a million things raced through my head when the ultrasound doctor smiled at me. “I don’t see any traces of the cysts on the brain,” he said, his words restoring my displaced emotions. “and although there is still a spot on the heart, the rest of him checks out so well we aren’t concerned.”
the doctor in Little Rock over the computer monitor who was observing via web cam seconded, “you have a 99% chance of a healthy baby.”
I smiled, waiting for the but. There has always been a but. I was silent, my smile plastered on. My skin felt weird, my heart was beating hard. If it wasn’t Edwards Syndrome, if it wasn’t Down’s Syndrome then it was…
“Congratulations!” the genetic counselor who had sat in with us as well finally said.
***************
Despite all my prayers, despite my pleading, it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that I still doubted God. I had said I believed, thought I believed, but I guess my prayer begging God to forgive my doubt was the most accurate. The whole weekend I was still in shock, I think only now, 5 days later, that I am beginning to grasp that this just may be reality.
There is a lightness that I haven’t felt in six weeks.
There is also a deep apathy and emptiness as well. I had focused so long on one thing that it being taken away from me was a strange, unexpected pain of its own. I wondered for days what to pray when I sat down. There was a hole somewhere that was sucking in everything around it and I was helpless. How could this be? I have a major miracle- a beautiful, precious gift given to me and I feel almost nothing? I wondered at this.
Then I saw how blind I really was. Blinded by the glorious light- I was so used to the dark prison I kept myself in. God has set me free and now I have to choose to walk in his freedom.
It’s not natural for me, I had stopped believing sub-consciously that God was a good God, that he wanted to bless me. I had thought that miracles only happened to “those” people, that I was somehow called to suffer. Though that may have been for a season, I feel like it’s spring time, there is re-birth and new life all around me and it smells sweet.
Thanks for your prayers, know that they did change my life.