Kiss Your Miracle

To be completely honest, there was one more factor in my decision not to go back to work that I didn’t mention at the time: a positive pregnancy test. I started feeling sick in the beginning of June and this time around I knew right away it wasn’t the flu. At least for me, pregnancy nausea feels different than a stomach bug. Things I normally love sound awful. The thought of coffee or wine is enough to make me gag. Salad and vegetables? Terrible. But grilled cheese or macaroni? Heaven. Somehow I’m able to feel nauseas and still eat more and worse than usual. So when I suddenly had morning sickness along with the inability to keep my eyes open past 9:30pm, I told Adam we should think about doing a home pregnancy test.

When we did the test, the control line showed up clear and dark. A light second line appeared a few minutes later, so faint I wondered if we were imagining it. “Is this positive?” Adam asked. “I don’t trust it,” I said immediately, anxiety tightening my neck. It’s not that I didn’t want to be pregnant – it’s that our years of infertility trained me to hate home pregnancy tests. I’d heard that any second line is a positive, but ours was so very faint. I looked closely at the stick, narrowing my eyes. How cruel for it to not even give us a straight answer.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. Maybe I was pregnant, but the baby was stuck in my fallopian tube. That would throw off my hormones and maybe give us a barely-there positive. I only have one tube to begin with (my other was removed during surgery years ago), and at one point a test showed my remaining tube as 100% blocked. We know that God opened the tube enough for Sky’s little embryonic self to pass through it, but the pessimistic, fearful side of me didn’t assume that would automatically happen again.

At that point we hadn’t made our final decision about my work situation. “There’s no way you’re going back to teaching now,” Adam said suddenly. “Not if you’re pregnant again.” I stomped around the kitchen making dinner. “I can’t think about this right now,” I said. I was planning to get up at 4am the next morning to fly with Skylar to Chicago to see my family. “Let’s just wait until I get back next week,” I said to Adam. “I’ll do another test and maybe it’ll be easier to read.”

A week later our second test was the same as the first and I wanted to scream. How could it not have changed at all? Shouldn’t the line be darker by now? Or nonexistent? Stupid pregnancy tests! I felt like I’d been trying to keep my emotions on pause – not get too excited yet, but not let myself feel disappointed either – and a girl can only do that for so long. I called my doctor’s office and because of my history, they scheduled an early ultrasound, but not until the end of June. “That’s three weeks away!” I said to the nurse on the phone. “Yes, I know,” she said sweetly. “And if you have any sharp pains or bleeding, feel free to call us right away.” I hung up in a daze. Apparently, if the baby was in my tube, I’d figure it out on my own in a less than enjoyable manner. I sighed. Three weeks felt like forever.

In the meantime, Adam and I talked more about my work decision. I taught through my first pregnancy and was willing to do it again. Wouldn’t another baby on the way make things even more stressful financially? But when Adam gently asked me how I felt about it, I admitted that it sounded awful – just the thought of teaching full-time while pregnant and with a toddler at home overwhelmed me. “So that’s that,” he said calmly. “The money will work itself out. This is the right decision for us either way. It’s what we were leaning towards already. The new baby just makes it an easier choice for us.” Adam looked more relaxed than ever, but I was a big ball of nerves. What if we weren’t actually having a new baby? What if I was about to lose my only remaining fallopian tube instead?

Thankfully, pregnancy-induced exhaustion took over my brain every night and I had no trouble sleeping. I even began to feel a bit more settled as the days passed. A verse from Psalm 139 came to my mind whenever I wondered about the baby: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (v. 16). God knows how long this baby will live, I would remind myself, and he loves this child even more than we do.

Still, I spent the morning of the ultrasound on the verge of a panic attack. When we were finally called back to the examining room, I laid down on the table, explaining to the tech that I have a tipped uterus and sometimes it’s hard to get a good picture of it. I was barely able to get the words out when right there on the screen was the image of a tiny baby – 2 cm to be exact – tucked in exactly the right place, its little heart flickering away at 170bpm. Adam held Sky with one arm and reached down with his free hand for mine. “Everything looks great! You’re eight weeks and four days,” said the tech. “Your due date is February 2^nd.”

