When God Negotiates

Lately I’ve been lying in bed at night, thinking about universal balance.  You know: karma, yin and yang, give and receive, having your beautiful cake and not being able to eat it, too.

It led me to wonder, when God grants a prayer request, does He also scribble down a little IOU?  It’s funny to think of Him standing there, holding a stack of invoices, but it’s a little scary too – you never know exactly what the cost is, or when it’s due.  I mean, when is your debt really paid?  It’s not like He sends a statement.

Back when we were trying to get pregnant with what turned out to be Blythe, I would take my monthly pregnancy test (or five) (who am I kidding, I mean 10) (ish) and while waiting the requisite 4 minutes, I’d say “Please let it be positive this time.  Please, God, just this once”.  And then it would be negative and I’d start again the next month with the begging.  God was probably tired of hearing from me.

After a year or so, we took a little break and wouldn’t you know, one day a few months later, a burrito sounded damn good and I wolfed it down even though I’ve always thought, my whole life through, that burritos were disgusting, and BAM.  Positive pregnancy test.  No negotiations required.

I begged God or the Universe, or who ever else was listening, to let the baby be in a good spot in my deformed uterus.  Because, otherwise, the chance of miscarriage was something like 85% and who bets on those odds?  Our relief at her good uterine placement was short lived when, at 9 weeks, during one of my many daily bathroom visits, I discovered copious amounts of blood gushing from the worst possible place for a pregnant woman.  

Have you ever seen a mother beg for her child’s life?  It’s not pretty.  It involves a lot of blubbering and tears and even snot bubbles, and if you think I might have offered up every thing we possess to the Keeper of the Universe if this child could live, you’d be spot on.  We had to wait through the entire weekend, me on bed rest and continuing my mental begging, before getting to see whether the baby made it. 

When I saw not only a little peanut in my uterus but the flashing light that indicated a heart beat, I just knew this baby was going to make it the whole nine yards, and I quit my begging.  My request had been granted and I didn’t want anyone changing their mind based on the fact that I was annoying.

Over the past few months I picked up my old habit where I left off, asking God and the Universe to let Blythe grow out of her food allergies.  It’s not such a big request, is it?  It’s all I’m asking for, not a fancy new car or world peace or for my adult acne to finally go away, because, really, don’t you think someone in their 30’s should be able to focus on their wrinkles instead?

But then, about a month ago, after I’d gotten all cocky about how I had this thing down pat, what with Blythe going months now without a reaction, we got a rude awakening.  She picked up a girl scout cookie her sister accidentally left within her reach.  Not only did she put it in her mouth, she ate the entire thing.

I could blame the girl scouts for putting high fructose corn syrup in their cookies, myself for keeping a stash of them, my husband for finding the stash, Alison for leaving the cookie out, Blythe for eating it.  But you know, sometimes things are just inevitable.  No matter how hard you try, sometimes mistakes happen.  You can look back on that one thing, that catapult, if you will, and regret it or relive it the rest of your life, but you can’t ever change it.

Every day for 5 weeks now, Blythe has been struggling.  One corn-laden cookie knocked her immune system down and now she’s not only hyper-sensitive to anything corn, she developed a NEW allergy, to soy.  Anyone who comes around has to wash their hands and face before touching or kissing her.  Jeremy has to take a shower and change his clothes before he’s allowed anywhere near her, because she has a reaction from particles he accumulates on his clothes and skin from animal feed and the like.  For Blythe, these allergies went from manageable to out of freaking control.

Being anal retentive and a bit dramatic, I spent a few days thinking, “WHAT NOW?  We may as well order ourselves a bubble and put her in it”.  I felt like we were up against something I couldn’t see, couldn’t predict, couldn’t fix, all while my baby girl suffered and whimpered her way through her days and nights.

But, you know, looking at this as the debt we owe in exchange for her survival, it doesn’t look so bad.  It’s what has changed my attitude from one of defeat to one of proactivity.  I’ll take a sweet, loving, thoughtful, happy little girl who happens to be extremely food allergic over a clump of bloody cells in my toilet, every time.   

Oh and God, if you’re listening?  I think you can mark that invoice “PAID”.