He sits on my lap, facing away from me. The house is quiet and still except for warm heat blowing through creaky vents. He presses his cheek against mine, caressing it back and forth as I clip fingernails grown too long. Long. His legs. Stretching out and almost touching the floor. How did this miracle boy of mine grow so big? He will celebrate 4 years of life in January. This boy, who doctors told me would not live. This boy, who at 10 weeks in this belly of mine, fought for his life. For doctors told me in a cold obstetrician’s office that I would need to weigh my options. That I would most likely miscarry (this now lanky boy strewn across my lap caressing my cheek) because of a very large Cystic Hygroma growing along the base of his neck. I told my sweet doctor, there are no options to weigh. I will keep my baby no matter what.
I wonder, in a land where babies are left to die alone in cold surgery rooms, and mothers are told to weigh their options, if they could even imagine what a gift they might have received? This gift, that just this morning, was sitting on my lap, caressing my cheek whispering, you’re nice, Mama. I whisper back, you’re nice too, sweet boy.
I’m so glad that I didn’t listen to that doctor, the one that in a round about way, encouraged me to abort my baby. Because this baby turned into a miracle baby and was perfectly healthy at birth. Even if I received a different outcome, and the baby was taken away from me through miscarriage or by way of birth defect, I still would have carried this child of mine. For God is the giver and taker of life.
Psalm 139: 13-16
“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.”
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.”
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