Love You Still

It’s funny how everything can change in an instant.

One minute you’re sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, feeling your precious baby full of life within you.  The next you’re watching that same precious baby on the ultrasound screen with your husband and your son and you know before you’re told that it’s a precious girl.  The tech tells you that all is well, and your husband takes your son to the car while you meet with the doctor.  You’re trying to wrap your mind around having a little girl when the doctor finally comes in and you learn that all was not, in fact, perfect.  She’s calm and optimistic, but her words blur in your mind.  Slightly enlarged brain ventricle.  Follow-up ultrasound next time.  Will probably go away.  If not, you’ll need to go to Little Rock for a level two scan.
 
You’re calm as you check out, as you walk out to the car, as you inform your husband.  Slowly, as the words start to sink in, your peace ebbs.  Later that night you make the mistake of searching on the internet about what this could mean.  You only read one page and then you get off, trying not to think about it.
The next morning you wake in the still, last hours of the night, thoughts and worries swirling through your head driving you mad.  You think about how you haven’t been as careful with this baby as you were with your first.  You think about your daily caffeine consumption, the soda you’ve indulged in here or there, your not-so-perfect diet.  You find yourself sick with guilt and overwhelmed with the thought that there might be something wrong with the baby…and it might be all your fault.

You know the thought is ridiculous, but you can’t shake it.  Stressed and uptight, you open your Bible.  As you read Psalm 139 aloud, you find yourself sobbing brokenhearted, worried tears.

Yet, as you read, it hits you…you love this baby more than life itself.  For so long you harbored guilt because you weren’t as excited about this baby as you were about your first.  Yet here you are, worried sick and unable to sleep over this very same baby.

In the end, what does it matter anyway?  You know without a doubt that you want this baby and that you will love and cherish her, no matter what.  Most likely, everything is normal.  Yet even if there is something wrong…even if all is not right, you will love her the same.  You will still ache to hold her, to feel her heartbeat against your chest, to watch her grow. Her life is still within God’s perfect plan, her days already written in His book.     

Peace floods over you as you realize that He knew that this would happen and He knows what will happen…even if you may not understand the whys.

 “Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?…even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me…even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you…For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.  I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well…Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

 Sweet Baby Girl,
We love you.  We always have loved you, and we always will.  In my dreams, you are healthy and normal, without a care.  Yet, even if something is not quite right, you are perfect in God’s eyes…and in mine.  Nothing could alter or lessen my love for you.  Yes, even if they find something wrong.  Even if you are not completely healthy, it won’t matter at all…I will love you still. 
Love,
Your Mama