bambino #3

Most expectant parents I know anticipate the 20-week ultrasound with some eagerness and happy anticipation. Oh, we get to see the baby! and if you're the type of couple that wants to find out the sex, Today's the day we find out if we're buying ballerina tutus or baseball caps!

Ever since Ewan, there has never been such a thing as a routine test or ultrasound in any of my pregnancies. And so it was no surprise to me to wake up this morning well before it was light, and check the time on my phone.

3:30 am: T-minus 6 hours to appointment time.

UGH.

I reminded myself of all the things that were supposed to help me stop worrying: although not impossible, it was statistically unlikely that we'd have another child with a heart defect or other life-threatening abnormality. I was just feeling this way because our very first experience of a 20-week ultrasound threw us into the deep end of every expectant parent's worst nightmare. It probably wasn't going to happen like that again.

I breathed in deep, exhaling slowly.

There was no going back to sleep, and no ever going back to the days of blithely expecting the Best News Ever when you've already been the "someone else" to whom some of the Awful Things have happened.

I let out a breath of relief when everything the ultrasound tech saw today was normal, perfect, healthy as can be. Baby was perfectly developed in every respect, and flipped around from top to bottom a couple of times, probably just to show off and impress us.

I know pregnancies are common, and that healthy babies are born every day, but ever since Ewan I think that it's not overstating it in the least to say that IT IS A FRIGGING MIRACLE that any of us come out that way, with all our parts in the right places and working as they should.

And so we don't take it for granted. We're so grateful to God for another very spunky, healthy child (so much for having a mellow one this time around, eh?) and for the chance to be parents to another sweet kiddo.

So, without further ado, Baby #3 is a ...

P.S. We're leaning toward one name in particular, but aren't totally settled on it yet, so no news on that front just yet. :)

NOTE: For those of you who may not be familiar with our story, the monkey in the picture belonged to our first child, Ewan, who passed away at 16 days old after bravely enduring several surgeries to treat a complex congenital heart defect. From the time he was five days old (his first open-heart surgery) until the day he died, he usually had his arm wrapped tightly around it.

Incarnation

I find myself looking at her often and thinking a million and one different things about the Holy.

But lately she's had me contemplating the Incarnation -- the act of word made flesh, the moment God became a man, of the infinite emptying Himself and becoming an embryo.

She's so vulnerable. She's needy. She's entirely dependent on her father and I for her care and sustenance. She needs to be fed. She cannot dress herself. If we do not change a soiled diaper for her, it will not get changed. If she is sick, she cannot take herself to the doctor. If she needs anything, she cannot articulate it for us.

Jesus was the same way as a baby: vulnerable, needy, dependent. It's hard to think of the man who multiplied loaves and fishes, commanded the waves, and wielded the power to undo even death as vulnerable as she is. It's almost impossible to wrap my brain around the fact that God would condescend to become someone so utterly defenseless to care for himself as a baby: needing to be fed, dressed, and to have his soiled diapers changed. To be rendered mute but for His cries, to trust two of His own created for His every need.

This is the God of the universe.

In caring for her, I see Him anew and am in increasing awe of His humility.