I Am

It was over a year ago. I had just found out I was pregnant. I was thinking all of those thoughts that course through your brain after you first confirm that news. I was ready, especially after our loss that spring. I was nervous.

I sat in the little room at the doctor's office where my barrage of blood tests would begin over the next several weeks. The lady sticking the needle in my arm that day was a new face to me. I never had made it far enough into the last pregnancy to have all of the hormone tests done. This was a face I would be seeing frequently over the next few weeks and months.

She was older, and looked rough around the edges. She looked as though she had lived a tough life, and was no more excited about her current vocation of drawing blood. She glanced at my chart to see what all we would be testing for that day. Realizing it was all pregnancy-related, her first words to me were, "Well, do you want to be?"

Do I want to be? What kind of question is that to ask someone? She doesn't know anything about me. Can't she assume that I do, and that question is not appropriate? I felt my insides jump the way they do when you want to tell someone all these things, but just replied with a courteous, "Yes. I do."
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Today I was at a new appointment. My three-month check-up with my dermatologist. My skin has been a crazy mess for over a year and my hormones have chosen to take a wild ride across my cheeks. I started seeing this doctor sometime last year. Actually, my first visit to her was when I found out I was pregnant. She wanted to prescribe something for me, and when I told her I was trying to get pregnant, she had me take a test at the lab. Once the test confirmed that I was pregnant, she told she would hold off on prescribing anything for me until after I had the baby.

A few months later, I was back with crazy skin and no pregnancy. And we have been seeing each other every few months since. Today, I was back, telling her that I had quit using all that she had prescribed at my last visit since I was pregnant.

She prescribed a few things for me, telling me how hard it was to find something I could use while pregnant. She said she hoped things went better for me this time. Then she said those words.

"You were wanting to be pregnant, right?"

What is it with that question??? What in the world does it matter to her whether I wanted to be or not? And especially after knowing that I lost two pregnancies last year, why ask such a question?

"Yes. Very much."

I wanted to ask her why it mattered. Does it affect what she would prescribe for me? Like, if I wanted the baby, she would give me something "safe" and if I didn't want the baby, she'd give me Accutane? Of course not. I knew this was not the case. Still, on my drive home, I couldn't get this question out of my head.

I have decided this question is the step beyond asking someone "Are you trying?" This has become such a normal, accepted question in our society, but really, when you think about it, it is a personal question. Don't get me wrong, I have asked this question plenty of times without giving it a second thought. But to go the next step, when someone is pregnant, and to ask them "Do you want to be?".....it is an unfathomable question to ask.

I do understand that babies do not always come at opportune times in one's life. Maybe a woman wasn't "trying" to have a baby. Maybe the plan did not fit into "her" timing. I'm sure many a teenage girl has found herself feeling scared and alone when she sees those lines on a test. Even when a couple is "trying" to have a baby, the baby changes lives forever, and not always in the most convenient ways.

I'm just saddened that in a culture where babies are so easily done away with, and pregnancies so quickly terminated, that people now think (and especially those in the medical field!) that it is a socially-acceptable question to ask someone if "they want to be pregnant." I have always been pro-life. I don't think that someone needs to experience miscarriage to confirm that life is from God and is a precious gift. But once I experienced miscarriage, once I physically felt life leaving my body, it solidified in me everything that is true of our life-giving God. It made me realize that life is precious. Even if I had not "planned" this pregnancy, what should be done of it now? What answer does a doctor (a dermatologist, no less) expect to the question, "You were wanting to be, right?"

Yes, we wanted to be. With all of our hearts. However, I still think the answer to such a question should not be, "Yes, I did," but moreso, "Yes, I am. And that's all that matters."