I never thought I’d say that. Especially thinking back
to week 22. I prayed so hard for the weeks to pass quickly and to weeks
32, 34, 36 to be actual reasonable target dates to reach. And here we are
with only 5 days to go before we get to week 32. Yes, the week Dr. A said
we would celebrate if I made it to. As greedy as it sounds, now we want
to shoot for 36 weeks, and there’s a tiny part of me that now actually believes
we can get there.
Last night sitting on the couch with my back to the kitchen,
I listened as Jarrett, scrounged through the cupboards trying to find something
to eat, and I said to him, “Dad, I’m actually starting to let myself believe we
will get to bring home our baby.” He shut the cupboard door and came
around the counter to the side of the couch and looked at me straight in the
eyes and said, “I hope so.” He paused and I said, “Dad, its just this
whole pregnancy I’ve been so afraid of the nightmare that I couldn’t allow
myself to let go of the fear of the “what if.” Now that we are over 31
weeks and baby girl is gaining weight and growing like a weed, I feel like I
can finally allow myself to believe this chapter in our happy fairy tale
pregnancy may just end with the words, “And they lived happily ever
after.”
Dad sat down next to me on the couch and started rubbing my
back, which now aches due to the weight I’ve been so lucky to carry around on
the front of my stomach. I try not to complain, but ask him now nightly if
he’d rub my back. I’d gladly take the ache in my back if it means I can
keep baby girl inside. I remind myself with every new pain or
uncomfortable adjustment, that this is the greatest feeling in the world.
She’s still inside. Dad rubbed my back and went onto say how we can now
very much dream about, picture, celebrate what we are about to receive.
Dad said, “As Laurie would say, “It tastes delicious, let’s enjoy it!”
And he’s right.
Baby girl has been extremely active this past week or so,
she’s been rolling around in my stomach, doing gymnastics or play dodge ball
with her umbilical cord or who knows what. I love the feel of every
single moment and sometimes, when she gets her foot stuck up in my rib or along
the far left hand side of my body, feeling like she’s stretched out almost to
my back, it triggers an automatic smile on my face. It’s simply the most
amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced and I feel so grateful to enjoy it.
It’s one of those gifts, I resigned myself to years ago, that it wasn’t in the
cards for me. This past weekend I laid on the couch and watched as she
rolled around, grabbing my phone just in time to take a quick video. I
know I’ll come to miss these movements in a few short weeks/months so I’m glad
I’ll have this video to remember for years and years to come.
I feel in the past week, I’ve swallowed a basketball that
now sits on my front. Some nights as I change to get ready for my
bedtime, (which comes around about 8:30 or 9 at the very latest these days), I
look in the mirror at my stomach and study its shape, the roundness and how it
looks. I try to capture in my mind the simple transformation one’s body
goes through as it grows a tiny human and I think, “there just has to be a
God.” Who else could have created something so masterful.
And as much as I love this tiny baby girl growing and
thriving inside of me, I also can’t help but think about Gabriel, Michael and
Isabelle’s birth moms. It’s so hard to describe the love I feel for our
second daughter, the one inside of me, even though I’ve only met her through
ultrasound pictures and the nudges she gives me several times throughout the
day. And yet, I feel a love so strongly for her, its impossible to
describe. I would give my life for her, (for any of my children) in an
instant, if it meant I could give them their life. And in that thought, I
realize, that same thought must have gone through the minds of the mother’s
whose babies I get to raise. I can’t imagine the heartache and pain in
having to say goodbye to one’s precious child and knowing that they are out
there being raised by someone else. My only connection to possibly
understanding what they have gone through is thinking about my loss in saying
goodbye to Noah. I had to say goodbye to my child but find comfort in
knowing someday I’ll see him again. Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle’s
mothers, had to say goodbye knowing their child’s hearts beat on outside of
their lives… and that they may not get to be a part of their lives again.
That is a kind of grief, I am not going to pretend to understand.
So it makes me even more grateful for the way that I became
a mother. That I was lucky enough to obtain the greatest title in all the
earth, through the gift of someone else’s grief. As cold and heartless as
it sounds, instead it makes me even more grateful that I get to be the mom to
the three precious babies given life by someone else. What an ultimate
sacrifice they gave, and Dad and I were the lucky recipients.
As I think about these past 8 months, now officially
into the 8th month of pregnancy (Yahoo!) I am sometimes surprised at
the transformation that has taken shape in me. I’m not talking about the
physical part of my changing appearance, but of the mental metamorphosis I’ve
undergone. If you could have looked into my mind 8 months ago, as we
found out we were pregnant yet again, you would have seen a weak, beaten down,
untrusting, broken-in-faith, grieving mother, unsure how to go on. As
this baby girl grew inside of me, filling my body with her daily changing
appearance and growth, I grew too. Mentally facing obstacle after hurdle,
grief panic and turmoil, and yet at the same time, growing in strength and hope
that we were being carried.
Here’s to 31 weeks… so grateful.
Until next time,
Angie
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