Blueprint

It’s funny how you can allow yourself not to think about certain things. To not delve deeper into a topic that makes you uncomfortable. Or makes you feel like you are doubting something that you are ‘supposed’ to believe. For me, I am an extremist. I either have to ignore it completely and not think about it and go into my own version of denial, or I have to do the opposite and learn everything there is to learn.

But sometimes, its nicer, easier to go the denial route. To ignore the question so completely, it’s as if the situation doesn’t even exist. I do this every time it rains. I honestly don’t want to know if my basement flooded so I refuse to go down and look. (Of course, my husband does but I’d prefer not to even know.)

But some questions are unavoidable. Sometimes, they keep resurfacing. Like the one haunting the background of my pregnancy. I come face to face with it every Wednesday at 9am. When the ultrasound technician comes in, turns off the lights, puts warm gel on my belly, and suddenly I see my babies on the computer screen. The question surfaces once again.

Was it a life?

There is Summer, kicking, turning, and generally dancing around showing me her strong heartbeat and developing body. I see her brain, her heart, her limbs – each measuring as they should at 18 weeks of age. Her stomach, her hands and fingers, her feet and toes – all shown clearly on the ultrasound. And then, there, sort of hiding in the background is baby b.

I told my grandma who recently lost her husband, my grandpa, that he was the first one to meet baby b. We both smiled and felt good about that sweet notion of them together in heaven. But after I hung up the phone with her, I asked Paul once again, “Do you think she really is in heaven? Was she really ever a life?” I nearly whisper the question – I feel bad just thinking it, let alone speaking it out loud. But Paul and I have had this same conversation several times. And we still don’t quite have an answer.

I have always believed that life starts at conception. But I have never really thought about it. I mean really thought about it – about what defines life. What has thrown me off is that baby b…has no heart. The fact that they call her the ‘acardiac twin’ reminds me every week that she doesn’t have a heart.

Can you be a life if you have no heart? If you were never going to develop a heart? It’s one thing to have developed a heart but it never started beating. Then maybe I could reconcile that it was a life but didn’t develop as it should. But baby b….never had a heart. Is a heart what defines being a life?

So I did some research to learn about when people think life begins. I wasn’t looking for prolife/prochoice type of information. I truly just wanted to learn the scientific aspects of a baby as it develops. (Although, I have to admit that I had to hunt to find somewhat objective information that wasn’t pushing one side versus the other.)

Here is what I found…
Over the centuries, they have looked at several bases for determining human life; viability, brain waves, movement, and heartbeat.

Viability:
They used to think that a baby’s life was determined by the age in which it was able to sustain life outside the mothers’ womb. But it turns out that that age changes based on the medical interventions available. 40 years ago it was 30 weeks, 20 years ago it was 25 weeks, now it’s 20 weeks. The babies aren’t changing; it’s the medical know-how that changes.

Brain Waves:
We don’t know when they start but they can be measured at 6 weeks.

Movement:
These are first seen around 6 weeks.

Heartbeat:
This starts around 3 weeks.

So how do we determine when life starts? There are religious views that base it on the beginning of the soul but that is immeasurable which makes it hard to prove. And scientifically, each of the aforementioned developmental stages seem important but how do we decide which is most important? A heartbeat? Brain waves? Breathing?

So they began to look for a single event, a time that could definitively say that before this, you did not exist, but after this…you did.

And what they landed upon was…conception.

Before conception, you did not exist. It is at that moment that the unique combination of chromosomes that define you first came into existence. This is what differs from another group of cells that replicates with no purpose (ie. a tumor). (The “they” referred to above, is the medical profession over the last few centuries – before legal, government and state legislation got involved in determining life).

Hmm, that’s interesting. But it doesn’t quite answer what it means if the baby, that chromosomal blueprint for a life, didn’t include a heart in the plans, (something undeniably required for life). But it does give me a sense that she was a life, she was supposed to be a life.

Actually…I don’t know. I know I’m supposed to believe that she was. And I want to. And probably will if for no other reason than I’d rather believe that than the alternative. But I will admit that it’s hard for me to comprehend that. And that’s why Paul and I go round and round on this topic – both of us have a hard time with the acardiac part. Life begins at conception. Yes. But it needs a heart to be a life. Yes. So did she die? How could she die if she never had a heart in the first place? And the unending loop continues. (Side note: I told Paul that I would start this blog but that I wouldn’t be PC. I would write how I feel. It’s the only way I know how to write.)

It bothers me. This whole heart/no heart life/not life issue. It gives me a stomach ache to think about. It brings tears to my eyes. Of frustration. And since I have given it so much thought, I am forever unable to go back to the bliss of denial. Of ignorance. And that’s ok. I might have to accept that my thoughts are not God’s thoughts, my ways are not His ways. My sister in law sent me a bible verse that read “Trust in me, not in your own understanding.” That’s hard for me to do. It’s easy for me to have faith in the big things, creationism, Jesus, even miracles. But the little things. The things that seem like they should have a definitive answer – those ones trip me up. Especially when it deals with something so personal. So raw. So deep in my core. My own child.

I guess that’s what faith is. That’s what trust is. It’s the hard part, but I think it’s the part that gives you peace. And through this search for answers, through the scientific and faith parts, I think I do believe that she was a baby. A mass of cells that had the blueprint to become a life. My baby. Instead, she met her creator first. And my grandpa. And that brings me peace.