What I needed to know

For some reason I was laying in bed this morning thinking about when I was pregnant with Lil Bug. I don't often think about that time because it was so stressful. But this morning it dawned on me that it didn't have to be so stressful. It didn't have to be so scary.

As you all know, we had difficulty conceiving a child and were only able to do so with medical assistance. When we were finally pregnant, we were relieved. We thought the worst was behind us.

We learned about the Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus at 20 weeks gestation. That means we had 1/2 of our pregnancy to worry about our little blessing. We asked a TON of questions. We saw a lot of specialists, both in Colorado and in California. We had the best of the best assigned to us. We were told both extreme possibilities. We were supposedly prepared.

They warned me that Bug wouldn't walk. They warned me that she would be severely delayed cognitively. They warned me that she might never speak. I never, for one minute, accepted their warnings and often responded, "My God is bigger than your science. He is our physician."

There is one thing that they never told me, however. One thing that had me nearly paralyzed with fear. One thing that I was too afraid to even ask, to even talk to The Designer about. What could it be, you ask?

I had no idea if my baby...the one with excessive fluid on her brain, the one with severe defects on her back, the one I had been taking such good care of during my entire pregnancy...I wondered if she would look "normal." Would she have a huge head? Would she look like the other babies in the nursery?

This might seem shallow. This might seem trivial compared to the other things. But, it was my fear. Not once, during the 5 months of medical prodding, poking, analyzing, did any doctor assure me that I would still just be having a baby...like every other mother in the delivery ward.

I needed to know that. That one piece of information could have saved me a lot of stress.

So, if you happen upon my blog because you are pregnant with a blessing who happens to have Spina Bifida and/or Hydrocephalus and in case you were wondering...your baby will look perfectly normal. Don't waste energy worrying about that.

(Please know that even if Bug looked like an alien, I would have loved her with every ounce of me...I never for once worried about that. My fear was more based on how others would respond to and accept her.)