It started out so normally. I lay there on the bed as the technician moved the ultrasound wand over my belly. The TV was to my left on the wall. It wasn’t my first ultrasound. I should have known what to expect, except I think it was the first time that there was a TV there. As soon as she touched me I found my eyes welling up with tears.
The TV looked just like the scans in baby photos. I’ve seen them so many times – on Facebook as friends announce their pregnancy, the photos that my sister sent me during her pregnancies. But this one was empty. It looked so familiar and yet so different. Obviously I knew it would be empty. That was why I was there! We were starting our journey with the fertility clinic. But as I looked up at the screen I realized how much I wanted to see that screen with a baby. A baby with a heartbeat and movement. My baby. But there was nothing. I had to fight back the tears in case the technician thought I was crazy! What was I expecting? A miraculous baby to have appeared in my womb? She wouldn’t understand. My husband didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. Why was I crying?
Will it ever happen? I keep reading about Elizabeth and how God blessed her when she was barren. But then I know so many other people who can’t conceive. Who never conceived. How can I have faith when I don’t know what God will do? The answer I guess is to trust Him. Sounds simple right! It’s so hard when I want my own child so desperately. Will I always have to live with this disappointment? It felt so empty. I feel so empty. And I feel alone. So alone.
The grief that grips me right now is akin to the sorrow I felt after my sister’s miscarriages. This time it’s a grief of never having. Then I grieved what we had lost. Now I grieve that we might never have. It’s still a loss. A different type of loss. And it hurts so very much.
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
John 15: 7 (NIV)
I just want a baby. A healthy baby. Is that too much to ask?
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