Obviously the point of all of this is the get a kid out at the other end. But (despite all my griping to the contrary) I've actually loved being pregnant for the most part. The first three months, meh. But since then it's been such a thought-provoking, conscious-expanding, life-changing event. I just sit in amazement at what a female body can do to make life happen. I watch my belly grow, I feel Noah move around in there, all safe and warm. I dream about what he'll look like, his fun personality, how great being a new mom will be, and I get to make everything perfect in my dreams.
For 9 months this process takes over and you get to make all the decisions. You can protect and shield him from everything (well, almost everything. I'll get to that in a minute.) Then the little guy comes out of your protective bubble and the universe gets a hold of him. And apparently all hell breaks loose at that point, since from the moment he's born he will begin his quest for autonomy and individuality. And from the moment he's born it becomes inevitable that dreams and reality will start to contradict each other. I have control over my dreams! Reality - not so much.
The scariness of reality hit me head on last week at my last appointment. Because, yes, despite having convinced myself that I am in control, I have come to realize this is an illusion too. There's a moment at my appointments, right before I hear the heartbeat on the Doppler, that my own heart stops. It's a split second of crossing my fingers in my head and thinking 'please let him still be alive in there.' And then you hear the little tap tap tap and you breathe and think, how stupid, of course he's still in there all warm and snuggly and happy.
Well, at my last appointment that didn't happen. It took three attempts to hear his heartbeat at all. And once we did, it was crazy, abnormally slow. Even I, as a layperson, could tell that it was freakishly sluggish. All of my insides tensed up. 'This is it.' I thought to myself. 'I knew something bad was going to happen.' Maybe it's just me, but with this first pregnancy I've felt sort of like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. That in the end, it will be just as I expected. Things won't go right. Things will go wrong. I'm not meant to have a happy, healthy baby because I can't still yet imagine my life with him - Noah, the actual person - in it.
We jiggled him him a bit to stimulate him and then she checked again. Ah.....there it was. Heartbeat fast, loud and clear! I sighed with relief. And started crying. I made her check it 3 more times just to be sure. And then I decided to go for a non-stress test later that day, to a monitor to check his movements and ensure his heartbeat was 'on track.' And he was perfect. All is well. So, what happened before?
The fact is that I'll never know. Maybe he rolled over on his cord for a minute. Maybe we picked up my heartbeat instead of his. The reality of it is that I can't know what happened and that means I can't prevent it from happening again. I really DON'T have control. And it was my first lesson (of many, I'm sure) in letting go.
The universe, or God, or whatever higher power you believe in, has a way of letting you know that ultimately, it's not up to you. In this tiny little speck of time I'm here on this tiny little speck of dirt called Earth, all I can do is my best, and then turn it over to faith.
It's always had a plan, this universe of ours, and though we can't know what the ultimate plan is, it works with extreme efficiency. Every atom has a purpose, being used over and over, to create, to be destroyed, and then to recreate oceans, landscapes, animals, people. Noah is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen atoms, and those atoms were first in my body. Those atoms came from the food I ate, and the milk I drank, which came from the cow, which came from the grass, which came from the soil and raindrops that originated maybe over the Mediterranean sea. And those atoms maybe once made up a dinosaur, or an ancient tree, or ash from a long-now extinct volcano. And those volcano atoms came from the center of the earth, and originally from some long ago explosion that spontaneously started this whole circus to begin with.
The exact same atoms that make up my son have been recycled throughout time, over and over again from the very beginning. How interesting it would be if we could follow the journey of an atom over time! And someday they will be recycled again, into the earth to turn into something else. On one hand, it makes me feel very, very insignificant. But on the other, I imagine the soul, or spirit, or energy of each and every thing these atoms have been a part of leaving an imprint on it, and I feel so connected to the world, to everything in it. A part of the plan.
We do our best, and leave the rest to follow a path that we don't know or understand, one that involves us but one in which we have no input. We all have to do this. Nobody is more special, nobody has more power in this fateful journey.
It reminds me of the Serenity prayer that my mom used to have on the windowsill in our kitchen. I've always loved these words.
God grant me Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference.
