Halfway point in my first pregnancy is finally here.
Halfway there: Living on a Prayer
My husband and I got out the finest fermented grapes Welches sells and celebrated joyfully last night for yesterday, was one of the most exhilarating days of our life. Throughout this pregnancy I have been forewarned about the multitude of negative things my poor innocent baby may inherit or acquire, but yesterday I climbed the mountain of stress and and summited it with sweat stains. At 8:30 in the morning, my husband and I arrived at the Delaware Center for Maternal and Fetal Medicine for a genetic counseling appointment and our first ultrasound. The genetic counseling advisor had been a very comforting well informed women who set my mind at ease; for whatever ease that was worth prior to finding out how my little baby is fairing in this crazy world.
After the genetic counseling, my nervous self dragged my sweat drenched body into the bathroom, for the third time since the hour or so we had been there, in the bathroom I tried to be as quick as I could, for fear they would call my name to have my ultrasound while I was in there. But to my surprise, they had not only not called my name shortly after I left the bathroom, but instead they had left us to sit with thoughts racing in the waiting room for 45 minutes. During my long wait, my husband managed to relieve his stress with his gameboy mumbling vulgar terms underneath his breath as his Tetras game was forcing him to concentrate on the little blocks on the screen. After about 40 games, he offered to let me try, I had found concentrating on the blocks was helpful until I realized I must have sounded like I had tretts. Finally they called my name, and as I rose to my feat I realized my pregnant body would once again have to make a date with their washroom.
When I had gotten into the room the lights were turned off and the only glowing light in the room was the screens in which I would see my sweet baby for the first time. The nurse put warm jelly on my stomach and before I knew it the moment I had been waiting for 20 weeks had finally became a reality. My sweet baby was no longer a an image in my mind; my baby's tiny features were everything I had imagined and more. After the nurse measured every little part of our baby, the Doctor came into tell us the results of the measurements. She told us baby looked healthy, but one of the measurements shows that the chances of having down syndrome had risen quite a bit, so she decided to measure baby another time. The second measurement came out much better, probably because baby stopped being an acrobat for a minute, and my husband and I could not have felt a bigger feeling of stress being taken off our chests.
Yesterday, could not have been a bigger awakening to God's amazing presence within our lives. Seeing the angel God has sent us from above was such a moving experience and I could not be more grateful to Him for his omnipresent love. God's gift of love is so beyond me, but I cannot deny that it radiates throughout my being and I could not be more gracious for this mind-boggling gift.
..each according to his or her possibilities, profession and responsibilities, should feel in themselves an obligation to love and serve life, from its beginning to its natural end. It is, in fact, everyone's duty to welcome human life as a gift to be respected, protected and promoted, even more so when it is fragile and in need of attention and care, either before birth or when it is in its final stages."
~ Pope Benedict XVI, Welcome Life, Before Birth and in its Final Stages, February 3, 2008 ~
