Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Baby ....

Oh my gosh, I saw the most amazing thing today.

Today, I saw the beating heart of my unborn child.

Selah.

I cannot properly describe how that felt. Maybe I haven't even organized it into words in my own mind. I held Don's hand as we looked up at that screen and my fears were completely forgotten-- there was this gorgeous dark spot, with this tiny (I'm only 6 weeks) wooshing sound and this faint pulsing white spot (his/her heart only started beating this week) and it was like nothing I have ever seen.

It was a miracle.

How can you look at that and not believe? How can anyone remain in the darkness of unbelief when they are faced with the mystery of new life-- new life which has taken up residence in what you thought was a barren womb? And how can we ever fathom the mystery of what it means to be knit together in the smallest place by the biggest hands that ever were?...

There is so much to think about. So much to ponder. But here is this-- my heart does magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant (Luke 1:46)

Wow.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

So here it is...

I'm pregnant.

Crazy, right? How wild it is to even type those words in such an incredibly public forum. 7 weeks pregnant. What a miracle.

And the crazy thing is, we weren't even trying-- and I didn't think it could even happen. I was fully prepared to see a specialist this fall in order to start trying in January. But the Lord? He knew. He always knows.

But I had no idea how scary it would be. At once, I'm completely excited and totally petrified. I've been surrounded by all of these pregnant women all of these weeks with no clue about what was going on inside my own body, but mesmerized at what they must be going through. But I didn't consider the constant awareness that your body is not your own. That every weird ache or pain would send my mind down fourteen possible paths, none of which are positive. That I thought hypochondria was bad when I was alone in my skin...but now, there's two of us and I need to get. a. grip.

But I never was alone. The constant, never-fading presence of my God was and is felt.

I woke up with spotting this morning. Just a bit, and it stopped after the first...well, I won't go into details, but it didn't last at all and was always pink and that was incredibly early this morning. I've downed about a million ounces of water today and haven't seen anything to lose my mind over (except for a tiny amount of darkish brown this afternoon and that was it). I called several of my pregnant or have been pregnant friends and got a ton of sympathy and advise and also called my doctor, who told me to lie down all day-- so I did and was bored like crazy. Called my mother about 20 times. And felt all kinds of ghost pains.

You know I'm not allowed to look at WebMD. I'm not allowed to even peek at online medical symptoms sites. Because if I read it, I've got it. So of course my left shoulder has hurt (ectopic pregnancy), but so has my entire body-- I'm aching like I'm about to get the flu-- but it's normal.

So I turned over a new leaf midday. I decided that I will only read the positive comments on this website my sisters-in-law both told me about (it's a great site: babycenter.com). Look, if something bad is going to happen, something bad is going to happen-- there is nothing I can do about it. I am taking great care of myself and am doing everything I can. The rest is up to the Lord and I trust Him. But I can't go feeding my imagination.

For 9 months. OH, the drama.

I need to be delivered of this fear!!

So, in the spirit of the Year of Not Taking Things for Granted, I am not taking these days and this feeling of something amazing happening inside me for granted. No matter what happens tomorrow, next week or next year, this is now and it's unlike anything I have ever experienced. And I am not alone in it-- even in the dead of night when my child's father (oh, the awe of those words) is sleeping peacefully and my usually-exhausted self can't go to sleep, I am not alone. My earthly father has always referred to the verse that talks about the fact that the entire universe is held together in the expanse of God's hands, and I've been thinking about that today, wondering what is going on with this little one buried deep inside me. God's huge hands hold the expanse of the universe but somehow, miraculously, can go so small and tiny that they hold the life of this baby in perfect balance, too. Amazing.

Not taking that for granted, no sir.

Thank you Lord!