At 8 weeks pregnant, over my Christmas break from school, I had my first ultrasound. I was so sick and tired at that point that I knew I was either really pregnant or I had the flu! Still, though, even after a positive reading on an at-home pregnancy test (yes, they are really accurate!) and after positive HGC level readings at a series of blood draws, I still couldn’t really believe that I was pregnant. I didn’t look different; I couldn’t see anything. I felt sick, but I thought I would just feel pregnant. So at the ultrasound, after what seemed like quite a bit of silence, I blurted out, “So, can you see anything?” The sonographer responded by turning the monitor so I could see. There was a little bitty peanut the size of a kidney bean, with a little heart beating 150 beats a minute. I still look at those pictures and have a hard time thinking that it looks like a baby, but from that first peek at the baby, the sonographer was able to get measurements and estimate a due date: August 9, 2011.
Still I was scared. I had a fear that we would lose the baby—that God would take away the pregnancy in order to ensure that we didn’t cling to closely to anything in this world, and to bring us closer to Him. I know that is God’s greatest desire for us. But still, I didn’t want to go through the pain of losing a child. One Sunday at church, during communion, I had to face my fears. I wanted to affirm my faith in God and yet I felt I couldn’t totally surrender the baby to Him. Then, the band started playing the song “Oh, how he loves us” and it hit me: Yes, God desires to bring us close to him and loosen our grip on this world, but He also deeply, incredibly loves us. He wants to bless us, he wants to protect us. And the little baby I’m carrying is His—He loves him more than I ever could. He created him, He is knitting him together. I know this truth doesn’t mean that I will never experience pain, but it means that I can live confidently and I do not have to be afraid.
My belief in this newfound truth was tested at my 12-week check up. As soon as I got into the examination room, the nurse as usual checked for the baby’s heartbeat. She put the gel on my stomach and took the Doppler reader and proceeded to poke around and get a reading on the heartbeat. But there wasn’t one. She didn’t say anything—she just poked and prodded and finally after a few minutes gave up and said we should wait for the doctor to arrive. I panicked. As soon as she left the room, I voiced my fears to Alex. Why couldn’t she find the heartbeat? What will we do if something is wrong? Alex calmly looked at me and said, “It’s in God’s hands. I’m sure everything is fine, but if something is wrong, we’ll get through it. And if we never have kids, it would be devastating, but we would still have one rocking life!” His perspective calmed me down, but not as much as when the doctor came in, took the Doppler herself and immediately found the heartbeat. Turns out that my due date was incorrect in my file and the nurse assumed I was further along than 12 weeks. She was looking for the baby to be up higher than he really was. Nothing was wrong. And like Alex said, even if there was something wrong, it’s all in God’s hands. There’s nothing I can do to control this pregnancy or the health of this baby. I can eat right and be careful not to get in hot tubs or ride horses, but at the end of the day, God is in control. And oh, how he loves us!
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