20 Week Ultrasound

So our 20 week ultrasound is tomorrow.  I would love to say I can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl.  But I just don't think that even matters to me.  How could it?  After all, if there is one good lesson I learned at Sam's 20 week US, it's that the only person going into this US wondering what the sex is is the parents. 

The real reason for this US is to check for the babies health.  It's to look for defects, abnormalities, and syndromes.  It is your first opportunity to find out whether the rest of their life, and yours, will be everything you dreamed and hoped.  How dumb it seems now, that for Sam's 20 week US we walked in only wanting to know the sex.  That we had planned to go out to eat for a fancy dinner afterwards and talk about names and nursery themes.  Our innocence and naivety was shattered.  We are no longer ignorant to the fact that babies are not created equal or perfect. 

I remember every word of that 20 week US for Sam, and the high risk doctor's US that followed the next day.  I remember every word as they fell from those doctors' mouths like bricks, slowly building the wall between what our lives and personalities were, and what they were to become.   I don't even remember who I was on that day when everything changed for us; I only know who I am after that day.  I had no idea one US could challenge your faith, your relationships, and your dreams for the future. 

We are blessed.  Beyond measure.  And I wouldn't take anything back just so that we wouldn't have to suffer this. But I can't do it again.  Not that I have a choice.  It's not like I'll drop dead and be released from the responsibility of caring for another special needs child.  No matter what is found tomorrow, we will have to accept it.  But I don't want to do it again.  Maybe for selfish reasons.  Who wants the burden of extra doctor visits, questioning your child's every odd symptom as if it's signs of something mortally serious, and facing a future that may not include that child in it?  But it's not just us who suffers.  Some day Sam will have some harsh realities to face.  Much harsher than ours.  I just can't bare to see another one of mine go through that. 

I have had some whacked up dreams lately.  Pregnancy does that.  But mix it with stress over baby's health and you get some really crazy results.  I haven't said much about the stress of all this to anyone, but it's spilling over.  I'm ready to know whatever this US holds for us tomorrow.  Say a prayer for health and acceptance.

~Kathy