Proof of Our Miracle

I had never been in the room during a woman's gynecological exam, nor did I waste any time thinking about when such an event might occur in my life. Well, for good or ill, this is how I will always remember our first ultrasound: preceded by a pap smear. I hope no one thinks it odd of me for wanting to go check out what the doctor was doing down there. Maybe I could have used it as doctor shadowing experience! At any rate, hopefully you are all willing to discount it as the type of healthy curiosity anyone desiring to enter the medical field should have.

After all of that weirdness was complete we moved on to the exciting part!

Seeing our baby for the first time was such a great experience. It's amazing how much we are able to see, however grainy and pixilated the image is, when the growing embryo is still so small. The doctor pointed out the heartbeat. Which wasn't much much more than a small blur somewhere in the middle of the light grayish blob that, as it turns out, is our baby's torso.

In retrospect, I though that the prevailing emotion would be excitement upon seeing our baby and even though I felt plenty of excitement I think that the predominant emotion turned out to be relief. Relief that the doctor declared the pregnancy a success so far, relief that the baby is developing on schedule and relief that Heidi's symptoms are well within the normal ranges of discomfort.

I expected that seeing the ultrasound would be what I needed to make this surreal experience feel more tangible, yet it only feels slightly more impending than it did 11 weeks ago. I do like looking at the pictures, though! I like the one where the little bones are visible in the hand.

We left the doctors office and went to the Jordan River Temple to do a session, which seemed like the perfect thing to do.

What a miracle it all is. What a miracle that our baby is so small and even though it will double in size several times over before he or she enters the world, the baby will still seem so small when we are blessed to be able to hold them. What a miracle that when we finally have this person in our daily lives we will wonder how we ever lived without them. What a miracle that our happiness, joy and satisfaction in our lives from now on will be so tightly linked to this inch and a half long, strawberry sized human growing in Heidi's belly. What a miracle that we are connected to them forever. What a miracle that I haven't said or done anything yet that has consigned me to a life of sleeping on the couch.

In reality (with the generosity of Kim and Mary in giving us their old couches) the real miracle is, considering all the peeing Heidi has to do in the middle of the night, that she actually returns to bed and doesn't detour to the couches.