He was supposed to be

He wasn’t supposed to be.

We were done having children.  Not surgically done having children, but with three active kids already and our unwelcome fourth “child”: type 1 diabetes, we had no room for another child.  We were done.

Our youngest was almost four years old.  He was potty trained.  We had gotten rid of the crib, the baby toys, the strollers.  We were done.

I had just two more years before all our kids would be in school full time and I was beginning to dream about what God wanted for me in that upcoming season.  We were moving forward, away from sippy cups and nap times, toward ball game schedules and music lessons.  We were done having children.

Do you know who decides what’s supposed to be?  I know.  Well, now I know.  And it isn’t me.  I don’t get to decide what’s supposed to be.  We don’t get to decide.  God decides.  He decides what’s supposed to be.  God decided we weren’t done having children.

My fourth pregnancy was very surreal.  From the moment I saw two lines on that expired pregnancy test until the moment I was in the operating room getting my spinal block, I kept uttering the same sentence.  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

At ten weeks along, when we went in for our first OB appointment and ultrasound, I cried and thought “I can’t believe this is happening.”  It’s not like I was sad, or angry or frustrated.  I was just in utter disbelief.  This isn’t what I had planned.  I was done with diapers and had finished all of the necessary potty training of children and had already put in all of the middle-of-the-night feeding time.  My future suddenly looked drastically different than I had imagined it.

At fourteen weeks along, when I met with my doctor who had performed my previous two c-section deliveries, she had reviewed her notes from my last delivery nearly four years before.  She had recorded that my uterine wall was too thin.  Paper thin.  And that another pregnancy would be high-risk.  She said the words “uterine rupture” and “early delivery” and I cried.  “I can’t believe this is happening.”  This pregnancy now seemed laced with fear, along with disbelief.  A rupture of my paper-thin uterus would likely be fatal for both the baby and myself.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

At twenty-two weeks, when we went in for a level two, full anatomy ultrasound and I saw our baby boy moving and kicking with every single part of his body in perfect working order, I cried again.  And when they measured the thickness of my uterus that time and it was “normal”, I cried again, joyfully thinking “I can’t believe this is happening.”  Disbelief, fear, and now joy and awe at the God who decides what’s supposed to be.

At thirty seven weeks, we walked into the hospital as I thought, “I still can’t believe this is happening,” and a few hours later heard the sweetest sound of our healthy baby boy making his presence known to the world.  He cried and his lungs belted out a victory shout to the God who writes better stories than we could ever have imagined.  Victory and honor and praise to the God who knows better than we do, who loves us more than we could begin to imagine, who carries us past fear and disbelief and into joy. 

Minutes after he was born, my doctor said a few more words that made me cry again.  She said that there was a nickel-sized hole in my uterus that was being held shut by the pressure from my bladder.  My fear of dying because of a uterine rupture and leaving my husband and children was real and valid.  And this time, I cried in relief and in complete reverence for the God who is bigger and mightier than fear and medicine.  He decides what’s supposed to be.  God decided that we were supposed to have another child, and God decided that I was supposed to be around to raise him.

My dear Grayson Paul,

You are supposed to be.  You are supposed to be a part of our family.  Our family is better because of you.  I am better because of you.  God has used your life to teach me so much about who He is.  He loves you fiercely!  He decided the world was better with you in it!  He has had His hand of protection around you.  And I know He is writing an incredible story with your life…a story about overcoming, about unexpected joy, and about His victory over fear and death.   I promise to do my very best to use my life to teach you about the God who decided you were supposed to be.  We love you more than you’ll ever know.  Happy first birthday, Grays-ee-poo!

Mommy