October 3, I saw two pink lines.
I was excited, and scared. Scared because I knew the risks that would come.
My baby was no surprise, yet he was planned- by us, and by God.
I knew the hardship that I would go through.
I had a hard time finding an OB that would accept me.
Even after finding an OB that would accept me, they didn’t want to accept my baby’s life with the same value as my own.
To me, my child was not a clump of cells, but he was a human- my precious baby.
It was the hardest nine months of my life. I tried to not show it much. I cried majority of the days, and not from hormones, but from pain and fear.
Pain from the stress of a pregnancy on my body, and fear that my child would not survive.
I will not forget the moment they told us that my son had cysts on his brain. I was 19 weeks. I did not know how to process my feelings. That’s the same week that I started to feel him kick. And kick hard. He wanted me to know he was there, and he was real.
Instead of joy, I was feeling heartbreak. I will admit, I did not want to feel his kicks because I did not want to become even more attached to a child that might not survive.
I felt guilty, and ashamed. Ashamed that I was wanting to disconnect from my son.
After a few days of grieving what might be, I realized that this was my baby, no matter the outcome. I was his mom. I had to protect his life. His rights to have a chance.
The next four weeks were hard. I was hospitalized for two days due to a really bad episode I had with my heart. All I wanted was for my baby to be okay.
We found out at 23 weeks that his cysts were gone, and he was perfectly healthy.
As the pregnancy continued, so did my episodes. They would consist of my hearing and vision going out, I couldn’t talk or move. I was consciously there, but it was like I had no control over my body. It was the scariest time of my life.
We continued on.
We planned his nursery. We bought his tiny clothes.
I was so worried about something going wrong so when my family threw a baby shower, I wanted to be happy, but I just knew people would ask me about how things were going and I didn’t want to admit- not well.
At around 32 weeks I was having an increased amount of episodes and so my cardiologist increased my medication.
At 35 weeks there was signs that it was slowing my son’s growth down. We didn’t think too much of it.
At 37 weeks I experienced the most terrifying moment of my life- even more than when we found out he had cysts. He failed a biophysical profile test (BPP) which is a test that uses a non-stress test with an ultrasound to check the health of the baby. We spent an hour doing an ultrasound. That hour was quiet. He had a heart beat, but no movement. I knew something was wrong when the ultrasound tech had me flip to different sides, and was pushing hard on my stomach while she looked at the screen.
I prayed, like I never have before. I did not want to lose my son.
I was sent to the hospital, where they did further testing.
He started to move some, and he was okay.
At 39 weeks, his growth dropped tremendously. We decided the best thing would be to induce.
36 hours of labor, and my son was born, healthy.
The staff that told me to consider an abortion at 5 weeks to make my life easier did not understand that the pain my body would go through for 9 months was nothing compared to the moment I got to hold my son for the first time. The doctors that told me I’d lose my son to a miscarriage multiple times between 6-10 weeks were wrong. The fear I felt when I was told my son’s cysts could mean he would be incompatible with life outside the womb was no match against our God.
I will admit that I did not have a strong faith my entire pregnancy, but I knew one thing: I’d fight for my son till the very end, even if my life was compromised. He was my baby.
I held my 6 lb 13 oz son, and knew in that moment that we don’t know the struggles we will go through in life, but at the very end of those struggles is a beautiful moment that God created.
I know some stories do not end like mine, but that doesn’t change the fact that God planned this, as scary as it might be. He hand-picked you for this, no matter how the story ends.
