HOME TOUR

Back in Boston from time in California with my family, we eagerly waited for the 12 week ultrasound.  The 7 week ultrasound had confirmed just one sweet baby, a little too peanut shaped for my liking, I was hoping for something resembling a human being with this elective ultrasound.  It wasn’t designed to give me another peek at this babe, it was ultimately designed to find problems with the baby’s development, to diagnose chromosomal abnormalities early.  For 30 precious, blissful minutes we watched our tiny baby dance around the screen, active, strong, perfect, and unencumbered by a diagnosis or at least hints at one. AND definitely a boy in both my and Matt’s mind, he seemed to want us to know that. Then the doctor came in, Dr. Dunn…just about the sweetest lady in the whole world. She looked at the baby confirming measurements and then zeroed in on it’s legs saying, “something doesn’t look quite right with the legs.” She moved the ultrasound wand all around having me shift and squirm to make the little baby move. She ultimately concluded that it was just too early and the baby was too small to see clearly what was going on but she would be “doing us a disservice by saying everything was okay.” It was her professional opinion, at this point in pregnancy, that you should be able to clearly visualize a baby’s lower limbs. All we could do was wait two weeks.

Shaken, crushed, shocked, overwhelmed…you name it and we felt it. We clung to each other as they ushered us into the genetic counselor’s office. At 27 and 28 years old, why were we even sitting there? It felt wrong. She drew a family tree and made us recite our family history, asking question after question. We had to call our parents. She then explained a test they’d like to do called a fetal DNA blood test. At 12 weeks pregnant, some of the baby’s blood was mixed with mine and they could analyze my blood to siphon out the baby’s blood cells for DNA and ultimately confirm the presence of the major chromosomal abnormalities. We consented, they took my blood and then called two days later–the test had come back negative for any chromosomal abnormalities and definitely positive for a little baby boy.

I sunk down and huddled there, in the dark recesses of grief. Our dear friends cried with us, held us and prayed with us. How do you endure two agonizing weeks of unknown and with it actually happening inside your body? Honestly, for me, only in the hands of God…and we believe in a mighty God, a God of miracles and healing. I tried so hard to believe He could heal this babe. But I never actually believed myself worthy of that healing I don’t think. I visualized the bleeding woman reaching out a feeble, hidden hand for the tattered edge of Jesus’ garment. That is what I wanted, unworthy and ashamed of my lack of faith, I wanted to try and reach Him without Him noticing because frankly I was mad that this was even something we were walking through. The two week wait, it was around this time I shut down–a way of coping with something so much bigger than myself. I stopped eating, at least eating well…I stopped sleeping, at least sleeping well. I prayed over and over again, ‘Lord take this baby or make him well.”

I could not, would not, visualize myself raising a baby that didn’t have legs. How would he sit up, take a bath, get married, run?  Your mind spirals to the deepest, darkest places it can go. A whirling spiral of negative, hopeless thoughts that tried hard to overwhelm me. If there had been no faith in my bones, no faith in a mighty God who hedged me in behind and before all my life, keeping me on HIS path, I would have thought more seriously about “getting rid” for lack of a better word, that sweet baby growing inside. Because it would be easier right? But how could I possibly do that? It was literally a miracle there was even a baby in my womb to begin with. He had already moved mountains to make that possible. And this little baby…he kept fighting on.

This was around the time when I realized without a shadow of a doubt that I was married to the most amazing man in the whole world…a man who floated me through this dark ocean of doubt. He was hopeful when I was gloomy. He started texting me a “joke of the day” every single hour it felt like. Anything to make me smile. It didn’t matter to him that something could be wrong. It was our baby and it was a gift.

Friends brought donuts because how is a pregnant dietitian going to resist those…she might refuse to eat salad but donuts, that’s another story. And many, many people prayed for us and held us close. I suppose that’s how we endured the two week wait.