Heartbeat

I had that yearly appointment I prefer to skip each year. If you are a woman, you know what I mean. I always have to gear myself up for this appointment…I mean, I pretty much would want to be ANYWHERE else but there…
I am blessed to have a great doctor, and I can really attest to that because he has seen me through illness and ultimately discovering I am infertile, and then rejoiced with me and my husband when we told him we were adopting.  
Back to my appointment. It is hard to come to this appointment even though I have three children…three healthy children who are dealing with some tough adoption stuff reconciling with the fact that their birthmother, even though she had several chances, could not get her act together to keep them safe.  I can't reconcile that…I'd throw myself in front of a bus for these kids' safety.  
Back to my appointment.  I have a hard time going to the scene of the crime…where I found out that it was my fault we could not have biological children.  There was so much kindness from God in our story…but the moment we found out that we could not conceive…that moment was just filled with pain. I have to mentally prepare myself to go there…to sit with the happy, expectant mothers, with all of the magazines with babies on the covers, with all of the portraits of happy babies, happy moms with babies, happy dads with babies…it's all a reminder that I sat in those chairs hoping to be one of those pregnant moms..instead of the woman who was facing a hysterectomy.
I have been a mom for 7 years…you think being here wouldn't be as hard..and it does get a little easier each year…but the pang still hits me at this appointment…each year.
This appointment's pain took me off guard. I was doing great really. I brought schoolwork to do, (I am a teacher), but left it in the car! No worries..they handed me a ton of paperwork which I took my time on. I used the bathroom…and got called back. Perfect. Short wait time. I had a half hour to wait after getting in my exam room..and then it happened.
I heard something I never heard before.
NO, it can't be.
Yup, I think that's what it was…
I heard the patient in the next room hear her baby's heartbeat. 
I was COMPLETELY taken off guard. I felt like I had eavesdropped on something so sacred and precious…I was amazed at that sound…the miracle of life in the next room that God is caring for in her belly…
IN HER BELLY…
Ugh, that pain took my breath away. I think I stopped breathing for a full 30 seconds…
NO….I was doing so well this year.
I couldn't cry….I knew the doctor would be in any minute. I held it together...and, in fact, it's a day later and I still haven't let it out. 
So, I write. 
I wish I had been there to hear each of my kids' heartbeats as I waited to greet them on their first day of life. I will not get that, nor can I ever go back in time to experience that.  
I can't go back and care for them the way they should have been. I would have fed them, bathed them, loved on them every instant. I would have been tired but so happy to be able to meet each of their needs. They wouldn't grow up wondering if they would get fed. They wouldn't endure what they went through. I would have been a good mom to those 3 infants I never met.  I would have…
God had a different plan. It was beautiful. I still marvel at how it all came to be…but there is still pain.
God is with me in the pain. God is with me in the pure joy that my kids bring me each day. God is with me as I help them through their challenges..and when they are just kids being kids…the good, the bad, the ugly!!
God is with me….with every heartbeat…