Thank God for little movements

It seems interesting that a little more than a week ago, I was so worried about your presence because you certainly are starting to make yourself known.

I don’t just mean by my belly popping out, but you’re wiggling away inside it too.

It was about halfway through 16 weeks that I started to feel what seemed like someone randomly tapping me from the inside. However, sometimes that turned into gas, so I wasn’t sure if I was feeling you move.

Then, I felt an odd rolling sensation that made me lean the opposite direction and furrow my eyebrow. It took me a second before I smiled and realized that was the first distinct feeling that I had of the little human living inside my womb.

The taps and popping bubble sensations continued randomly, getting more and more common around 18 weeks.

That’s when, on Dec. 2, I was sitting in work and felt a couple of solid thuds in the lower lefthand portion of my abdomen.

Like many times before, I placed my hand on the spot and pressed gently, wondering if I could feel anything from the outside. I wasn’t really expecting anything because I had tried this many times in the past two weeks and felt nothing.

However, after a second, a solid thud made my abdomen push out where my hand rested.

A big smile crossed my face.

I felt you! It was for sure.

I called your daddy just to tell him that I knew for certain I felt you there for the first time.

At the doctor appointment that afternoon, there you were, waving those arms around, and blocking the doppler signal that was trying to see how fast your heart was beating. It sounded like waves rushing on top of the steady “thud thud thud” of your little beating heart.

Thank you Lord for the blessing of feeling this baby move.

There's so little I can do

I guess I’m not very good at trusting what I can’t see.

It hasn’t been a gut-wrenching, freezing kind of fear. I haven’t even really thought of it as fear. It doesn’t even feel like the worry that I’ve experienced in the past.

However, I’ve been scared.

It was hard for me to believe that you were real. I couldn’t see you, couldn’t see any signs of you when I first found out. I actually went back and took two more pregnancy tests before my first appointment just to make sure that I actually was pregnant.

Then, at the six-week ultrasound, there you were. A tiny little blob that looked nothing like a baby, but more like a bean.

They couldn’t nail down the heartbeat very well, guessing that it just started beating. I held my breath so they could try to keep the cursor over the little flicker, and they guessed it was at 105.

That was a little lower than they wanted, but no one seemed concerned.

I still couldn’t exactly believe that it was that easy, that what we tried for had come true right away, that you were going to be healthy and thriving.

We sat on the news for a while, because we were both scared. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen couples get excited and then feel traumatic pain when a little life doesn’t make it to the outside world. I think I distanced myself from that. I didn’t want to hurt.

We saw what looked like a little gummy bear at our 12-week appointment, and then a full-blown baby, actually waving its perfectly formed hand at 16 weeks.

My belly has started to grow, but I haven’t felt anything yet. Of course, the doubts are still there. Why should we be so lucky to have a perfect pregnancy, a perfect baby, when others around us are going through traumatic times?

I think I keep waiting for something to happen. I don’t want to. But I’m scared that it will.

I can see it now though. I can see you in the crib. I can see myself picking you up and rocking you back to sleep. I can see you tottling around, and your handsome daddy picking you up in his arms.

I want you so badly. I want everything to be perfect, and I pray that it will.

My prayer constantly is for you to have a strong body, strong mind and a heart turned toward God.

Because, although I don’t understand why God takes some babies and lets other families keep theirs, I pray so strongly that He lets us have ours. I pray that my doubts are unfounded and that He doesn’t look down on me for worrying.

I pray that you don’t follow after me in those footsteps, that you are like your dad and take life as it comes, dealing with one moment and one day at a time with the grace of God. I pray that worry and fear doesn’t steal moments of joy from you.

I love you little one. I can’t wait to meet you. And in the meantime, I pray that God’s hand is constantly around you, protecting you from every unforeseen ailment and issue. I pray that you grow big and strong so that you can make a difference in His kingdom someday in a way that I can’t even imagine.

Because, it seems like I’m not very good at imagining.

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Nate and I had a conversation after I wrote this, about how little control I have over this pregnancy process, about how little control we will truly have over the life of our child. We can do our best, teach our little one the best that we can, give them a foundation, but we will never have full control.

We will never be able to protect our child completely from harm, or illness. We will never be able to completely shape the way that our child acts, because it will have free will.

Nate said, this is actually probably the time that we have the most control, because free will doesn't quite start in the womb.

It was a day that I needed to process, to realize that I don't have control, but I do have a big God who looks over everything and everyone. Daily, for the rest of my life, I will have to put this little life in his hands.

Because there's only so much I can do, but He can do anything.

Spreading the news: Part II

I had been excited to tell my brother too. His shrieked reaction to our engagement was by far the best and most excited, and I knew he’d be excited about this news as well.

When we were decorating for the anniversary party, I kept waiting for an opening. It didn’t come quickly, but I didn’t want to force anything so I just went about the business of helping to smooth out the plastic ruby tablecloths and setting up the albums and photos on the memory table.

