{"id":523,"date":"2008-05-16T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/2008\/waiting-knowing\/"},"modified":"2008-05-16T10:00:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-16T15:00:57","slug":"waiting-knowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/2008\/waiting-knowing\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting. Knowing."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I was little I knew I wanted to grow up to be one thing. A mother. I always imagined myself having children much earlier that what it seems it will be. When I sit down and think about having babies, I nearly panic. What happens when you don&#8217;t know what to do, what happens when they get hurt,\u00a0what happens when you are responsible for this tiny life and you make mistakes? I&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that if everyone sat down and thought long and hard about having kids, no one would actually do it. It is crazy and yet &#8211; I imagine &#8211; is the most rewarding experience ever. Lately, I have been thinking about it more and more. When I get to the point that I think I can deal &#8211; physically &#8211; with being a mother, my jaw reminds me that I can&#8217;t. I know that there are people out there that are in more pain\u00a0and turmoil than me &#8211; and they do it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m writing &#8211; babbling &#8211; today to ask you to pray for me.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who don&#8217;t know what I am talking about &#8211; I have TMJ &#8211; pretty severe. In the spring of 2006 I had a LOT of stress in my life. I started to experience headaches, sinus pain, numbness, tingling, panic attacks &#8211; you name it. I went to my family docs and they put me on sinus medications and steroids &#8211; with no results. Finally I had my mom &#8211; cus we all need our moms sometimes &#8211; come over and take me to the doctor. He told me to open my mouth as wide as I could &#8211; 20 pops later he told me that I was more than likley experiencing TMJ. He referred me to the only &#8220;specialist&#8221; in the region. He took X-rays and told me that my jaw was arthritic and deteriorating &#8211; I had no cartlidge left to work with. He gave me a muscle relaxer &#8211; which is only a monthly relief- and a night splint to sleep with. I gave up gum, candies, steak &#8211; anything that required immense amounts of chewing. The pain subsided and stayed at a level of bearable for a while. I would have good days and bad days. The &#8220;specialist&#8221; told me there wasn&#8217;t really a lot that could be done. I left myself with that answer. Life was miserable at some points. I thank God for putting a STRONG &#8211; LOVING &#8211; WONDERFUL man into my life that has been through it all with me.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway. I am back to being miserable and in pain almost all the time. I was so excited at the prospect of maybe starting a family soon &#8211; but when I can barely manage to make it through the day &#8211; I don&#8217;t let the thought even seep in.<\/p>\n<p>I know in my heart of hearts that God will heal me. I don&#8217;t know how &#8211; but I know that He will. I am asking you &#8211; my readers, my family, me friends &#8211; to pray with me. Pray for me. I want to start a family more than anything I can think of &#8211; but I want to be pain-free and be able to manage having children.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you and God bless you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was little I knew I wanted to grow up to be one thing. A mother. I always imagined myself having children much earlier that what it seems it will be. When I sit down and think about having babies, I nearly panic. What happens when you don&#8217;t know what to do, what happens [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}