In God's "Waiting Room" (Part 3: Joy and Pain of Parenthood)

It's a well known fact that parenthood is hard. It's a never ending roller coaster of exhilarating joy and crippling fear. Even the best of parents in the world will admit to it. One of the biggest fears I was plagued with as soon as Eleanor came into our lives was our 'advanced' age as her parents...the number of years between her and us, her parents...the stark reality that as Eleanor would develop and grow, we'd only continue to - quite literally - 'decay' physically.  Yes, quite dramatic of me...but I couldn't help the awful thoughts like What if something were to happen to either myself or Jim, or even to both of us, leaving Eleanor all by herself?, or What if Eleanor becomes an orphan before she even finishes college?, etc.

I know I wasn't 'the only' nor the first parent to have those fears. My younger sister who got married and had her first kid at age 23, has recently decided that she and her husband will never fly anywhere together without their kids. I think the rational behind that fear of mine was the tragic fact that my own father passed away just six months shy of him turning fifty years of age, when my youngest sister and brother were still quite young. I think when one experiences the death of a loved who's life was cut way too early, the issue of mortality becomes much more real and close. Maybe we become extra fragile and fear that death could strike, again, sooner than expected.

Ironically, these contrasting feelings of fear and joy associated with parenting - left us with the desire to have more children...realistically just one more. You see, we hoped God would gift us with a sibling for Eleanor so that she'd have someone as close in blood as it gets to her parents - besides grandparents, uncles and aunts, and cousins. However, we weren't driven by irresponsible or frivolous impulse. We prayed about and thought through the risks and costs of such a pursuit.

So you can imagine our excitement when we found ourselves pregnant in November of last year, 2012!  We were besides ourselves. According to our calculations, it looked like this baby's due date was very close to Eleanor's birthday! We so desperately wanted to tell our families right away. When we told our parents about being pregnant with Eleanor, it was on Christmas Day in 2009. We had hoped to be able to tell them about this pregnancy again over Christmas.  However, due to the nature of the sensitivity of pregnancy, we were cautious as to not share the news with anyone before we felt things were ok.

We were even more careful to not 'jump the gun' when during the very first ultrasound at six weeks to confirm pregnancy, we were told that the baby's heart rate was bordering on the low side. We were scared, worried, and our hearts dropped. But the midwives reassured us that it could just be that the baby was still too young. They scheduled for us to come back the next week for a second ultrasound, at which point our baby's heart rate had gone up to "normal" range. We let out sighs of relief and went about our lives for the next few weeks until the hospital would schedule us for pre-natal care starting sometime at 12 weeks of pregnancy. (Note: In Australia, a lot of hospitals will not allow pregnant women to make a booking until one is 12 weeks along. Until then, you're expected to be seen by your  family doctor, aka your general practitioner.)

We were contacted for our first pre-natal consultation in early January at 13 weeks which coincided with the nuchal translucency and the biochemical screening (not a diagnosis) for abnormalities, particularly chromosomal ones.  When we were pregnant with Eleanor, we received our pre-natal care for the first four months in the U.S. when we were there for our short furlough. There, screening for fetal abnormalities was optional and we had opted out. Well, with this current pregnancy, because of my age, we were under the impression that such screening was not  'optional' but more of a necessary precautionary routine. We happily obliged because we thought there would be no harm in knowing of anything unusual as it would only help us to receive proper care.

We received the nuchal translucency ultrasound result right away and it had come back as being normal. We were grateful and relieved!  But we would have to wait a few days for the biochemical test results.  Naively we convinced ourselves that everything was fine. We wanted to wait for the blood tests results first, but we couldn't keep from sharing the news with our families any longer. So we did, and as expected, everyone was extremely happy for us.

The very next day, we received a call from the hospital asking us to come in right away for the results of the blood test results. Right there and then I feared it wasn't good news. If everything was fine, surely they would have just given us the result over the phone., I thought. Our hearts raced faster than the speed at which we drove to the hospital. Our stomachs were in knots and our eyes glassy as we waited for Dominic, the Genetic Counselor with whom we'd be speaking.

(To be continued...)