How Things Hatch

Bottom line: I didn't feel as joyful as I'd expected, watching the flicker of my kidney-bean baby's heartbeat, on ultrasound. I didn't feel as excited to share the news as I'd expected, either.

I wanted to slink, alone, into a dark room; bury my face in a pillow; bawl my eyes out with relief; and sleep for hours. Or days.

Old hurts and failures cast shadows over beauty, sometimes. If you don't understand, reading this, you're blessed. If you do understand and have friends, as I do, who grab you up and say, "I know just how you feel," you're blessed.

I'm blessed.  

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us (2 Cor 1:3-4, MSG).

I want to write honestly about today. I don't want you to think for even one second that I'm not thankful for my good (no, great) ultrasound or that I don't want (more than anything!) my baby. But the ultrasound, today, didn't erase from my mind the ultrasound in mid-December, and I think--once you've come to understand just how easily things can go wrong--it's hard to celebrate in that old, perfectly optimistic way.

Maybe, in the end, that's why we have children: they remind us of what it is to be carefree. They don't worry about what will become of the egg, what's hidden inside the yolk sac, or how things will hatch.