My brother walked across the room, “Did I tell you what food I got from the caterer?”

This was my opening.

“Your wife did,” I said, and my heart started pounding again. “I was glad to see it was barbecue, because I thought you might get lunchmeat.”

I rolled up some garbage and started walking across the room to the garbage can.

“And I couldn’t eat it since I’m pregnant,” I finished, nonchalantly.

His head shook as he processed and looked at me. I smiled at him and watched it sink in.

“You’re **** me,” he said as he and his wife ran at me to hug me.

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We had to wait to tell Nate’s family, because the first night we were in town his mom had to work and then both his parents headed out to a party.

Nate's mom had come in from work to ask everyone what’s new, and Nate waited until she asked him, but all she said was, “Hi.” 

We figured it wasn’t the right time as people were sprinting out the door.

That meant that my family knew while Nate’s didn’t, and it made for some comical circumstances at the anniversary party. Nate’s sister’s husband called Nate some names and laughed at him for not having kids yet while talking to my dad, and my dad just laughed along with him. Then Nate’s mom kept telling my dad how great it was to have a grandchild born on her birthday that year, and all the while my dad was thinking that his third grandchild was due only a day after his birthday. Maybe he would get to share a birthday with a grandbaby as well.

But he kept a stone face.

So Nate and I spent the evening with his family, waiting for an opening. We waited for someone to offer me a beer, so that he could say, “She can’t. She’s pregnant.”

No one offered.

Unusual.

We waited for someone to ask us what was new in our lives.

No one asked.

It was hours later, and Nate’s and my eyes met across the room.

There hasn’t been an opening, his eyes said.

I know, mine responded.

“What was that?” His sister asked about our eye conversation.

“Nothing,” I said, smiling and shrugging my shoulders.

It was another hour or so, and Nate’s sister, Erin, finally went upstairs to put her children to bed. Her husband went to grab something from the refrigerator in the basement, so Nate just went for it.

“We’ve been waiting for an opening,” he said to his parents, “but there hasn’t been one, so Kiley’s 10 weeks pregnant.”

Nate’s mom flew to me and hugged me with tears flowing.

I heard our brother-in-law come upstairs and see Nadine hugging me, “Is she pregnant?” he asked.

Nate's sister and our nieces appeared back by the table to hear the news.

It was quite the whirlwind of a weekend telling our immediate families. It made it just a bit more real.

Spreading our good news: Part I

We were squeamish about telling the news. I think if we talked about it, we were squeamish to really start to get excited ourselves. As we got older, we knew more and more people who have had miscarriages. At Nate’s work alone, three couples had suffered miscarriages in the past year.

I wasn’t sure my heart could handle it if I got too excited.

I told God over and over again how much I wanted this child. I prayed daily for a “Strong body, strong mind and a heart turned toward You.” I did everything I could to be healthy so the little one was healthy.

But I held my emotions back. I wanted to just get to that 13-week mark before we told anyone. I didn’t want to let it slip too early and something awful happen that I just couldn’t deal with.

However, we were going back to the Quad Cities for my parents’ 40th anniversary party on Oct. 5, 2019, so we decided it was time to at least let our families in on the news.

I put together a slideshow of more than 100 pictures that my mom sent me of my parents’ lives together. Their wedding, their first home together, photos of my mom pregnant with my brother and with me, family vacations.

In the last section, I expanded the photos to pictures of my brother and his family, and photos of me and Nate, ending with an ultrasound photo that wasn’t labeled and finally the words “Baby Roth due May 2020.”

After dinner on Friday night, my parents sat in front of my work HP laptop with the bright pink flash drive sticking out the side as it began to play the photos, Scriptures and music I had put together.

Nate and I sat at the half-wall turned breakfast bar, just behind my parents as they watched. I leaned against Nate’s legs, and he took my hand.

Then I felt his fingers move to my wrist.

I knew he was feeling my racing pulse. My armpits had started to sweat; I was trying to breathe quietly even though my breath was coming in puffs, and my pulse was probably at least 120 beats per minute.

I looked at him with a smile and rolled my eyes.

“Leave me alone,” I mouthed, smiling at his reaction that I was so nervous at that moment.

My parents didn’t realize anything unusual was going on behind them. My mom was engrossed in the slideshow, tearing up at the memories of the last 40 years.

About 11 minutes later, I recognized that the photos were coming to an end. Nate said something to my dad, who turned around to answer him.

Keep watching, I thought as his eyes looked away from the screen.

Up came the ultrasound photo, and my mom’s head snapped backward looking at me. She had a question in her eyes, and my dad turned around to look at the screen when he saw her reaction.

I smiled and pointed back to the screen.

“Baby Roth due May 2020.”

I heard my dad’s glad, deep chuckle and my mom sprang from her seat and engulfed me in a hug, bawling into my shoulder. Tears sprung to my eyes as I hugged her.

