We’ve officially crossed the threshold of twelve weeks. I wish that meant a sigh of relief over here, but until my ultrasound Wednesday I’m still holding my breath a little bit.
I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to even share how hard this pregnancy has been for us. I didn’t want to be insensitive. I know what it feels like to watch everyone else get pregnant, and have babies, while the only thing I was watching was a single line slowly show up on my pregnancy test over and over again, no matter how hard I prayed there would be two.
Some of my closest friends are still living in that space, sitting with infertility like the roommate that won’t pay rent on time but constantly empties out your cabinets. Constantly leaves you asking “why?” Why did we get stuck with you?
If that is your story right now, and it’s just too difficult to read about someone else’s pregnancy, you’re welcome to stop here. I won’t be offended. I know there were weeks when I was hopeful, when I soaked up any and every source on pregnancy I could. And there were weeks when the mention of someone getting pregnant (especially an accidental pregnancy) felt like glass shards in my lungs. Whatever side of the spectrum you fall on, I’ve been right there with you.
Pregnancy didn’t come easy to us. In fact, it came when we had almost given up hope of it coming at all. Because after a year of negative pregnancy tests, and two medical conditions that have been proven to cause infertility, we thought we had our answer.
Sometimes I think God laughs when we do this, because without realizing it, we had put Him in a box. Or at the very least, we had convinced ourselves that the thing we had desperately prayed for wasn’t meant to be ours, and we were doing our best to navigate being okay with that.
Obviously God had very different plans for us, and for some reason I’m feeling very compelled to talk about what that looks like for us.
As far as I know, baby is happily settling into my now grapefruit sized uterus. In case anyone was wondering- yes it is super painful when one of your organs decides to grow into the size of the largest breakfast fruit in a matter of months. Who knew. According to my pregnancy app, my body is currently producing a hormone called relaxin which is supposed to help my body (aka my literal bones) shift to accommodate our growing little one. If I’m being honest, relaxed is the last thing I’m feeling though. Literally all of my bones from my hips down are aching and complaining about the changes to the point that I’m having trouble sleeping at night.
People tell you about the stretch marks, and the cravings, and the mood swings, but they don’t explain this; The way that your physical body shifts in irreversible ways to accommodate another. The way that you can love someone so immensely that without ever really meeting them, you already value their life more than your own. I’ve always had a deep respect for pregnant women, but I honestly don’t think I could have had any chance at understanding the depth of strength it takes to bring life into this world until I carried it with my own body. And I’m only twelve weeks in.
I hear so many women talk about getting their pre pregnancy bodies back. Shrinking stomachs. Lightening stretch marks. Erasing proof of the most miraculous thing your body has ever done. And I wish I didn’t understand the desire to “bounce back,” but I do. Even as I watch my stomach begin to swell, and my sweet baby flutters around inside of it, there is a voice in the back of my head telling me that 25 is so young to be wrinkly forever. And it’s the most ridiculous thing because the only person outside of myself who even sees my stomach is the man who sees me at my best and worst and every moment in between. Who doesn’t care whether I’ve put any effort into the way I look, or even if my hair is brushed. Who, in just the last few weeks, has comforted me after I’ve vomited everywhere, and constantly brought me water, and ice packs, and carried the weight of the world because I couldn’t even carry myself.
I wish we could grow children without growing insecurities.
I wish we could revel in the miraculous thing that is birth without simultaneously calculating how few calories to eat to reverse-engineer ourselves into the unrealistic magazine cutouts and instagram squares. Pregnancy is literally the least glamorous thing I’ve ever done. I always hear pregnant women being told they’re glowing, and maybe they are. Maybe this strange glow comes over you at some point and people can just tell. I really don’t know. Honestly the only “glow” I’ve experienced so far is the sweat from having just thrown up, or from being so out of breath because I stood up too quickly or attempted to walk from my apartment to where my car is parked without prepping properly for the “marathon” I was about to embark on.
It’s not glamourous. It isn’t even pretty. But my goodness is it miraculous. It is the most incredible thing that one body blooms to accommodate another. That in just a few short weeks I’ll be able to feel my baby wiggle and kick and turn inside of my belly. That two hearts beat inside of me right now, and it is simultaneously the most full and most exhausted I have ever felt. If this is how I can feel about a baby the size of an apricot who’s existence I’ve only known about for 8 weeks, I cannot even fathom the love that our Heavenly Father has for us.
I always refer back to psalm 139, but how could I resist when it comes to this.
Verses 13-16.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 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.
This child that we have prayed for, waited for, hoped for, dreamed of.. is so much more than just a combination of genetics and biology. Than two lines on a pregnancy test. Than a clump of cells haphazardly thrown together.
This child has a purpose and a life already written out before them. They are being lovingly knit together by the maker of the whole universe, long before those two lines show up, or the nausea kicks in, or your belly starts to swell and balloon to accommodate life.
I am so in awe of that.