. In the other posts I focus on the injustice and the social sins we’ve gotten tangled up in.