Me and E3

*This is a post that I wrote somewhere in my fourth or fifth month of pregnancy. I didn't publish it at the time, but it's a good reminder to me NOW, as I officially enter my last few days (?) weeks (?) of pregnancy that the timing of almost everything is out of my control. And that's actually just fine. 

As soon as Sue, my midwife, placed the transducer on my belly,  we heard an immediate THUNK. "That's a kick" she said with a smile. The various muffled thumps continued while she searched for the heartbeat and then, there it was...the steady beat that promises a new person in waiting, a new little bundle of possibilities to nurture, a new life journey to cherish.

It's still surreal to me that this is actually happening.

We've never been able to add a child to our family without first experiencing a loss. This is my fifth pregnancy, but I have two children. They're amazing and totally worth everything we went through to hold them, but at some point, you learn to guard yourself. You expect disappointment in the vain hope of avoiding grief if the worst happens again.

The main problem with this strategy is that you can't really shut out pain. It's there every time you experience a loss. It is, however, very easy to shut out joy. Fear is the ultimate joy killer and I was living in fear.

Like anyone else,  I just wanted to be overjoyed to be a mother to a new life again. And I'd say I succeeded in that for about four days, until I started bleeding. And then I immediately shut down and thought "Well, OK, another miscarriage, at least it's early" and prepared myself for more loss. I stayed in that bunker mentality for the next few months, through another incidence of spotting and the various genetic tests and ultrasounds. But inside I was convinced that all the illness and suffering were ultimately going to be nothing, that I would have to lose before I could gain.

When everything came back negative (meaning no syndromes, no major issues thus far), I was shocked. And Tim was too. We both agreed that we totally expected something terrible to happen and that if the baby survived the first trimester we thought there would be some sort of health issue to deal with or some sort of deformity. It wasn't something that we ever talked about, but we both had the same fears.

A few weeks ago we were watching the Vikings game, and I told Tim, abruptly and apropos of absolutely nothing, that I wanted to find out the sex of this baby. As most of you know, Ads and G Man were "surprises", in that we had no idea what gender we were having. So this was a bit of a departure for me. He questioned me about it, and I realized that I felt like I needed to know what we were having so that I could be happy. I guess I felt like if I picked out a name and knew the gender, that I would fall in love with THIS baby on its merits and that I wouldn't be so locked up in this totally self created prison of fear anymore. I wanted to be happy.

We didn't really resolve the "find out or not" issue that night...I think we got distracted by an intense battle over some blocks (between Addie and Graydon, NOT Tim and I, just to be clear) ...and that night as I went to bed, I decided to turn it over to God. Shocking plan, right? But honestly, I hadn't been praying much in recent weeks. It's really hard to talk to God, or listen to God, without feeling something, and my whole goal was to feel nothing. Nothing good, and certainly nothing bad, because if you let your armor show some chinks, it all comes rushing in.

I didn't pray about whether or not to find out the sex of the baby. Frankly, I doubt God really has a strong opinion on couples knowing beforehand. I just asked God to tear down my walls because I had done such a good job building them that I wasn't sure I could do it myself. I asked God to let me be happy about this sweet child and to let me love him or her even before I truly knew them.

That night, I had the sweetest dream that I truly believe was an answer to my prayer. I dreamed I held a new daughter in my arms. I remember every detail of her face, and that she had no hair, unlike my other two that were born with tons of black hair. I remember her sweet newborn smell and the surprising heft of her in my arms and the gentle pursing of her lips and the movement of her eyes under her delicate eyelids as she slept.

I'm not claiming this was a prophecy of some sort, mind you. I will be totally unsurprised if I have a little boy with a full head of black hair. But I don't need to know what I'm having anymore. God reminded me, through my dream, of the impending joy that will be ours so soon. I'm more than happy about this precious person now, I'm joyful.

It isn't that I feel like I'm guaranteed to experience no pain with this baby, no heartache, or that I'm assured everything will go according to my plan, it's just that I've surrendered the anxiety about it. Attempting to shut out pain isn't worth the loss of joy. The only way to truly love your children is to dive in, to accept that they're human, with all the bodily frailties and failings that brings, and to cherish each day of health and togetherness as a gift.  I could lose this baby at any time, through some accident or misfortune, but for now, this little one is kicking the heck out of a heart monitor. And for now, every ultrasound reveals that precious heartbeat...a twinkling star, a flashing coin, a blinking light...that promises one more day. This is good. And I'm happy about it.