During one of my early prenatal visits I asked the doctor when we would find out the sex of our baby. He let me know that the first opportunity would be at my 20 week ultrasound, but that many of his patients went to a business nearby called Precious Views to find out what they were having at around 16 weeks. He explained that Precious Views wasn’t affiliated with him or the hospital in any way, it was just a “get a peek of your little one, find out what you are having on your own dime” kind of place. He didn’t have to say anything else, if I could find out what we were having a whole 4 weeks earlier than scheduled, I was all for that
I don’t think I had even made it home before I called and snatched their first available appointment near my 16 week mark. I began counting down the days until I could really prepare for this little one to arrive by finding out what we were having. And when I say finding out what we were having, I mean getting the confirmation that we were having another boy.
You see, up until this point it was kind of the running joke that my husband’s family only had boys. They had a proven track record and if you were a betting person, you would have put money on it. In fact at that point in time there hadn’t been a girl born on either side of Marty’s family in over 50 years. When we shared our plan to find out what we were having with his family Marty’s brother Andy said, “How about this, I’ll take your $75 and I’ll tell you what your having and you don’t have to go anywhere? It’s a boy! Cummings men only have boys!” (Just a side note, What makes this really funny is that Andy and his wife Tessa discovered a few years later for themselves that Cummings men could indeed have girls). I was absolutely fine with having another little boy. Sure, I had long since given all by boy clothes and gear away but I still had plenty of toy tractors and I knew all the ins and outs of being a boymom.
The day finally arrived and Marty and I loaded up the boys and his parents came along to find out what we were having. Precious Views proved to be everything the doctor had described. We were taken back to a rather large room that was filled with couches and a big screen television that made your ultrasound experience visable for your audience. This was a far cry from the tiny little room in a hospital that a traditional ultrasound is done in.
Within a few minutes I was on the table for the ultrasound tech to get to work on finding the tell tale evidence that we were having a boy. After about fifteen minutes the little gal let us know that baby was being very modest and was not cooperating to reveal its gender. She suggested we leave, go get a large sweet tea from McDonalds and come back in a few minutes. I did exactly that and to make a long story short a huge sweet tea and a few jumping jacks later our little one was finally in position and she was able to get a good view to determine the gender.
Nothing could have prepared me for what she was about to say. In an instant my world changed forever.
“It’s a girl!”
I screamed with excitement as did the rest of the room. We all went a little crazy and everyone began frantically texting the folks back home to let them know the big news. Leave it to me, I immediately began to ask the ultrasound tech a million questions.
"Just how sure are you?"
"How long exactly have you been doing this?"
"Have you ever been wrong?"
"What is your accuracy percentage?"
I’m sure this sweet lady was about ready to strangle me. She finally ended up showing us on the ultrasound exactly what made our girl, a girl. The evidence began to really add up and as a bonus my boys got an unexpected anatomy lesson.
We were having a girl!
The fifty-year Cummings “girl famine” had officially ended! Not only had it ended but it fact, over the next few years between nieces and cousins God would bless our family in His special way with eight more girls. To say our family is a little more balanced now is an understatement.
Our own little girl! Who would have thought? To think, Left to my own plans and vices none of this would even be happening. I would have missed this, all of it.
I rode the wave of excitement but within a few days my anxiety began to creep in. This time it was a little different. I was no longer worried about the timing of this pregnancy, or my ability to start all over again parenting a newborn. I was in love with this baby girl already and that would all take care of itself. All I wanted was for this little girl to be born healthy and happy just like my boys had been, with ten fingers and toes.
My new worry was this. What if she wasn’t?
I didn’t have one logical reason or piece of evidence at the time to indicate that she was anything but healthy. What I did have was a very fear driven mentality. If things were going good, brace yourself, something bad was about to happen. Some of you may wonder if this was just some sort of intuition that God gave me to prepare me for the road ahead. I might be inclined to think so had it not been for one thing. This way of thinking was something I had dealt with my entire life and it didn't come from a place of trust, it came from a place of complete fear.
Can any of you relate to this? Anyone else live in a state of worry or turmoil because you're just waiting for your circumstances to change, to get that good news, or maybe its just to achieve a goal you've set for yourself. But then what? You thought peace was supposed to be there waiting for you, but you never really found it.
I was carrying a sweet baby girl, the first in generations and instead of soaking it in and enjoying the rest of the pregnancy, all I could do was worry that something could be wrong with her.
I told myself, "I’ll stop worrying and relax and enjoy this pregnancy when I have the 20 week ultrasound and the Doctor tells me my baby is healthy."
This was the beginning of the one of the most valuable lessons I’d ever learn. I told myself I’d quit worrying if at that 20 week ultrasound He'd let me hear the news that our baby girl was ok. What I didn’t know is that He was about to teach me that there was peace to be had even if she wasn't.