Baby Bump

Long before Matt and I even started talking about adding to our family, I had fears. Fears that it might not happen for us because since as far back as I can remember, all I’ve ever wanted was to be a mom. Instead, it happened fast for us. In early November 2014, we found out we were pregnant. After that moment I had very little to fear, especially after we passed the first trimester and my belly began to grow.

Our baby had been kicking for about a week, so going into our 19-week ultrasound on February 12, 2015, I had no fears, just excitement. The tech took her time looking at our very active baby’s organs, blood flow, spinal cord, and bones. She was calm and relaxed, and we didn’t sense anything was wrong. About an hour later, we sat in exam room waiting to see my OB for a routine visit. I wrote the words below in my journal two weeks after our ultrasound because I wanted to remember that day as it changed us for the better, forever. I needed to remember how it felt then and how I’ve grown from that moment.

If I close my eyes, I can remember exactly what it was like to sit on the exam table. I was still giddy with excitement from seeing baby and looking over the ultrasound pictures. We opted not to find out if we were having a boy or girl so I looked at the pictures and wondered away. Moments later, everything changed. My doctor walked in the room and I immediately knew something was off. She was not her typical excited self and started to explain that the results from this ultrasound were only preliminary… she continued on but her words started to fade out from me. I remember sitting on that table, looking back and forth from her to Matt. Her mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear the words. Matt sat so calmly, showing no signs of fear, listening to her. It was in this quick moment that I told myself I was dreaming, because really, it felt like a hazy dream. The doctor’s words started to come back into focus and I realized this moment wasn’t a dream. She told us that the baby was showing healthy functions in all of it’s major organs… “but”. It was that “but” that I will never forget. She went on to explain that the right fibula wasn’t seen on the ultrasound, the right tibia was measuring shorter than the left side and there were signs of what could be club foot. That “but” hung in my head for what seemed like an eternity. I looked back and forth several more times from her to Matt before interrupting with, “I don’t understand. I wasn’t expecting this. My baby is missing a bone?” Her and Matt both looked at me with eyes of comfort… sympathy almost. What I was hearing crushed me.

It is so hard to be honest about how I felt for the rest of that day and so hard to put into words. I was sad. Sad that the sweet little kicking baby growing inside of me would have to face challenges from such a young age. I was full of doubt. Doubting that I was capable of being a strong enough momma for this child and wife for my husband. I started to have doubtful thoughts about why we wanted to have children in the first place, almost like I wanted to turn back time. I went home, cried, called my parents, and slept.

Fourteen days later, I am not sad or doubftul. I am encouraged and excited. It pains me to say that a day or two ever passed where I had feelings of sadness or doubt. Because of this baby, in just fourteen days, I have grown closer to Jesus and been so encouraged by my husband and prayers from friends, family, and our pastors. I feel more at peace with every passing day as we wait to hear more from the doctors and eventually meet our little one. I can’t wait to hold the one who’s been kicking me.

The most recent encouragement that has been spoken to me above all the others is simply that Jesus picked me to be this baby’s momma. One in 40,000 babies are born with Fibular Hemimelia. It is a rare condition, but he picked me. I never want to doubt for another minute of this child’s life that I am wrong for the job or that I am not strong enough because he picked me + Matt to be the ones that get to love this baby the most.

You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
When I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalms 139:14-16