Heartbeat

Tonight I was watching Grey's Anatomy with my kids.  We don't get regular/cable/dish television, but we do stream from Netflix, so it wasn't the most current episode.  That doesn't matter though.  The story included one of the cast being pregnant and being freaked out that she was going to lose the pregnancy.  So, the 'doctor' on the case rolls in this 'special' ultrasound unit to find the heartbeat of the baby/fetus/whatever you want to call it at 8 weeks.  They hear the heartbeat and everyone is teary eyed.  When I say everyone, I mean me too.  Yeah, sappy, I know.  But it wasn't that the characters on the show had brought this on.  No, it became a wonderful memory awakener for me.  When I was pregnant with Eldest, we were getting ready to move and I was all nervous - typical first time mommy jitters.  I went in for my first ob/gyn visit, and just for fun they put on an ultrasound.  I was 10-weeks.  At this point in the pregnancy, the baby-to-be looks similar to a kidney bean, but Eldest was a kidney bean with a heartbeat.  It was a little thing and barely visible, but it was a heartbeat that fluttered very quickly compared to the heart of an adult.  At that point, if it hadn't been real to me yet, it became very real right then.  It is an amazing feeling that I think only a first time parent can really understand - that first moment when the realization of a little baby inside of you becomes very, very real.

Now, 16 years later, I think back to that day, that moment like it was just last week.  So much has happened since then.  He has grown into a young man, not quite an adult, but right on the edge of being one.  He is a royal pain in the rear sometimes, but overall, I couldn't be more proud of the young man I have raised with my husband.  A friend told me today that her son who has Downs' Syndrome comes home from school every day and talks about my son and just thinks the world of him.  They have choir together every day, so there is daily contact.  It made me feel very good to hear her say that.  He is an Honors student and in the top 10 in his class.  He has had a job since he turned 14, starting as a volunteer and working into a paid position.  He is well-liked by most every teacher/staff person in the school, adults in our County 4-H too.  What is there to not be proud of?  And to think, it all started as a little fluttering heartbeat.  I look forward to watching him grow more and become a wonderful man, because that is what I know he will be.  Just don't tell him I told all of you so ; )

CC