Moments of Terror

**WARNING: Topics relating to miscarriage.**

I remember the agonizing first 12 weeks that we waited and waited to have you checked out and make sure everything was ok. I remember the emotional roller coaster of thinking I had lost you and not knowing what to think, how to feel, what to do. I remember wondering after the fact if I should have refused to walk through all the airport security scans. I wondered if I had exposed your minuscule body to too much at such a young age because of my ignorance and naïveté.

I remember the first time seeing you alive and well inside of me and how much relief it brought me to know that you were developing at an appropriate rate and that you were a happy, healthy little creature in there. You were even a couple days ahead of schedule, which was a big deal at such a young age. I remember for the first time being able to feel relief.

Then a few weeks later, all my relief gave way to dread, fear, and grief as I emerged from our hotel restroom. Your dad wasn’t there with us yet as he was away on a business trip. Your aunts and I were awaiting your grandparents’ arrival in the US to mourn the loss of a loved one. I emerged from the bathroom shaking with tears. Your aunts instantly began researching your chances, my symptoms, and the likelihood of what was causing us such a scare. I refused to tell your grandfather and your daddy. I refused to tell your grandfather because he had already grown to love you more than we knew possible in such a short time. I refused to tell him because his heart was already broken; he was processing an earthly permanent goodbye already, and I didn’t want him to worry about you if you were ok or making his goodbye to two. I refused to tell your father from a distance as he would be traveling to see us the next day, and I wanted to tell him face-to-face that we might be losing you.

But the whole time, I just wanted to scream.

I wanted to scream at God. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for him to surprise us with you; to put us through such rigorous emotional highs and lows, just to take you from us. It wasn’t right to teach us to love you so deeply, only to take you away from us. I wanted to scream at him that losing one loved one was enough, and that He didn’t know what He was doing; that He had allowed too much and we would not heal. I wanted Him to apologize for putting us through all of this at once.

But I held it in. For a week, I talked about you so little. Not because I wasn’t anxious; not because I didn’t know what was going on with you inside my fragile body; not because I couldn’t let myself continue to grow attached to you with the possibility of losing you. Not for any of those reasons. I held it in because I didn’t want to tell others about you only to lose you and have to relive the pain that was losing you. I didn’t want everyone reminding me at every turn that I needed to be careful, that I needed to rest, and that they were praying for you to be ok. In a way, now, I can see that keeping you close to my heart and out of everyone else’s was selfish in a way, but that’s what I did. It’s how I coped.

The next appointment we had when we got home after that week of nightmares was the first appointment I cried in the office. You were there. Your heart beat back at the monitor strong and fast. You were so much stronger and less fragile than I had given you credit for, and I, so much weaker in faith than I believed myself to be.

I still don’t know what I should have done at that moment. I praised God for your health, but I didn’t apologize for my anger. I thanked God for easing my fears about losing you, but I never admitted that I was wrong; He DID know what He was doing the whole time. I felt like He was playing with emotions I had never trusted myself to feel, and now he was manipulating me with them. I feared that there would be another scare later on and that it would affect my ability to bond with you before you appeared earth-side.

The amazing part was that, for the first time, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that all of the fear, anxiety, and guilt that we originally felt toward your existence would leave. I knew that you would capture our hearts permanently, and that we would leave behind the emotions of the past. I was convinced that I would do every single thing in my power to make sure that you were born a healthy, happy, adored little boy. I was convinced that God knew exactly what He was doing, and that life after your arrival would be better than anything we could remember from before. I began to allow myself to accept your presence in my yet-unchanged body, and to get excited for your arrival, rather than waiting with anticipation; half expecting, half dreading that your life would be ripped away from me. We started buying things for you. We let ourselves start thinking about what hopes we had for you; for your arrival; for your personality and your future.

We began to allow ourselves to love you completely. We let our guards down, and we set ourselves out on the life-long journey of bringing you into our hearts; never to let you go again. We became vulnerable to the seemingly fickle existence that was you. And that was the first time that we told anyone other than family about you. We realized that all the emotions we had endured, all of the doubts and struggles, all of the pain was never God’s intent for us to bear alone. We became vulnerable about you and we shared the excitement and fears of your existence with our closest support group months after finding out about you ourselves. And gradually, the circle of support grew and grew, week by week as we became bold enough to share little pieces of you with more and more people. We had known about you over half of your prenatal life before we were strong enough to make your coming public.

But the day that we did, we found relief. Relief that you weren’t a secret any longer. Relief that we could acknowledge your existence in any situation, and we could be open about our struggles, excitement, and hopes. We had shared you with the world, and somehow that gave us hope (a strong hope) that now everyone knew, you wouldn’t be taken away. It helped that you were over half-way here at that point, and growing by the day. We had made it through the most vulnerable part of your development, and you were thriving.

We were (and still are) so thankful.