Recently, someone said to me, "I wonder what it would feel like to be pregnant at Christmas. I imagine it would be rather emotional." I'm not sure I had much of a response as I was distracted by the memory of this story that I started writing last Christmas. I was pregnant three times during the Christmas season and all three times were poignant. There's one story, however, that will always be alive in my memory. So alive and special to me that I'm unsure that I want to actually share it ... afraid it will lessen in intensity. For some reason, though, I am peaceful about putting it out there.
Twenty-one years ago, I was expecting my first baby. I was about five months along.
I had had an ultrasound just a few weeks before, but we had chosen not to be told if we were having a boy or girl. A few short days before, I had felt the first flutters of baby movement. I wasn’t even sure what it was, frankly … just the same as I wasn’t sure of many of the changes happening in my body. But I fully remember the curve in the road that we were on when I felt my baby’s first movement. I remember saying to Ken, “OH! I think I just felt the baby!” and having him look at me like he wished he could've felt it too.
I’ll never forget the feeling of new life inside my body and knowing that it was up to me to nurture that life to birth and full adulthood. It was amazingly intense. Try as I might, I can't summon the words needed to describe the full responsibility that I felt.
I was young. Twenty-three years old. Ken and I had known each other seven years by this time and although we had always thought we'd wait a couple or more years before having kids, we decided after horrid experiences with birth control medications that having children immediately was our natural next move.
I thought I had the flu. I really did. When the doctor asked me, "Could you possibly be pregnant?" I almost laughed and said, "Yeah! I *AM* married and that whole birth control business is NOT what it's cracked up to be!"
I had immense morning sickness and woke each morning to Saltine crackers on my bedside table along with a glass of water. Whoever thinks eating Saltines first thing in the morning to counter morning sickness is a good idea should be examined for brain damage. I was so naïve and in love that it really didn’t matter what I had to do to bring our baby to full term. This was OUR baby and I was going to make it happen.
I had a patient and tolerant boss at the time. A father of five. He said, “Whatever you have to do is fine! My wife went through the same thing five times! Come in at noon … Come in at 2 PM … whatever you have to do to take care of yourself and your baby." I love that man to this day. I really do. He is a gentleman and a scholar ... and there are so few of them left.
I would go in about noon each day for the first three months or so, order a chocolate shake from the snack counter because that’s all I could keep down. I would then push through my afternoon. The girls that worked for me would tease me lovingly … especially the first time I felt my little belly on my thigh when I knelt over. Ugh! I was not happy with that, but they were thrilled! “It’s your baby you’re feeling!” Yes, it was!! It didn’t take long for me to want to feel MORE belly!
Christmas 1989: I was 23, so happily married, five months pregnant, but hardly showing. I was barely into elastic-waisted clothes and yet I felt very 'with child'. I loved how I felt ... alive, expectant of all good things, and a little anxious.
The choir I had been a part of during college, along with other choirs in our school, were performing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus at the Tivoli Theatre in Chattanooga, TN. When I was a part of the choir, we sang that as our finale to concerts. It was memorized. I knew the alto part by heart … it was a part of me. Still is, though rusty.
However, I had graduated so I wasn’t part of this performance. I decided that I would live vicariously and attend the concert anyway. Cheer my choir on, right?! I even remember what I was wearing that evening, but I'll spare you the dated details.
I was shown to my seat in the balcony by an usher with a flashlight, wishing that I was on stage with “my choir”, but knowing that I had spent my college years well and my place was not on stage. The concert began, my spirit was moved and I entered into the Christmas emotions to which the music tends to transport us.
And then …
My choir, joined by others, started singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
HAL-LE-LU-JAH!
The entire audience stood to its feet.
And the baby inside of me, who to this day is emotionally sensitive … LEAPT IN MY WOMB! She really did! In a HUGE WAY! Not wanting to be left out, she was standing with us all!
I hugged my stomach, a bit self-consciously because I was so tiny … but in that moment, I experienced a spiritual awareness with my Savior and my forthcoming child that I had never experienced before. HE was real and my child was too! Tears came to my eyes as I remembered the account of Elizabeth’s emotions … as I thought about the angels singing the first Hallelujah Chorus the night of Christ’s birth … as I thought about Handel’s solitude as he contemplated the scriptures Isaiah wrote and consequently wrote the words and music we find familiar today … It was all a bit overwhelming! The lump in my throat gave way to tears streaming down my cheeks.
As I read and re-read my post, my eyes again fill with tears at the memory and my heart almost bursts with joy, love, and blessing. A few years ago, Emily and I went to Benaroya Hall in Seattle and listened to the Messiah performed. There were a few hand-grabbing moments and when the Hallelujah Chorus was lifted, we were hardly separable. The memory of my pre-birth experience with her was fresh again and yet, she didn't remember anything and didn't yet know the memory I carried in my heart.
This year, just before her 21st birthday, I share it with her. And with you.
Hallelujah! Christ is born!
