I have a backlog of posts that just don’t seem fitting to publish until I post this one—the one I wrote the day before David was born; the one the Lord used to prepare my heart for my son. But right before I walked downstairs to post the words that were a lifeline at the end of a physically and emotionally draining pregnancy, my water broke.
“Is this your first baby?”
It’s a question I’m asked often on days when I’m alone. If my oldest daughter, Emmarie, is bobbing alongside of me with her bouncy towhead pigtails and sticky little fingers, I’m asked if it’s my second child.
It’s a natural question. I’m 33 weeks pregnant and look every bit of it. My body knows what to do. It’s on track to give birth to three full-term babies in two years and ten months.
“But, her heartbeat is so strong,” said our nurse, asking a question without asking it.
“I know. It always is.” I answered her question in kind. I was approaching 38 weeks. Our nurse wanted to know what we all wanted to know. How could a three-pound girl with one of the most complicated combinations of critical congenital heart defects (CHDs) and a genetic condition documented in less than 200 people worldwide be so active, so normal, so seemingly healthy? How could Clara make it this far and still be born into a world where she might never make it past a day or even an hour?
I sat in the nursery rocking Emmarie, her 17-month old legs spilling out over my belly as her head nestled against her sister sleeping in my womb. I thought back to our 33-week appointment. No one actually said the words “Clara is going to die.” I wish they had. I would rather hear those words than know them. They had never proven true; they had always cracked open, leaving a glimmer of hope.
It was the date circled on the calendar. The date I had been praying we would reach. The arbitrary number doctors assigned to us as the ‘you-can-finally-start-to-plan-to-maybe-meet-your-daughter’ date.
I started to exhale, imaging our lives with Clara in it for the first time in thirteen weeks.
The Wonderfully Made Life 