What really matters

Seeing or talking to other pregnant women I often think of how different my perspective is of pregnancy now. On an informational website talking about conceiving after miscarriage, I remember reading, "While other women's greatest worry is whether the nursery will be done on time, you can only sincerely hope that you'll be able to bring a healthy baby home." In a newsletter for the support group I go to, there was an announcement about a baby born healthy. The parents, who had previously miscarried, shared the name of their child and then said, "weight and length are not important- our baby arrived safely and that's all that really matters."

I can relate so much to these statements. Nurseries and baby showers seem like such small, unimportant matters in the big scheme of things- in the miracle of bringing a new life into the world... a miracle I have a deep appreciation for after facing what can go wrong. Childbirth happens so often. It seems so easy (aside from the incredible pain of course). For others, pregnancy and childbirth seem to happen like clockwork with no missing pieces, no surprises, no disappointments.

Sometimes I feel like I know an awful truth, an awful secret that others will never know or understand unless they too are forced into this place of suffering against their will and contrary to what they could ever imagine. It seems like a curse at times- a curse to be concerned with health rather than baby blankets and choosing colors for a nursery... why can't things be so easy? So joyful? So innocent and clear and right?

And sometimes I feel like maybe in my suffering, I've been given an incredible gift of clarity about what really matters and how precious life really is- not for the clothes, the strollers or cars, the toys we play with from infancy throughout our lives, but rather for the mere fact we made it here- that we were chosen in a very real way by God to come into this world and to live.

When things come easily, sometimes they are harder to appreciate. Just as people who lived through the Great Depression find it hard to throw even the smallest thing away, I, too, find myself clinging to every strand of life I have around me, as if going through a kind of spiritual drought or depression. God has shown me life is not something to be taken for granted- it's not even something that can be methodically "planned" or "unplanned" as people are surprised and disappointed by life's comings and goings every day, all the time.

As I fall into the trap of "hoping" we can parent a baby by a certain time of year or feeling anxious, impatient or even hopeless, I try to say a short prayer, "I trust you, God and I am yours."

I don't believe in "unwanted" children and certainly less now than ever before. I can't imagine a mother would not love and want her own child, but if it is the case that she doesn't "want" her child for whatever reason, I do. Therefore, that child is not "unwanted." I want so badly to have a child to love and care for. Having a healthy baby is such a gift- it's heartbreaking to think of people who take it for granted. Angelica, for whatever unknown reason, didn't have the chance to come into this world, but many children who would otherwise be able to live are killed by their own mothers and doctors through abortion- an extreme case of devaluing life and taking it for granted. How I wish I could impress upon all pregnant women how precious it is to have children when given the opportunity, how it rarely comes as one expects, but what a beautiful reminder it is of how little we control in life and who we must look to for strength, support, and guidance- the Creator and Giver of all babies- all small, pure, beautiful lives... the One who teaches us time and time again, sometimes through uncomfortable situations and sometimes through loss, what it is that really matters....