Multiplication

Yesterday afternoon, Daniel and I went to the doctor for another sonogram, so we got to see our baby again! We could have found out then whether it was a girl or a boy, but we decided to keep it a surprise for June.

Since it was the anatomy scan, the ultrasound technician had to check and measure a whole list of things, so it took a little while. She wasn’t able to check everything on her list, though, because our child didn’t exactly cooperate. He was in a really curled up position and refused to straighten out at all, so that the technician wasn’t able to check for correct spinal fusion or look at the chambers of the heart. So, that means that at my next appointment in four weeks, we get to have a repeat sonogram! Hopefully at that one we are able to get a better picture printout, too. This one isn’t quite as good as I was hoping for. As you can see, the baby’s face is on the left, with a big circle blob right next to it on the right… we’re not really sure what that circle is. From what I can remember seeing on the screen, I don’t think the torso did looked like that. Anyone with some technical knowledge on the subject care to share a thought?

You may have heard the saying, “Love does not divide, it only multiplies.” This has come to mind a lot recently considering where I am in my life right now. Before I met Daniel, I loved my parents and siblings more than anyone else in the world. I used to worry when I was growing up that when I met my future husband I wouldn’t love my family as much. Maybe that was a strange thing for a kid to think about, but I did.

When I fell/grew in love with Daniel, what actually happened was that I discovered a whole new kind of love. I also discovered that my own God-given capacity to love was much greater than I had previously known. I didn’t love my family any less at all. In fact, I might make the claim that in discovering a new kind of love I grew into an even greater understanding and appreciation for my family that is hard to explain and thus found myself able to love them on a deeper level. Perhaps that is also the result of simply growing in age and life experience.

Now that I am a mother, I am in the process of discovering another kind of love, one that is both the same as my love for my family yet also different. This is the first time in my life that I find myself so intensely loving a person that I have never met. (Since I am the oldest child, I did love my siblings before they were born, but that was different.)

Only God knows what this child’s future holds, what his passions and his sense of humor will be, what his voice will sound like, and even what the colors of his hair and eyes will be. All I have seen is a fuzzy black and white ultrasound, my abdomen slowly swelling, and the numbers on the scale slowly going up. I’m not yet even able to feel this child’s movements within me. But I love this little person totally and completely and I know that I always will.

And of course, I know that Daniel feels the exact same way. Because of this, I find myself loving him even more, not only as my husband and best friend but as the father of my child and partner in raising him. God has used our love for each other to bring new life into the world, and we are both bound more tightly together in our shared love for this new life.

Anyways, if all of this isn’t evidence of love multiplying, I don’t know what is!