A blessing and a curse

This week I finally did it.......I got ready for the arrival of our baby.  I am 35 weeks pregnant today which is a miracle on so many levels.  I am praying the next 7 days away.  36 weeks is a goal we have dreamed of and prayed for with this little one.  There is a small chance I could make 37 weeks, but it's not looking probable and that's ok.  36 weeks is more than I've been able to hope for most days so I will be more than thankful for it.

Because of all of our many doctor's visits, the worried frowns, the million ultrasounds, the specialist consults, and all of the uncertainties that have swirled for the past several months, I couldn't bring myself to really get ready for the arrival of this baby until today.  Truth be told there were many times that I was just too afraid to hope that this day would come.  And it still hasn't come, so more than a tiny part of me is still afraid.  We are so close, but seeing will be believing with this precious little one.  I won't be able to let my breath out fully until I hold him in my arms.  Until then I will continue to pray with all of my might that God will give me this one more week and allow me to hold my son in my arms after that.

My first two pregnancies were nothing like this one.  If they had been, I probably would never have been brave enough to try this again.  It took me quite a while to get up the nerve to want to try this in China at all.  And once I did get up the nerve, it was many years of quiet waiting until God answered with this miracle.  My first two pregnancies were picture perfect; a little nausea here, a few cravings there, but not a complication in sight.  I was younger then and girls my age were popping out babies left and right all around me.  It seemed only natural.

Now a few years older ( of course I know that I'm hardly old yet :-) my horizons have broadened considerably.  I've spent a lot more time with women in these childbearing years, and I've learned that this miralce of life is something not to be taken for granted.  Dear friends have struggled and waited long in the agony of infertility.  Sweet sisters have lost babies that have only just been a flicker of hope before their tiny lives were cut short.  Even more tragic has been watching friends loose babies so far along that the pain seemed unbearable to me.  Pregnancies aren't always as easy as they seem and this time I have learned first hand the stress of the unknown while wading my way through a pregnancy with no guarantee of a happy ending.  While watching all of this I have also seen fantastic adoptions stories unfold with beautiful families being knit together but also equally tragic stories unfold with adoptions unable to be completed leaving heartbreak in their wake.  But for each one of these tragic moments I have seen beautiful babies birthed into this world; breathtaking miracles that scream of hope and joy.  All of my 7 nieces and nephews have been born in these past years.  My own two precious children came out screaming into the world 6 years and 7 1/2 years ago.  They have brought me joy unlike anything else, it is deep and unspeakable and overwhelming.  It is a treasure beyond compare.

But, all of us as women are stuck with this curse.  No matter our nationality, skin color, economic status, or life situation, we all struggle with the joy and agony of our fertility.  It is the curse of the fall of mankind.  Genesis 3:16 "To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children."  I used to think that this just referred to the physical pain that we experience in the actual delivery of our children.  And while the pain we endure when we physically push out these children into the world is one-of-a-kind, I think it refers to so much more.  When sin entered the world, with it came death, and that death is the curse that haunts us all and turns such a beautiful thing (our fertility) into a thing haunted by so much sorrow.  Not only do we suffer physical pain in childbearing, but we suffer with the emotional pains of loneliness, infertility, and death.  The beautiful and fantastic ability to bear children, is marred by the reality that not everyone is able to do this, and those that are still face the risks of sickness, death, and abandonment by those we love.   It is indeed a dreadful curse to be placed on such a beautiful blessing.

Somewhere in the next week or two I hope to hold another precious baby in my arms.  I hope to look into the face of this son that I have agonized over, prayed for, loved, and cried out for before even knowing his name.  If I am given the opportunity to hold him and love him and treasure him, it will bring me unspeakable joy.  But this time in my joy, my heart will quietly weep a little for my friends, my sisters, my fellow travelers in this journey of life, who have empty arms and quietly broken hearts.  I can't know their pain but my heart is not unaware of it anymore.  And while I will weep with joy and thankfulness over the miracle of life in my arms, I won't be able to ignore the tears of my sisters who carry the weight of these unfulfilled dreams.  And I will whisper a prayer for them, that soon their time of waiting will be over and their arms will be filled.  Most of all I will hold onto hope for the day when the curse will be brought to an end and "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be any mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelations 21:4)