Sacrifice began with the manger

"O come, thou king of nations bring
an end to all our suffering.
Bid every pain and sorrow cease
and reign now as our Prince of Peace."

I'm not sure I've ever made it to verse five of the Christmas hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

It touched me today, for some reason. Thinking that generations longed for Emmanuel to come, to truly be the meaning of that word --- "God with us." We are so blessed that Jesus has come, that he has conquered sin and death by dying on the cross and rising again.

What has also been on my mind lately is how much God gave up to come. We think of Jesus' suffering around Easter time, when we celebrate that he died on the cross and took on our sin so that we can be forgiven and no longer have to face eternal death. He suffered more than we could ever imagine.

Yet, that suffering started much earlier. It started when he took on flesh.

God is so much bigger than we can imagine. We can't fathom that he works without time controlling him, without dimensions controlling him. We have a shallow view of who he is, because we are under the laws of time and space. He isn't.

He still decided to come and give up so much of himself to limit himself to a human body, but also to limit himself to our one-dimensional time, our four-dimensional world.

What if we gave up one of our dimensions? How much would that limit us? What if we could only walk sideways and see two dimensions? It would be so frustrating knowing that the world is so much bigger and we could do so much more if we didn't have this limitation.

I'm sure God's world is more than five dimensions; I'm sure he gave up more than just one. So, imagine how much he limited himself to take on a human body. It was sacrifice, suffering, humiliation from the very beginning.

Did he complain?

No.

For some reason, he decided to help. He didn't help the angels when they rebelled. He didn't decide to make a way to save Satan and the demons. When humans rebelled though, God decided to intervene, out of love.

So this year, I not only look at the nativity with gratefulness for what Jesus was about to do later in his life but for gratefulness for what he did then. Thank you God for taking on the humiliation of the human form, for loving us so much that you gave up so much from the very beginning to become one of us. Thank you for coming to Earth to save us from our sins.

Merry Christmas, and may this season remind you of how much God sacrificed for us, how much Jesus sacrificed for us from the very moment he entered Mary's womb.

Finding out

We were taking our mid-morning siesta while vacationing at Sunshine Lake outside of Hearst, ON. Nate lay with “Genesis” by Dennis Prager on a twin bed on one side of the room, and I lay reading “Beyond the Cosmos” snuggled in my sleeping bag on the twin bed at the other side of the room.

That’s when I heard two small words clear as a bell in my head.

“You’re pregnant.”

Wow.

I didn’t even really question it. I just knew in my being that God had let me in on a little secret, and I quietly prayed with a grateful heart as the words in front of me blurred. My concentration wasn’t on them at the moment.

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A week later, we were back in Spirit Lake and I decided it was far enough along in my cycle that I could tell I was pregnant with a test.

I unwrapped one from a pink wrapper and dunked in the old Associated Press coffee cup. I waited.

One pink line.

Hmmm…

I took one the next day, and when it showed only one line. I was convinced that it wasn’t a strong enough test, so I Googled the best and went to the Wal-Mart in a nearby town --- where I figured I wouldn’t know anyone --- and picked up the First Response two-pack. I debated using one right in the Wal-Mart bathroom, but that just seemed sad, so I waited the 20-minute drive to get home.

I followed the instructions, and still nothing.

I hadn’t told Nate I had tried multiple tests, because I had no real reason to think that I was pregnant other than those two words I’d heard a week ago. I didn’t want him to think I was silly, trying test after test. I finally told him I’d tested though.

“You think you’re pregnant?” he asked while we sat on opposite plush chairs in the living room.

“Yes, I do,” I said candidly.

“I don’t think you are. I think a test would show by now,” he said.

I decided to wait a couple more days and test again. Bloody noses and a few other symptoms, but nothing major. Still negative.

I had to be patient. I’d give it until a full week after I had my first test, and although I debated testing in between I figured it was just a waste unless I gave it some time.

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On Friday, Aug. 23, I grabbed the other First Response test, hoping it was more sensitive than the other tests, and unwrapped it. When I set the test down, it took about two seconds before a second pink line joined the first.

My heart started pounding.

Nate didn’t have to work that day, so he was asleep while I had gotten up for work. I did it on purpose, because I knew if I had a positive test, I didn’t want to have to wait all day for him to get home from work without telling him, and I didn’t want to tell him over the phone. So I quietly crept into our room, where he was asleep under the blue and white quilt, his back toward me.

I tapped him on the shoulder softly.

“Nate.”

He rolled over.

“I’m pregnant,” I whispered.

He looked at me with sleepy eyes, registering what I had just said.

“Yay!”

We smiled.

“Can I see?” He asked.

I trotted back to the bathroom and grabbed the test, bringing it over to show him the two now very distinct pink lines.

I had gotten up with plenty of time before work, so I crawled back in bed and snuggled up with his arm around me. He kissed my hair, and we were both quiet, although I’m sure prayers and thoughts ran through his head just as much as they did mine.