What to wear to a birth

It is a strange feeling to wake up and get a shower, fix your hair and pick out an outfit to wear to go give birth. But it is a good way to get expensive gummy bears.
After a week of being past my due date (how people go two weeks past is beyond me...they should get medals...or cookies or something), almost all of you know I was induced. What many of you don't know is the challenging emotional junk that went along with it. That morning I was really a nervous wreck, it's kind of an awful feeling to know you're going to the hospital and you're not going to leave until you go through a tremendous amount of pain (don't worry Paige, it's not THAT bad) and push a baby out...yikes.
I was also really struggling with the fact that I wasn't going to have the experience of going into labor on my own, something I really wanted and adamantly prayed for in those last few (I mean many) days of contractions leading to nothing. And all those people that said all the work I had done before (pre-labor contractions) would mean I'd have a really easy labor...were lying.
But I really struggled the morning of, up until that point there was always still the hope that my water would break at any moment, that labor would start, that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and rush to the stork parking at the hospital. But that morning, it was pretty certain that these things weren't going to happen. And then I was faced with the reality that God's plan was different than mine. And it was in the heat of this realization that I pouted and stomped around my house, like a tearful toddler (actually, I don't even let our two year old act as childish as I was). I could tell within an hour of being awake (and rude might I add) that I needed to pray through this, or the whole experience was going to be miserable. I asked John upstairs and confessed to him in no uncertain terms that I was mad that I didn't get my way, and didn't think God was getting it right, and couldn't believe He would deny me this one thing I wanted (I'd like to pretend I'm more mature than this...but I totally wasn't. It really was that self-centered). After telling him this, and praying I began to soften up and realize how little I know about anything. And while many people say that I'd someday realize the intention behind it, that I'd understand God's ultimate plan, and have a great insight as to why he said no...I still don't. And I don't ever expect to.
You see, that's the great thing about God...he's not me. And He doesn't have to act like I think he should, or do what I think he should because he's God. And he can do whatever he wants whether I like it or not. It's not a nice little story with a perfect ending like you'd expect to read in the dentist's office. But it 's a real one. And it changed the way that I think of God...completely sovereign. We like to think it's always going to work out in some perfectly ironic and beautifully timed way of us getting what we ask for (and it often does) but sometimes he just tells us no, and we don't know why.
Many of you may think it's not that big of a deal and I should just be thankful, and get over it. But it was hard for me, and those hard lessons are the most precious (character building, we call it around these parts).
All in all, I ended up with a great labor experience (not exactly as I imagined it, but with many bonuses I hadn't expected. my mom was there and was an amazing support to John and I. I got to bond more with her, John and Gretchen more that I have before, and i got the expensive gummy bears the hospital sells. $3.00 a bag but SO worth it).
""For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9