Knee, heart, kidney . . . so it goes, so it goes . . . to the tune of 'head, shoulders, knees & toes, knees & toes . . .' A. was in labor for a total of two days, the worst pain Sunday into Monday, midnight until 6am, before he finally passed his 3.5mm kidney stone . . . fragment. A. kept apologizing for putting me through such hardship, though it's A. who's been through the health wringer. Knee surgery for a torn ACL (2004) . . . open heart quadruple bypass surgery (2006) . . . second lithotripsy to blast kidney stones (2010, his first 12 years ago) . . . my poor A. No need to apologize. I signed up for this when we married. For better or worse.
And so this is my love for my husband. We've been through a handful of medical traumas, and yes I still love A. We're not living in extreme poverty in the midst of a natural disaster. We haven't lost all of our family members. We're not buried under tons of rubble, starving, unable to breathe. Perspective.
It certainly helps as I watched A. writhe in pain and pressure for six hours, unable to urinate productively or comfortably. Trying to decide if we should go to the emergency room or not . . . with no call from the urologist whom we paged some hours ago. A. & I have joked, but seriously . . . having gone through what we've been through together -- mainly his open heart surgery and Dad's cancer journey & death -- our abilities to cope with crises are excellent. Sure, we're prepared to be up all night with a sick child. We've been through some hardcore training.
Just as much marriage is for better or worse, so is the choice to parent a child. For better or worse.
[As for our adoption journey update, a little bump in the road. Gathering some extra paperwork we didn't expect to have to provide . . . for better or worse. Life unexpected . . . happens.]
