A Little Perspective

So. My Holy Week has pretty much been laid out for me.
Morning sickness is my cross. Except, as always, it's not "morning" sickness. It's "all the time" sickness, instead. I can't hold a thing down (not even crackers and ginger ale), and being up and about makes me very nauseous.
I've been pretty discouraged this week. I keep focusing on how awful I feel, on all the things I can't get done, on my sadness over the ways I am not present to my husband and children. To me, that last one is one of the worst parts of being sick (besides feeling sick). The fact that my family suffers, too.
I am so blessed to have a teenaged son who is a tremendous help to me, and to have a husband who I seriously feel is quickly becoming a Saint. Without these guys, I don't know what I would do. Son Joe is on vacation. He watches the kids, feeds them, and plays with them when I am sick during the day. He does NOT do diapers, but I'm willing to accept that.I hold my breath and do it. When Dan comes home, he feeds, bathes, changes, plays with the kids, etc.
But even though they're helping out so generously, I just can't help but feel....guilty. I feel guilty for everything...for being sick, for crying and complaining about being sick, for needing so much help, for not seeming joyful,even though, beyond all the sickness, I am happy to be having another baby.
That's the other thing. We live in this pathetic society that is always ready to blame the unborn baby.
I'll never forget a news story I saw a few years ago about a married woman who became pregnant and very ill with morning sickness. She and her husband appeared in a TV interview to share with the world that, after months of pregnancy and the terrible nausea that accompanied it, her quality of life was "ruined", and so they decided together TO HAVE AN ABORTION. And they felt completely justified in this decision.
I just sat there and wept, appalled at the selfishness of these sick, sick people.
It's like Mother Teresa said: "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
For the record, I don't blame my little baby ,snuggled in my womb, for making me sick. I may blame the hormones. I may ask God, "Hey, why do I have to get sick like this, huh?" But my sweet little baby is innocent. So I hope I never give the wrong message by complaining about being sick. And I know, soon enough, the sickness will subside. And it won't distract me from my joy any longer.
Because children are a beautiful, wonderful gift. They are a treasure. They are better than any material thing you can acquire in this life, because see...they're NOT things. They're people.Each tiny, new person is a brand new gift, all it's own, completely unique, created with love and dignity. And I am so excited to see who this next little person will be!
When my babies say, "Mommy, I see baby? I kiss your belly?I say hi to baby, mommy?", I can barely hold back the tears! It reminds me that the sickness is temporary and completely worth it all.
I guess right now, this is how I can participate in the Cross of Christ. I hope I will not waste it. I hope I can remember to offer up all my sufferings, to give them to Jesus as a gift, instead of feeling sorry for myself.
After all, Jesus didn't just hang on the cross forever. After the crucifixion there comes the resurrection! Easter joy.
And I know God has plenty of that for me, too.