[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]Before I was born, my parents had a baby. His name was Michael, and he was born in March 1976. He also died in March 1976, due to a genetic spinal disorder called anencephaly. This greatly influenced my family, especially my mom and how she related to my dad, my younger brother and me. So I’ve always been a little nervous that it could happen to me. My mother’s warnings of taking folic acid to prevent the disorder since I got married didn’t help to ease my fears.
Unfortunately, even knowing what I did, I still didn’t take folic acid supplements. (I don’t drink juice with breakfast to avoid its empty calories, and vitamins are just too yucky to take with water. I know that’s not a good excuse, but it’s all I’ve got.)
So when I found out I was pregnant last March – unexpectedly expecting – I immediately went into panic mode. Some of that adrenaline rush was normal: “How can we afford this?” “Our house isn’t big enough.” “What if I turn into my mother?” “What color should the nursery be?” “I hope Mark is happy about this.” But underneath the usual concerns was a layer of dread. A fear that history would repeat itself and we would have a baby with that disorder.
And yes, a good deal of my fear was based purely on the fact that I had not been taking folic acid supplements. I know it’s irrational, but I felt guilt along with that dread and fear.
Thankfully, a friend shared a reminder with me that worrying would not solve anything. (Yes, sometimes I need that reminder, even though it’s a pretty obvious point!) She pointed me toward Matthew 6:27, which says, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” God had a plan for the baby I was carrying, and nothing I could do – from taking enormous prenatal vitamins or thinking repeatedly (not even really praying), “Please, please, please let my baby be healthy!” – would change His good plan for my life or add an hour to my baby’s life.
I should also have remembered and focused on Psalm 139:13-14, which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
These promises should have comforted me. But they didn’t. I know that God works all things together for His good, but I was so desperately afraid that His good would involve painful things for me. I know that’s selfish. But it’s how I felt. I was also afraid of the decision I would be asked to make, should my baby have the disorder my older brother had.
See, my mom knew for the last three months of her pregnancy that her baby would die. She chose to carry him to full term. What an amazing choice! And so devastating. To this day, my mom feels the effects of that decision. And she’s shared with me that she’s not sure she would make the same decision today. Knowing that, knowing how deeply she was hurt, my God-loving and Bible-reading mother, I was terrified of being asked to make that decision. I just didn’t know if I was brave enough. Or strong enough.
You’d think this would have pushed me toward God’s promises. But it didn’t. I spent the first half of my pregnancy paralyzed in fear. Once we had an ultrasound and a few tests that came back negative (which is positive), I finally let myself breathe. And start to come to grips with the fact that I was going to have a baby. I was going to have a baby! Only then did I register at Babies R Us and begin to decorate the nursery. And thank God for His unending patience and undeserved blessings.
Of course, letting go of that fear didn’t help me sleep better. (And my aching back and sore hip didn’t help, either!) Because now I could no longer put off coming to terms with one, big scary fact: I was going to be a mother! I was going to have a baby! YIKES!
