198 days...

198 days, or 11 wks and 5 days pregnant, is a very big number for me. That's how many days left I had in my pregnancy with Anastasia to get to her due date when I found out she was dead. That's where I am today with Genesis.

Instead of laying cold in a dark room while I stared at a lifeless body I continued to work through my nausea and pregnancy headaches. Instead of praying feverishly for wisdom on whether to let them rush me over for a d&c, I had trouble zipping up my coat over my expanding belly. Instead of not being able to eat from grief, I found myself with heartburn from allowing myself dessert.

I feel like I'm living a fantasy. I know that sounds dramatic, I've had 4 full term pregnancies and it's only been 2 1/2 years since giving birth to my youngest living child, but something about the last year and 4 months just seems like an eternity. I had given myself over to the reality that God was done growing our family in live births.

Part of this is not my fault. At my follow up apt after my miscarriage in January, after going over the details of the miscarriages all over again with my OB, who is a specialist in infertility/miscarriage, she furrowed her brow and said to me, "We can do all the tests if you want. But I don't think we're going to find anything. I think your 4 living children were the lucky ones." I really trust my OB. I adore her honestly. She is so kind and understanding and respectful of my faith. So when she said those words to me, I believed her. She thought there was something genetically wrong with either my husband or I (or both of us together) that was going to continue to make us miscarry and that the four we had were "lucky".

I went home and wrestled. I wrestled with the Lord, with my own perception of the meaning of life, of the meaning of MY life, with everything I thought I would be, with everything I thought my LIFE would be..... with my false gods.

Then I read Job. Oh Job. Thank you Jesus for giving us the book of Job. I cried my way through it, seeing myself and my sin and my idolatry.

We did the testing, the very expensive non insurance covered testing. I did not allow the genetic testing. The only testing I wanted was testing that would let me know if there was anything I needed to do to protect my littlest neighbor. There is nothing I can do about genetics. It all came back normal. This seemed to confirm what my OB had said.

So, we did a last resort. The only thing we hadn't tried. I asked my OB to prescribe progesterone for me to take from ovulation on so that if my progesterone was still low as it was during the summer miscarriages, I could at least provide that. I worried about using the progesterone. What if we really did have a genetic problem and I was prolonging a child's suffering in my womb by using it? But my OB assured me that the progesterone would not prolong the life of a baby that was struggling. And there, on the second cycle after my miscarriage, was the positive test. And here I am 11 weeks and 5 days later with a maternity shirt on.

I used to be proud when I walked through a store with my little ducks in a row and a growing belly. I walked around like it was a trophy. I had built up a false god under the same of quiverfull, believing myself more righteous for having a growing brood of children and proudly saying I would have as many as the Lord blessed me with.

I am not proud anymore. I am deeply in love with each of my children and see in them my opportunity to serve them as Christ serves me. And I am being given that opportunity again to give up my own body to serve the life of this unborn child. But it earns me no awards, no favor from God, no honors. I am not the Creator, I am simply a vessel. I am not the Savior, I am simply the boo boo kisser and the tushy wiper. The blessing comes not because the quiver is full or not full, the blessing is each and every child baptized into Christ because each and every child is the handiwork of God. I once read the quiverfull passage and thought, how very sad for those that are barren or have very few children. Where is the Gospel in this for them?

But now I understand. "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth, how blessed is the man who's quiver is full of them." Arrows pierce the enemy. Baptized children of God pierce our enemy the devil with their child-like faith. Your quiver can still be full if you have not had a child spring from your own body. Your quiver is full any time you teach the young about Jesus. Your quiver is full any time you read the Gospel to a little child in your lap. Your quiver is full when you yourself continue in the faith you were raised in and remain steadfast in His Word.

The honor is not in me, it is in Jesus and His salvific work in all the little children that become His through Holy Baptism. THEY are the blessing because they are HIS. It's not We that are the blessing because we have lots of babies.

God has created Genesis and I long for this child's baptismal day where another arrow will be like a poisoned dart to the devil and will mock him as we await Christ's return.

Come soon Lord Jesus.