October 11, 2011

Life

As soon as she said, “It’s a girl,” I instantly covered my mouth. Tears flooded my sight; my body started shaking and jerking a bit as I tried to stop the tears, but couldn’t.

“She’s healthy then?” I managed to ask through my sobbing.

“Yes, everything looks really great and you’re definitely having a girl.”

I looked at my husband who sat beside me with the largest smile covering his face. His eyes marveled up at the black and white images shown on the screen before looking at me and smiling even more.

“Are you OK?” he then asked with a shrinking smile.

“I’m just…” I tried speaking, but the tears kept flowing out.  “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”

The tech left us for a bit to get dressed and compose ourselves.

We were having a baby girl.

Everything looked great and healthy.

And just like that, the fear was squashed. Of course there was always a chance that something bad could happen until or at birth, but for the first time in 24 weeks, I allowed myself to truly be excited; I allowed myself to connect with my baby.

It was so hard prior to that moment. No matter how guilty I felt, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t connect. I was too afraid of losing another baby. I was just too scared to go down the road I went down two years prior. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with it again, and I wasn’t strong enough to push the fear aside… Until that tech assured me that everything measured great and that everything looked good and healthy.

For the first time in over a year, I could finally kick Fear’s ass to the curb and enjoy the baby growing inside of me, enjoy Life.


 


In “On Writing” Stephen King wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”


Write a memoir post – first-person and true – inspired by that statement.
Word limit is 300.

12 comments:

  1. We've had more nerves in ultrasounds since the birth of our daughter (she has Down's). They didn't see it on the u/s, though, so it didn't really matter. But I can definitely understand the nerves!

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  2. Letting go of The Scared so you can hold onto something else is a beautiful thing.

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  3. All coming so close to home today. So well-written too :)

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  4. I love what you did with the prompt. I can imagine how hard it is to allow yourself to get close to a baby when the fear of losing her is always on your mind.

    I'm glad you were allowed to let go and enjoy your pregnancy.

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  5. thanks for the comments, guys. :)

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  6. I totally get the sobbing, the release of emotions. Nice post.

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  7. This is absolutely beautiful! Great job :)

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  8. what a great memory and good for you mama bad ass!

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  9. What a fantastic moment to write about, having so many of your fears lifted with just a few words.

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  10. This made my heart smile. I'm so glad you had such a beautiful moment. And family.

    Thank you for sharing!

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  11. This is so very relatable and lovely.

    I adore how you started this one- I was right there with you!

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  12. What a great moment to share. This is the kind of beginning that just makes a heart sing. I'm so glad it was a happy one!

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