Has this much time passed already, Beta? Nine weeks since you existed, and seven weeks since we found out about you. Each week when take a new photo of your fruit or veggie equivalent, I am in shock at how quickly you are growing. How quickly you have changed from a scrap of grain in my hand so tiny I could hardly hold it, let alone photograph it; to a substantial weight and shape that is a good size to wrap my entire fist around.
This week, you are the size of a key lime. Your Daddy visited two different grocery stores, scouting for colorful fruits and vegetables that were the right size to represent you from weeks nine through twelve. He did a good job.
The ultrasound videos we watched yesterday showed how much you can kick. Your elbow and knee joints can bend, and your little muscles are strong enough to punch and kick your watery surroundings. Creating this photo series has made you so “real” to me. I can’t feel you inside me yet, but I can hold a key lime in my hand and imagine you would feel like this.
Twice this week my eyes brimmed with happy tears just thinking about you.
I remember being a little girl, waiting in an airport terminal for my grandmother to arrive (when you could still wait right at the exit to the gate!). My mom and two sisters and I waited, and when my grandmother emerged, wearing a fur stole and four-inch heels, she and my mom hugged for a long time. When they released each other, I saw that my mom was crying. I rarely saw my mom cry, so I was immediately concerned for her, and rushed over to squeeze her hand.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying, Mommy?”
“Oh,” she said tenderly, “I’m crying because I’m so happy.”
She had answered my question with words, but I still couldn’t figure out why a person would cry when they were HAPPY. It was opposite of any reason a child like myself would want to cry. “Crying” and “Happy” just didn’t coincide yet in my youthful reasoning.
As an adult, I’ve cried with happiness many a time now.
When you arrive into fresh air, I am confident I will cry. My tears will be sheer happiness that YOU are finally in my arms. I’m not sure there’s anything else that could make me happier, or will have made me happier, except that moment I so anticipate.
We wait. I wait. Benjamin waits. YOU wait. Our family and friends wait. Of course, we are waiting for you. But we also wait for the Lord, because you are in His hands. From the moment you were a poppy seed, until the moment you enter His throne room, hopefully decades and decades from now, we are waiting for His kingdom to come on earth.
This verse is special, because it also was special to my parents. My mom made a piece of art out of it before they were married, and it has stayed in their bedroom ever since then.
"But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you." (Psalm 33:18-22).
