observations

Are you ever in the midst of your day, and you notice a hopeful, happy feeling on the edge of your awareness, and you think to yourself Now what was I happy about again...? What is that thing that gave me this feeling to begin with, that thing that is coloring everything so brightly and that I've somehow momentarily forgotten, though its effect lingers on...? (It also works the opposite way, at least for me: I notice a dragging, depressive cloud is hanging about me, and I have to rack my brain to remember the concrete source of my heaviness).

This afternoon I went on a luxuriously long, solitary walk in the sunshine and though that in and of itself was more than enough to justify my buoyant mood and springy step, when I noticed how happy I felt I just knew there was something else behind it that I was forgetting. As I rounded a corner of the walking trail around the Navy stadium, it hit me: the cape. I had just made Gabriel's Halloween costume cape out of a yard of shiny, satiny red fabric that he picked out at the fabric store last week.

Now, I am a very rudimentary sewer. And my inclination is to sew the way I cook: fast and loose, sloppy with the measuring. I am constitutionally unable to follow a recipe without making at least a few alterations. (Those of you who know how to sew can see how my success rate with sewing projects would be, to put it mildly, unimpressive.) But this cape! It is gorgeous. Even though I made it sloppy-style, sans pins and measuring, in less than an hour. (If you're curious, instructions are here).

It does feel good to make something beautiful all by yourself! But when I considered the cape as a potential source of the all-is-well feeling that carried my feet along, I knew that couldn't possibly account for all of it. This well of happiness was deeper than a superhero cape could dig. What was that good thing on the edge of my mind...?

And then, as I stepped onto the Poplar Trail, it hit me. Of course. We are having a little baby girl! Soon we will have a new person in our family, a new person to nurture, to puzzle over, to want to strangle, to delight in, to tell jokes with, to marvel over and to watch grow. She was the reason that everything was brilliant and beautiful this afternoon. Aha. How satisfying.

Last week we had a little scare: a cyst in the baby's brain turned up on our ultrasound. A very small percentage of babies with this particular cyst turn out to have Trisomy 18, a serious chromosomal disorder, so we were sent for a level two ultrasound to look for other indicators. A few days passed before we were able to have the second ultrasound, during which I tried my best to table my anxiety. The morning finally came, and I kept it light with the genetic counselor who diligently searched for signs of birth defects in either of our families. And then, after a long ultrasound (which I did enjoy, immensely, seeing her little body wriggle around like that), the doctor came in and said there was no cyst. He shrugged, smiled, and told us our baby was perfect.

For a second I felt irritated by a medical establishment that looks so extraordinarily hard for problems in pregnancy and fosters unnecessary anxiety, but mostly I felt relief. Happiness. Our baby is perfect (which I now realize she would be, no matter what the ultrasound turned up - because she is ours).

I still feel worried sometimes, and as ever I harbor a host of emotions about bringing this third baby into our lives. But somehow hearing that doctor say your baby is perfect helped me to fully and completely welcome joy into the mix. Exuberance. I feel those little karate chops and it is no less miraculous than the first time around. A new person is growing inside me!