Throughout the rest of the day I cried quietly on and off. One miracle baby was enough. But two? I thought about the summer of 2007, when we felt God leading us to wait rather than try IVF again. It made no sense to us at the time. The pain of wanting a baby was so intense that it colored everything else in my life. To think that God had planned to bless us with not just one child, but children – the word “extravagant” comes to mind whenever I think about it. Life can be so painful, even vicious sometimes. But God has been sweet to us, removing our biggest heartache. The day of our ultrasound I wanted to pray, but couldn’t find the words. Anne Lammot, one of my favorite writers, says that some of her best prayers are “Please, please, please,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Sometimes I’m just glad that God already knows my thoughts.

I know we’ll face hardship down the road in one way or another. A healthy pregnancy now does not guarantee a healthy nine months or a healthy child. And I will admit, even if things go perfectly, the thought of having a newborn when my firecracker Skylar is just a year and a half old terrifies me. But for now, my focus is on our Almighty God and what he has done for us again, blessing us with another life growing beneath my heart.

I don’t have anything all that interesting or profound to say about this photo – just had to show it to you. This is Skylar, my high-energy, sleep-fighting, hates-to-be-strapped-anywhere baby, covered in peanut butter and rice cake and fast asleep in her high chair. If you look closely, you can see that she actually has peanut butter on her eyelids because she rubbed them with her messy hands as she got tired. Before this, she had never drifted off whileeating and I don’t expect her to do it again. But I’m glad I took this picture. Some moments are meant to be savored.

I’ll never forget the day during my pregnancy when we found out our baby was a girl. Of course we would have been happy with a boy too, but when the ultrasound tech told us we were having a daughter, I was thrilled. I remember how fun it was to start calling the baby “she” instead of “it,” to start talking about names, imagining what she’d look like. I went shopping that afternoon, and bought a few girly baby outfits just for fun. But as the weeks passed I began to think more about having a daughter, and the unique responsibility of trying to raise our little girl to be sensitive and sweet, but also confident in her identity as a child of God.

We’re all aware that girls in our culture face intense pressure to be beautiful and well-liked, and I started wondering what I could do as a mom to help my daughter feel secure in her own skin. I don’t think sheltering her completely from the outside world is the way to go (as appealing as it sometimes sounds), and that means she’ll be exposed at least somewhat to our looks-obsessed media. Most girls want to be pretty and I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. But I’d love to somehow expand her concept of beauty beyond the specific look of a magazine cover. I don’t want her to waste time feeling inadequate because she’s not perfect. But sometimes that feels like a lofty goal. I’m her mom, but I’m still just one voice. I thought about it many times during the pregnancy: how much can I realistically do?

And then one day this thought came to me clearly: stop criticizing yourself. At first it seemed strange. Shouldn’t I focus on not criticizing my daughter? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. When I’m around someone who’s always saying she needs to lose a few pounds, I start to feel self-conscious in front of her. Especially if she’s smaller than I am. And if I spoke up about it, she would probably say, “Oh, I’m not talking about you. I just mean for me.” But I’ve gotten the message. Weight is very important to this person. And I already struggle with that idea enough on my own; I don’t need anyone to emphasize it to me. But before I make myself sound too innocent, let me confess that I’ve been on the other side of that conversation too. How many times have I been the one to make a negative comment? But lately I’ve been more aware of the women I know who never cut themselves down. Just being around them is a relief. I can focus on the relationship itself without analyzing how I look that day. And that’s how I want my daughter to feel around me – that I’m a person she can be herself with.

So near the end of my pregnancy I decided that I would train myself to keep my mouth shut about my physical appearance, and I’ve tried to stick to that. I have to admit, it hasn’t been easy. Next week we’re flying north to be with my extended family for the fourth of July. We’ll be at my parents’ house near Lake Michigan, which means lots of beach time and bathing suits. The other day I took Sky shopping with me and oh my word, it was hard not to verbalize the stuff in my head! My brain was shouting negative things with every new suit I tried on. I wanted to comment on my ultra-white skin, my post-baby belly, and how unfair it is that cellulite is cute on babies but not on grown women. But when I looked at Sky, smiling innocently at our reflection in the fitting room mirror, I held my tongue. She isn’t really talking beyond “mamma” and “daddy” yet, but I know she’s already listening. And I want to get in the habit now of emphasizing the things that matter, not what will fade away.

