When You Don't (or Can't) Cherish Every Moment

Being out in public while pregnant or herding children makes for easy conversation starters. I'm sure I'm not the only mom in the throes of caring for babies and raising children who has heard a version of this admonition: "Cherish each moment! It goes by so quickly!"

It's a beautiful sentiment, one that seems to be echoed in Scripture...

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14

And in theory, I agree with the philosophy. I WANT to cherish each moment, truly, I do. But even with the best of intentions, the reality is, not every moment is worth cherishing. Still, time doesn't stand still, does it? And it passes all too quickly. And the more I recognize that, the more I feel the urgency: Cherish each moment!

But when I don't...when I'm slogging through difficult days (or even normal days), just trying to find the shoe or change the diaper or figure out what to feed everyone for dinner in less than an hour...does that mean I'm not appreciative of what I've been given? Does that mean I'll look back with regret at all that lost cherishing?!

I don't think so. I hope not.

Mom Guilt is a killer. It's bad enough warding off that demon in "normal" parenting circumstances.

Now we are muddling our way through a different version of Cherish each moment. And this one is hard to describe. We've heard the statistics and grieved the losses of precious T18 children, and so we absolutely understand the mentality of our days being numbered. As much as we don't like to talk about it, Verity is more vulnerable to an early death than any of our other children. Cherish each moment?  Absolutely, we want to! We want to celebrate and cherish each moment, each milestone!

But...I'm not celebrating in the middle of the night when our wee little treasure is screaming inconsolably. I'm not cherishing the moments when I feel helpless, unable to soothe her to sleep so that I can lie down myself. In a sense, we are "used to this." We've done the newborn phase, sometimes more easily than others, but still. We know the zombie-like state of living those first few months after a baby joins our family. And a good portion of what we are living these days is entirely NORMAL.

Maybe that's why it's more difficult to stop in the middle of stressful, exhausting moments and take it all in, to capture precious details and engrave them into memory--because everything feels so completely ordinary. Most of our stress is been-there-done-that. Gas bubbles. Hungry tummy. Messy diaper. Cold fingers. Things that we can "fix."

And so...I feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. For NOT cherishing each moment, even though I don't know how many moments we will be granted. I feel I'm not being a good steward of the gift we have been given, especially in light of the frequent reports of Trisomy families grieving a new loss. It doesn't seem fair: why are we experiencing mostly ordinary days when other parents would give anything to hold their little one again and soothe away frantic cries?

And I wonder, will there come a day (probably) when I'm the one with empty, aching arms? When I'm the one who would give anything to hold my fussy baby again? When I'm the one reciting the words Cherish each moment knowing that I'm really speaking to a past version of myself?

Meanwhile, I try harder to slow down, forget about the "musts" and "shoulds" that constantly hover over my shoulder. I tell myself--my current, tired, stressed-out self: Cherish each moment.

It's already going by so quickly...