There are Still Surprises in this Life

It had been almost exactly three years since we started trying to get pregnant until the time that we found out that we actually were pregnant. In that three years, we'd gone from optimistic novices who thought that - in spite of Rick's plethora of medical issues - one random unprotected incidence would surely end in pregnancy to jaded pessimists who committed more time to planning our next vacation than to our burgeoning family. In that same three years, we'd seen life: in the silvery fish darting through the clear blue Caribbean sea off the white beaches of Riviera Maya, in the home that was new to us but held over a 100 years of other families' histories, in the baker's dozen of eggs that were retrieved from my ovaries in our IVF cycle, in the birth of my beautiful niece. Sadly we also saw death: in the sudden loss of our beloved dog Ezra to kidney failure, in the failure of the two fertilized eggs implanted into my uterus to take hold and - most devastatingly - in the loss of my father after his two-year battle colon cancer.

And then, just as we started to own our lives together as two adults, no children; just as we decided to let God take the wheel while we focus on the here and now - it happened. It happened how I always imagined it could never happen. Between the ovulation tracking, temperature taking, hormone shots and month-after-month of bloody discovery; I had given up on the idea of genuine surprise.

Well, surprise! Good thing I hadn't booked that trip to Greece yet.

While it hurts my heart that my father passed just days after my niece was born and will never get to hold in his arms the grandchildren that he so longed to have, I can't help but believe it is he - working in cahoots with Rick's mom - that we should thank, in part, for this blessing.

I'm in my fourth month now and it still hasn't quite sunk in. You see, when you've experienced the type of unearned hardship that Rick and I have, you appreciate yet question every good thing. Maybe it won't be until that screamingly healthy baby is laid across my chest that I'll finally bask in the limelight of motherhood. Honestly, even then I'll likely ride on the edge of constant worry; an elated yet tortured soul until the moment that - on my geriatric deathbed - I look up at my adult child(ren); successful, healthy and self-sufficient; that I will feel at peace. And I am OK with that.