Giving Up Control
by Meghann Frederick
I admit it ... I am a control freak. When my oldest daughter was born, I resolved to be the best mom I could be and that meant doing it all. I was up with her multiple times a night for the first year; I never let or even asked my husband for help. When it came time for preschool, I taught her at home because I just knew I could do it as well if not better than the preschools could.
When I got pregnant the second time and found out I was having twins, I quickly became overwhelmed with the idea of two new additions at once. How on earth was I going to be able to keep doing this all by myself? The reality of having more kids than arms seemed daunting and for the first time, I turned to my husband for help. Together we started planning how we were going to handle this all on our own.
Delivery day came and we were so excited and blessed to give birth to healthy boy/girl twins. They were only in the nursery long enough for the hospital staff to run standard tests then they were right back in the room with us. We were going to handle this just fine! Then a nurse mentioned to the pediatrician she heard something abnormal in my son’s heart and they called in the cardiologist. He ran tests and told us the news ... my son was going to have to be transferred to the children’s hospital ICU by ambulance 10 miles away through flooding rains; many roads were even closed. He had to get there as soon as possible because he had a rare heart defect that could kill him. My husband, my rock who never gets upset about anything, started crying. Any chance I had of holding it together was gone.
How were we going to handle this? Should my husband leave me and our daughter twin to go and be with our son twin or should he stay with me? We cried and debated for as long as we could, then we had to make a choice. We decided my husband would stay with me, and in that moment, we gave up control. We could not do this on our own. Not only would we need the help of the best physicians in the area, we needed the help of the Almighty Physician. For the first and last time, I gave up control of my children to whom they truly belong ... God. Only He could help us through this; only He could be in control.
My son was in ICU at the children’s hospital for two weeks before he got to come home. God helped us through those tough days and blessed us with some time as a family before the open heart surgery for him a few months later. The doctors told us to expect him to be in the hospital for up to two weeks. He had the surgery and was home in only three days! We were told to treat him as if it had never happened. Since then, we’ve realized that our children are on loan to us from our heavenly Father and we must always rely on him, not only in crisis, but in the everyday. I am no longer in control, and I am truly okay with that. | 
