It was just four short weeks after our miscarriage when I went in to the follow-up appointment with my OBGYN that we got the news…
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said cautiously. “But you’re pregnant…again.” My heart started beating faster. How can that even be possible? I thought. I was simultaneously ecstatic and terrified at the revelation of this miraculous news. Excited that we might be getting a second chance at becoming parents…but terrified that I could experience another painful loss like before.
The weeks ticked by and baby C continued to grow and thrive. The first time we heard the rapid “thump thump thump” of our baby’s heartbeat, I think Chris and I both must have been holding our breaths because we both let out an audible “whoosh” of relief, and he lovingly gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. At 11 weeks, I went in for a scan to detect early birth defects and they told me that based on the “angle of the dangle” (if you’ve never heard of this, save yourself the trouble and do not Google it) they were 90% sure I was having a girl, but that they should have a better picture around 15 weeks.
A girl! I knew all about girls…I mean, I am one. I’ve got this, I thought. We’re having a baby girl.
My 15 week scan rolled around and I nearly considered cancelling because, I already knew what we were having and I had names picked out and….
“Welp! Look at that!” The sonographer interrupted my thoughts, pointing to a small turtle-looking thing on the screen.
“What? What are we looking at?” I said.
“IT’S A BOY!!” she shouted as she started typing BOY across the screen with little arrows pointing to the anatomical ‘evidence’.
A boy?! Where did my baby girl go? And what do you do with boys? I thought. My entire life I just knew I would end up with a house full of girls. We would do each other’s hair and play with makeup and go shopping and get our nails done…
I instantly felt guilty because in reality I knew I should have just been grateful for a healthy baby.
Fast forward a few more months and I had finally come around to the idea that I was going to be a boy mom. I had picked out some really cute little boy clothes at the Baby GAP and read every book I could get my hands on about how to raise little boys. I would get annoyed at Facebook posts talking about how all little boys want to do is pee on things and be rambunctious. Not my little boy, I would think to myself proudly.
After 34 hours of labor, my little baby boy arrived at 6:02 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I was laying on my back in the birthing position so I didn’t get a good look at him when they pulled his squirmy body out and laid him on my chest. I was fatigued from laboring for so long so I looked at Chris and said “Let me see his face…”
Chris gently placed his hands under our naked son’s bottom and lifted him slightly so that his face was only inches away from mine.
And. My. Heart. Stopped.
My eyes opened wide, I sucked my breath in and exhaled slowly, getting a feeling for this new overwhelming love that had suddenly and instantly taken over my body. My eyes brimmed with tears and I whispered, to no one in particular, “He is so beautiful.”
And he was.
His eyes were wide, and his nose was small. His mouth opened and I heard his cries which sounded more like whimpers, and all I wanted to do was hold him close and comfort him and protect him from the big evil world that I suddenly felt was going to close in at any moment and snatch my perfect baby from my arms. I became ‘mama bear’ in an instant, and from that moment on, my life has never been the same.
My wide-eyed baby is now a big brown-eyed three year old, and the oldest of our three children. Amazingly my heart has expanded with the birth of each child and somehow I am able to love all of them with all of my heart at the exact same time. It’s an incredible thing to be a parent. A gift, really.
But I look in my son’s face and see a mixture of my husband, whom I adore, and part of myself as a young child. He’s smart, sensitive, and very OCD. He’s obsessed with holding (unsharpened) pencils and singing The Lion King songs for anyone who will be his audience…he will sometimes walk up to me, with no prompting from anyone, and say “I lub you” and kiss me on my cheek. But there’s something else…
He has ruined me. I can never look at another man again without seeing an innocent little baby boy through the eyes of his mother.
I was fortunate enough to meet my husband in high school when we were both teenagers, so I didn’t do a ton of casual dating. But there was a guy I dated briefly before I met my husband that I distinctly remember because when I told him I didn’t think we should go out anymore, he cried. Now, I’m sure if he knew the bullet he was dodging he would be crying tears of joy and thanksgiving…but for some reason instead, he was sad.
I made him sad.
And the 30 year old boy mom in me wants to go back and punch myself in the face for making another mama’s baby boy sad. I can only imagine how his own mother must’ve felt towards me. I cringe to think of it actually…God help the soul who ever makes my little boy cry.
But having a son has been good for me in many ways, too. I find that I am able to appreciate my mother-in-law like never before. I hope that I can do justice to the way she raised her son and that mine will grow up to be just like her’s. I can’t count the number of times I have felt tears on my cheeks at the realization that I won’t be my son’s only love. That one day he will fall in love with a woman–a woman that I have spent many hours praying for–and he will turn and kiss me on the cheek for the last time before he walks down an aisle and pledges the rest of his life to her. He’ll go to bed next to her and sleep soundly somewhere probably miles away…but I’ll be laying awake, still, at the age of 80 and until I die, praying for my little boy’s protection and that he’s living his life for the Lord.
You spend the majority of your life loving this perfect little human only to, one day, give them away to someone else. If I were a man, this article could easily be written about daughters instead. There really is something special and unique about a daddy’s love for his little girls…and a mother’s love for her sons. I saw this truth firsthand just a few weeks ago at my brother’s wedding. During the father and daughter dance, when everyone was looking at the Bride and her dad…I looked over at my husband. His eyes were fixed on our little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl twirling around in her satin flower-girl dress at the edge of the dance floor. I wasn’t sure, but I could’ve sworn I noticed his eyes glistening in the glow of the chandeliers, realizing it won’t be but the blink of an eye before he’s doing the same.
It’s no secret that my faith is very important to me. As I get older and realize the brevity of life, I hold it even closer to my heart. Becoming a parent has given me a newfound passion for knowing God in a deeper and more meaningful way. Just this year, I have committed to reading my Bible from cover to cover for the first time. While reading, I oftentimes find myself relating to the characters on a very personal level. God’s sacrifice of His only son to save a world of sinners has taken on a new meaning to me now that I have a son of my own.
Sometimes when I think of Jesus, I imagine his mother, Mary, standing at the foot of the cross. And when everyone else looks up and sees a man–I think she still sees a brown-eyed little boy…and even in his suffering I wonder if in her heart she is saying, to no one in particular, “He is so beautiful.”
And He is.
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