Baby!

We went for our 22-week ultrasound on July 7. The verdict? One happy, healthy, wiggly little baby girl.

She's kinda cute, don't you think?

The ultrasound technician spent over an hour examining Deborah's belly from just about every angle possible, checking the length of feet, measuring the circumference of the head, checking the amount of amniotic fluid, peeking at structures in the brain, checking other parts of Deborah to make sure everything was OK.

* * *

All that was on July 7. Three weeks ago. So why am I only posting it now?

That's about how long it took to start feeling normal about it. (New readers to the blog may not be aware of a piece I wrote back in March. If you haven't seen that, go read that first.)

You see, we went in, excited to see the twins. We came out, shocked and numb, wondering what happened. Where was the other one? What happened to having twins? We were so sure... As I described it to a friend later, "One perfectly formed little girl and a lot of awkward questions."

We stayed up pretty late talking through those questions. Were we wrong? In a way, that's the easiest one to say, but also one of the most troubling — after all these years, we'd like to think we know God's voice when we hear it. Was God wrong? Pfft. What if it wasn't God? Scary. Don't you recognize the voice of a friend? And if it wasn't God, then who...? Was it meant for this pregnancy? We were so sure... but what if it wasn't? Are we supposed to have more kids yet? (Five kids?) Is that even possible? Don't they tie your tubes after three C-sections? ...we wrestled with those questions for days, weeks.

Finally, we came to a conclusion that left us with both faith and sanity. There are two possibilities:

1. The plan has changed. We may never know why.
2. The plan hasn't changed. Things could get very interesting.

And one question lingers in the air:

What will I do next time I feel like God is telling me something?

About two weeks before the ultrasound, Deborah says a thought kept straying across her mind: Will you still trust Me if it's not twins?

I had to think about that one for a while. But I think I do. I think I do.

So for now, we sit back, and rethink our plans. We don't seem to need a bigger house at this point. The extra things we've accumulated can be stored. The van... I'm not sure. Three is a crowd with car seats, even in a Cadillac, and we do often like to bring others with us. But now it's more of a want than a need. We have the money, and we have other debts burning holes in our pockets, but somehow the best course of action at this point seems to be to wait.

We were wrong

We are not expecting two babies.

We are expecting THREE.









Edit: This was posted on April 1. Hint, hint. Four weeks later, I'm still getting people coming up to me, saying "Omigosh, are you SERIOUS?" ...I'm not, actually. April Fools, folks. Or, at least, I sure hope I'm joking.

Calling the Shots

One side effect of not owning a car during my first year of college was that I played a lot of pool. On Friday nights, while the rest of my classmates were out making good on the "ring by spring" guarantee, I headed over to the rec center and chalked up a cue. I got good enough that eventually, the games progressed from playing "slop" — accepting any erratic motion of the balls as acceptable plays — to "calling the shots" — you verbalized the outcome of your shot before you took it, and if you didn't make what you called, you were penalized by having one of your previous balls put back on the table. (We played mean.)

Now, I tell you that story, in order to tell you this one:

Back before we had kids, Deborah used to sit down with me, and tell me her plan for having children. I used to just stare at her as she rattled off the plan, which went something like this:

OK, I'm going to get pregnant at the beginning of the school year, and so I won't have to take any time off, and spend the summer with the baby. I think I'd like a girl the first time. Then, maybe two years later, we'll have another kid. And also, I want twins. Wouldn't that be great? Two for the price of one!

I tried explaining that it didn't work that way. You didn't get to specify when, or the sex of the child, and you certainly couldn't specify twins. But Deborah stubbornly refused to listen to reason, and went ahead and brought two wonderful little kids into the world, almost exactly on target with what she'd predicted. So when Deborah told me she was praying for twins next, I listened. And a few weeks ago, Deborah walked into the living room, and pointedly picked up a pregnancy book and started reading it.

"So, what were the results?" I asked, suspicious.
"November 9," she smiled, "twins."

That's not exactly the sort of prediction you can glean from a simple home pregnancy test. I had zero evidence. I knew it was true anyway.

But even with that, for the last week or so, I've been going about, joking that "Deborah says we're having twins next, but that I want to see the ultrasound before I buy the minivan."

It was funny, it made me sound sane (and Deborah a little less so), but... a little part of me died every time I said it. I knew it was true, but I was hiding it. I was trying to play slop.

I knew it partly because Deborah asked for it. And I knew it partly because God asked me if that was OK. After a few years, I started answering "yes..." and then a little while later, "yes," and then "yes!"

So does God do what I want? Did he need my permission? No. What do I make of Deborah getting exactly what she asked for, every time? Is she so in touch with God, that He gives her exactly what she asks for? Yes, and No. It's more complex than that, and it's simpler, too. God wanted to give us twins, and gave Deborah the desire to pray for that. Her 100% record of getting what she's prayed for isn't the result of her getting God to do what she wants. Her prayers were God bringing her to desire what He wanted.

God's been taking me to task for playing slop.

So: Twins, corner pocket, late October or early November. There. I've called the shot — although the balls are already in motion, and the stroke was never mine to begin with.