miracle

you're early. almost impossibly early. in fact, I'd thought you'd never come, so I quit looking for you. but here you are, almost 12 weeks along, and you're already our little miracle. I know people say that kind of thing all the time, but I think I've got a good reason for using such language. if it's not too much for you, allow me to explain a little.

your mom has had some health issues over the years, even though she's still pretty young. she's got something called polycystic ovarian syndrome (pcos), which is apparently one of the leading causes of infertility. I won't gross you out with details, but I was pretty sure you wouldn't be coming along until we saw more than a few doctors to help us out. trust me, the chances of you surprising us like you did were pretty slim.

and she's also got something called fibromyalgia. hopefully by the time you're reading this your mom's fibro will be under control, but last year was pretty rough. it's a little complicated, but the bottom line was constantly sore muscles along with chronic fatigue and lots of other weird health issues. there's apparently a good chance you may have fibro too, so we'll keep an eye out and take good care of you either way. we found a good treatment, and that was coming along pretty well, so well that we started thinking about you, just a little.

your mom was thinking about you more than I was. not that I wasn't excited about the possibility of you coming along, but for a while all I could think of was the struggles with doctors and treatments and such. after battling fibro for a year, I was pretty tired, and not quite sure about heading into another round of such things right away.

so your mom, my beautiful wife, reminded us to pray. so we prayed that God would grant us the blessing of having you without having to worry and struggle about health stuff. I hope you don't inherit my bad attitudes, because I was pretty skeptical. after more than a few years of various difficulties, I was expecting the worst. but yet I prayed, trying to repent of my faithlessness, remembering how good God truly is to us, knowing that He wants good things for us.

it turns out, if our calculations and memories are correct, that He answered our prayers before we even prayed them (which is one of my favorite things about God and prayer: if He's beyond time, then it doesn't matter if we pray before or after, right?). it seems that you were already on the scene, our embryonic little baby. of course since we didn't expect you, we weren't on the lookout and you remained undetected for over a month! I was certainly shocked when I found out you were hiding in your mommy's tummy. even now you hardly seem real. I just can't wait to hold you in my arms, to admire your tiny fingernails, to play you a lullabye. august seems so far away!

for a while there we thought you even beat the odds of birth control (which is about 1 in 100 apparently). your mom was on the pill for a little while to help with some of her pcos issues, but it seems you came along just before then. yet it wouldn't surprise me if you did beat those odds, because as far as I'm concerned you've beat odds far steeper than that.

so you see: you're our miracle. now don't go thinking that you had anything to do with being a miracle, because it's pretty clear that God did all the work. He took your mom, with bad ovaries, bad back, bad muscles, put her together with me, with a bad attitude and often wandering heart, and with our love made you, even before we remembered to pray! I know you're not perfect, but I pray that you'll know that you are a miracle from God, who has been made with love. Even more, I pray that your heart will someday soon be remade by the miracle of Jesus.

I love you.