Today I bought Sky her first toothbrush. She has a total of four teeth so far plus a few on the way, and it occurred to me the other day that we should probably be doing something to clean them. When I handed it to her she quickly put it in her mouth, like she does with just about everything, and began to chew on it. And as I sat there watching her, it struck me how grown up she looked, standing in her bathroom wearing shorts and a tank top, brushing (well, sort of) her teeth. For a minute she looked more like a little girl than a baby.

I’ve never been one to feel wistful over how fast Sky is growing. When I see pictures of her as a newborn I don’t get nostalgic for those days at all. I actually have a hard time remembering much about that time beyond the sleepless nights, breastfeeding problems, and extensive crying sessions (for Sky and for me). Sky was restless and frustrated as a tiny baby. But with every milestone and every new skill she’s learned, she’s grown more content. I love that I have memories from Sky’s newborn days; I just wouldn’t want to relive them. Even now when I’m overwhelmed by sleeping issues or the crazy mess at mealtimes, I’m comforted by the idea that one day she’ll put herself to bed. And down the road when she gets the floor dirty, I’ll just hand her the broom.

Still, I have to admit that I had a moment when I watched Sky with the toothbrush. The thought occurred to me that this is one first out of many. She has yet to experience her first birthday, her first ponytail, her first sleepover, her first love. And as much as I like to watch her learn new things and grow, it’s a bit unnerving to think about how quickly time rolls along, regardless of how we feel about it. I suddenly found myself thinking about the clichés all of us young moms hear whenever we’re in the grocery store with a fussy baby. Without fail someone will advise me to “Enjoy these days! They go so fast!” – which seems irrational when I can’t even pick out a box of cereal because my child is being so demanding. What’s enjoyable about that? But I guess most clichés begin with the truth. Even the most frustrating days do have happy moments when I’m willing to stop and look for them.

I think what I want the most is to simply appreciate my little girl in whatever stage she’s experiencing. Not to wish her younger (which isn’t a major temptation for me so far) and not to wish her older (definitely where my mind tends to go). Just to love her for who she is right now, aware that the future has no guarantees, grateful for each day we have together.

Wednesday was my birthday and I woke up that morning thinking about my childhood. My mom always made a big deal over our birthdays. Even though she has seven children, she managed to make an elaborate baby book for each one of us, and our particular book would always be sitting out on the kitchen table first thing that morning. Then she’d make French toast or pancakes for breakfast, put a few together in a stack, and load it up with candles. We’d all sing and my mom would take an excessive amount of pictures. By the time the birthday kid actually blew the candles out, the pancakes were usually coated with wax. But we still did that same little ritual for every kid, every year.

Sky’s first birthday is coming up next month and I’m ridiculously excited. My mother-in-law brought over a little cake pan for me so I can bake a separate miniature cake, just for Sky to destroy. We’ve already talked about who we’ll invite and possible themes. (I want to do a princess party, but Ad’s not so into that. “Do we really want to encourage that kind of thinking?” he says.) Obviously, at age one Sky won’t even be aware of what’s happening. The day could slip by unnoticed and she wouldn’t care at all. But even though she’s young, I want to start teaching her that her family loves her and we’re happy she’s one of us.

And I’ll be honest. The party’s not just for Sky. Becoming parents has been a major adjustment. This past year has been harder than we anticipated. So for her birthday I feel like we, her mom and dad, deserve a party too. Is this how all new parents feel? I guess it’s a small thing – surviving year one. I can’t even think about all that the coming years might hold or I’ll be completely overwhelmed. All I know is that right now, one year feels like a substantial accomplishment. So on July 22^nd we’ll be celebrating at our house.