Hugs From Hashem

Shabbos is over now. The sun has set and havdalla (the ceremony separating Shabbos from the rest of the week) has been said.

Shabbos is a time for family. It is a time to spend having festive meals with family and friends, playing board games with the children, or curling up on the couch to read a book while listening to them playing gleefully outside.  This is not what Shabbos is like on the high risk ward. Here Shabbos is lonely, isolating and sometimes depressing. There are few times in my life when I have ever felt so lonely as when spending Shabbos in a hospital by myself. 

This Shabbos was also difficult for another reason. There were serious concerns over the baby’s heart rate and indications that I may be going into labor. B”H (Thank G-d), I didn’t go into labor and the baby’s heart rate has stabilized for now. 

Therefore, tonight I would like to look for something more positive to focus on. I would like to talk about all the times that Hashem (G-d) has shown us how He has helped us. Tonight I want to talk about our hugs from Hashem.

There is the fact that I am pregnant in the first place. 

Shortly before my pregnancy Zofran was finally approved for use on pregnant women, making the processes of getting it easier since I no longer needed the permission of the ministry of health to take it (as with my last pregnancies). 

The insurance covered it bringing the price from almost 2000 shekel/month to 100 shekels/month.

My hernia came out at the beginning of my second trimester when there was still time to do something about it. (You cannot fix it in the third trimester. )

When I suddenly needed to switch all my appointments on a week’s notice before the surgery, there where cancellations available right when I needed them. (Many times you have to wait more than an month for the appointments that I had needed. )

The heart had four chambers all of which seemed to be working as they should at the point of the fetal echocardiogram. 

The surgery went well. 

The doctor was able to find our baby’s arms. 

The organs were all present on the large physiological scan and seemed to be developing. 

After failing my one hour blood sugar test the three hour test revealed that I did not have gestational diabetes. 

I tested negative for some infection that they though could be causing the problem. The specific infections they were worried about could have been potentially very serious or even life threatening to the baby. 

We live in the most amazing community. So many people have been coming to help. We have been given meals (for Shabbos, for a week after the surgery and the week after the first hospital stay) sometimes two or three in one night. People have come to help with the kids and people have come to help keep the house going.  Even the butcher, dry cleaner, vegetable delivery guy, and Pesach (Passover) cleaning service have all been great and trying to help out as much as they can.  

The hospital I am at just last week opened the new NICU which is now the best and highest rated in the country.

What are some of the ways Hashem has hugged you lately?