Nine months

My sister Elissa is expecting her first baby in less than two weeks and we are all getting antsy for the big event.  We get frequent picture texts showing off her burgeoning middle, and the most recent pics definitely reveal that she and the baby are ready to meet one another.  We've been making guesses since Day 1 about what the baby's sex will be, and all except one of us is quite certain she's having a boy.

Elissa has asked me twice during her pregnancy if it will be hard for me if she has a boy, since Kaleb is my only son and our birth experience with him did not go as we expected, his diagnosis mixing the sweet of his arrival with bitter. For awhile, anyway.

The first time she asked me how I would feel was near the beginning of her pregnancy when we were making our first guesses about what she would have.  And my response the first time was: "Maybe a little, but mostly I'll just be excited for you." About a month ago she asked again, and my gut response was different: "No. I think I'll be thrilled.  There is something so sweet about having a little boy. Maybe it's because they're so in love with Mama....For whatever reason Kaleb is the son I was meant to have. I still feel sad for him sometimes, or for myself, but mostly I feel grateful that I get to be his mom."

I read over my reply several times that day before pushing SEND, letting the words settle, trying on their truth, tasting it first.  Could it be that nine months has changed me that much? Yes. I pushed green for GO.

Nine months. A gestational period.  As my sister's body has grown and changed, my heart has been doing its own stretching.

A week after that text I sat in the dermatologist's office discussing possible meds for some acne I keep getting around my jaw (it's happened post-pregnancy with all three of my kids).  I mentioned that I had used Differin before, so the dermatologist quickly suggested trying it again. "You have to be sure you're not pregnant, though," he added. "That one's rated X for pregnancy." He was so emphatic about it, I felt my stomach drop.  Differin is what I was (sporadically) using when I found out I was pregnant with Kaleb.

"What kind of problems does it cause?" I tried to sound casual. Without looking up from his prescription pad, he answered, "Severe birth defects, like heart defects, malformed limbs, that kind of stuff."

How about chromosomal abnormalities? I wanted to cry out, but a meek "Oh," was all I managed. On the way home, my sister Kait's confident "No! That couldn't happen! It's chromosomal; that's different," was calming. Still, I felt unsettled.

But after I hung up the phone, kept driving, thought about Kaleb, about my son and the life we have with him, the life we will have, the answer to that question was suddenly and so clearly irrelevant. And the fact of its irrelevancy, its having nothing to do with my present or my future surprised me so much, it took my breath away. Literally. I gasped like I was coming up for air. I felt my lungs fill again and the air was like peace tangible and real.

You see, I've spent a lot of time dwelling in the what-ifs. What if I had done X, Y, or Z differently? What if I'm the cause of Kaleb having Down syndrome? And then a new doubt heaped on piling guilt, what if I could have prevented an extra chromosome with something as simple as not using acne medication? It amounts to worry about things over which I have and had no control. A closed fist to God's graces, a no to the mystery as Ann Voskamp describes a life of regret and fear in One Thousand Gifts.

And then, that breath, on an ordinary day. The one that emptied me out and filled me up at the same time. The dawning that perhaps I was missing the gift of now by dwelling in the uncertain haze of what might have been.

From grief, to anger, to bitterness, to acceptance, to joy. Have I really traveled this far in so short a time? I can measure that breath stealing-giving moment in each day of Kaleb's now seventeen months; in the way his hand grips ours (something he couldn't do when he was born) to take wobbly steps across the floor; in the way that hand still fits inside mine when he needs comfort; in the feel of his body against me while we wake up in our slow, easy way together; in the way he says and signs words to communicate his wants; in his tiny footprint in the sand--extra wide gap between first and second toes. I can measure that aha moment in so many little things each and every day. It does not matter how we got here, what led us down this unfamiliar way. What matters is what we do with now.

And now is good, lovely, real, full. The fact of that is as necessary to my being as oxygen. The only difference is that I don't consciously choose to breathe--my brain is just programmed to make it happen. How would we live if we were pre-programmed for joy--never having to choose it or reframe our perspective or take a better attitude? What if joy was as easy as breathing?

As I think about it, I'm not sure it's meant to be--joy may be greater and fuller and richer for the hard earning of it.  Perhaps, in this world at least, pain and joy were never meant to live apart.

I wish that were not so, but here we are tasting joy. Loving our son, all of our kids, just the way they are. And full of Christmas Eve excitement for the birth of a new little to Lissa and Nate.

I know. I will surely return to that tiresome land of the what-ifs. But I hope my visits there grow briefer and briefer, until before long, I live with hand open to the mystery of "grace, thanksgiving, joy" (Voskamp 33), open to God-love that can transform deepest pain into widest joy.