With Arms Wide Open

"With Arms Wide Open" - Creed

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I close my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open

Well I don't know if I'm ready
To be the man I have to be
I'll take a breath, I'll take her by my side
We stand in awe, we've created life

 

 

I heard this song tonight and couldn't help but let myself sob a little bit.  I know the lyrics weren't actually meant to sound the way they sounded to me tonight, but they seemed to fit, at least in my head.

 

* With the news we received last Tuesday, our lives did change forever.  We have always envisioned ourselves as a family with four children - but now we are not only going to have to watch one of our children die, we aren't even sure we want to have any more biological children.  Instead of 1 in 10,000 - the odds for another child with a neural tube defect are about 4-5% (or 1-3% with extra folic acid).  I honestly don't know if we will ever be ready to take those odds and try again.  We have agreed to wait a set amount of time before we make any final decisions, but I know what my answer would be if I had to choose today.

 

* We will absolutely welcome this little life with open arms. He or she won't be able to see or hear for the short time that we have together, so we may not be able to show our little one everything we would have liked but we will show this baby all the love that it is possible to give in such a short period of time.

 

* I don't know that either of us is ready to face the man/woman, husband/wife, father/mother that we will have to be in the upcoming months, but unfortunately we don't really have a choice. We'll be taking a lot of very deep breaths and standing by each other's sides because that's the only way our family will make it through this. We have two children at home who need us to still be there for them and we have another child on the way who needs us to make a lot of decisions and do the best we can to make his or her time on Earth as special as possible.

 

* We have created life.  No matter how short his or her life may be - there is still a child growing inside of me.  Every once in a while, I can feel a kick or a movement and it brings tears to my eyes every time. I know it will continue to bring tears to my eyes for the next 4-5 months, but I can not imagine giving up that precious time with the life that we have created. 

 

I am not usually one too deeply affected by song lyrics; I tend to listen more for the beat and focus on that (it drives Chris crazy that I can sometimes listen to an entire song and have no idea what it was about).  Tonight, however, I just couldn't help but reflect a little.