Life is a miracle. Whether you believe in Creation or Evolution as a means of becoming a wondrous individual, life is a miraculous event. In just a few short months a beautiful, tiny, awe-inspiring individual is grown from a cell not large enough to be seen by the naked eye into a person. A person.
When Nick and I found out we were expecting our fifth miraculous bundle of life, we were actually quite happy. In all fairness I had a few hours to process before I broke the news. The normal thoughts passed through our minds. Could we afford another mouth to feed? How will I homeschool five children? Will I ever be able to go the grocery store alone again? Lord, I have to give birth again?! The answer to all of these questions lingering in the air was simple, the same answer for all of our trials. Our needs have always been met and usually surpassed. No, not always in the way we would like or expect but we have never lacked for our necessities.
Sometimes this no worry attitude can get in my own way. I went to the OB last week for a routine monthly check-up and to get the results of my ultrasound. I had left the ultrasound office feeling a little uneasy, but just chalked it up to hormones and unnecessary concern. The tech was wonderful, she shared her life with me, we even shared a few tears about our children growing up and changing. It was actually a rather touching hour spent with my very wintered, huge, white belly being bared to a complete stranger. She was the first tech in five pregnancies to ask me to wait for the radiologist to look over the scans to make sure she had everything. As I was lying there reflecting over the fact that I was having a baby boy with ten fingers, ten toes, two kidneys, a brain, and a heart, I wasn't thinking something must be wrong. I could feel that Mother's Intuition nagging at me, just ignored it.
When I went to my OB she very calmly told me that my pregnancy is one of the 1% of those diagnosed with Single Umbilical Artery. She brought me in an extra hour early to tell me. I think she expected a total freak out. I don't get emotional in front of people. I don't even cry in front of my own husband, unless I'm pregnant. When I look back to how I reacted, my doctor probably thought I was under-reacting. I left the office feeling overwhelmed with statistics and frightening details about this abnormality, this unknown. I won't pretend that I didn't drive through my tears the entire way home. It's dangerous to cry and drive people.
Our pastor said something last week that I've been really thinking on. He said, "To question God, is to criticize Him."
Crying out, "WHY LORD?" didn't seem right. I do know that the Lord had prepared me all week for something. My reading, my talks to friends about God being a giver not a taker, that Hillsong song about the Ocean and the waves. It all was on my heart on that short drive home.
"For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." -Romans 8:26
I don't think that scripture ever made more sense to me than in that moment. I really had no words. Every word of my prayer wasn't one that would make any sense to the nearby listener. What we can't express the Spirit does within us, for us.
It's been a week spent deep in prayer. Nick and I have been lifted up by those surrounding us in ways we can't put thanks into words. We're turning away from fear. We're praising Him for the glorious Savior he is. I have so much peace right now. That is not an earthly peace. I feel like at any moment the gates could open, the flooding of fear will rush in, that I'll be drowning in agony for my unborn.
When you are a mother, when you carry a child in your body, when you feel more pain than a person can possibly fathom to bring a miracle into the world, you feel that your job is to protect that little miracle. Your body is perfectly created to carry and nurture him. It's a great pain to think that the charge to protect and nurture is completely out of my control. I go in for a fetal echo cardiogram next week and a routine growth ultrasound at least once a month until he's born. These will prepare us for the upcoming months in what to expect. At this point for all we know, we have a perfectly healthy baby boy. That's what we are standing in faith for.
When I went to my OB she very calmly told me that my pregnancy is one of the 1% of those diagnosed with Single Umbilical Artery. She brought me in an extra hour early to tell me. I think she expected a total freak out. I don't get emotional in front of people. I don't even cry in front of my own husband, unless I'm pregnant. When I look back to how I reacted, my doctor probably thought I was under-reacting. I left the office feeling overwhelmed with statistics and frightening details about this abnormality, this unknown. I won't pretend that I didn't drive through my tears the entire way home. It's dangerous to cry and drive people.
Our pastor said something last week that I've been really thinking on. He said, "To question God, is to criticize Him."
Crying out, "WHY LORD?" didn't seem right. I do know that the Lord had prepared me all week for something. My reading, my talks to friends about God being a giver not a taker, that Hillsong song about the Ocean and the waves. It all was on my heart on that short drive home.
"For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." -Romans 8:26
I don't think that scripture ever made more sense to me than in that moment. I really had no words. Every word of my prayer wasn't one that would make any sense to the nearby listener. What we can't express the Spirit does within us, for us.
It's been a week spent deep in prayer. Nick and I have been lifted up by those surrounding us in ways we can't put thanks into words. We're turning away from fear. We're praising Him for the glorious Savior he is. I have so much peace right now. That is not an earthly peace. I feel like at any moment the gates could open, the flooding of fear will rush in, that I'll be drowning in agony for my unborn.
When you are a mother, when you carry a child in your body, when you feel more pain than a person can possibly fathom to bring a miracle into the world, you feel that your job is to protect that little miracle. Your body is perfectly created to carry and nurture him. It's a great pain to think that the charge to protect and nurture is completely out of my control. I go in for a fetal echo cardiogram next week and a routine growth ultrasound at least once a month until he's born. These will prepare us for the upcoming months in what to expect. At this point for all we know, we have a perfectly healthy baby boy. That's what we are standing in faith for.
Psalm 139
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Oh My Sweet Megan, I'm in tears with sadness & joy & pride & faith all at once. I wish I could hug you, but, I pray that God puts his arms around you, and it heals all inside you & that you know, My arms are around you through Christ. I can't tell you enough, about how proud of you.
ReplyDeleteCan you please, explain what a Single Umbilical Artery is, what does this mean?