Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

For the past several weeks, I have been reading through What To Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel. This book has been extremely helpful for both me and Matthew, since neither of us have gone through pregnancy before! It has been exciting to read exactly how the baby is growing and developing each week. For instance, right now I am in the 9th week of my pregnancy, which means I have entered the final month of the first trimester. The baby is approximately 1 inch in length, about the size of a medium olive (I love how the authors usually compare the size of the baby to different foods!). My baby's head continues to develop and is starting to look more baby-like. Tiny little muscles are beginning to form, allowing the baby to move arms and legs. I will be going to have my first doctor visit on Wednesday of next week, and am hopeful that we will be able to hear our baby's heartbeat....so exciting!!

While What To Expect has been helpful and interesting, I have a few qualms about the authors' choice words when referring to the baby very early on. When speaking of conception, the authors write,

"Congratulations--you've conceived! Which means your soon-to-be baby has started its miraculous transformation from single cell to fully formed baby boy or girl...Within hours after sperm meets egg, the fertilized cell (aka zygote) divides, and then continues to divide (and divide). Within days, your baby-to-be has turned into a microscopic ball of cells, around one fifth the size of the period at the end of this sentence." (Emphasis added)

You may be wondering what my problem is with the terminology here. It's not that I have a problem with scientific terms. I know that sometimes they are necessary. My problem with the above paragraph is the way the authors describe the baby as "soon-to-be", even though the baby has already been conceived. Life begins at conception, and therefore, when I conceived this baby that is growing inside of me, it immediately became just that--a baby.

Psalm 139 is a beautiful song of praise to God as Creator of man, particularly focusing on God's perfect knowledge of man. In verses 13-16, David writes,

"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."

This is truly amazing! Each one of us, including the little one in my womb now, was skillfully knit together by our powerful and loving Creator. God knows us, inside and out, perfectly, and He knew us that way even before we were conceived! It is the Lord who is forming this tiny little baby inside of me, every step of the way. I am so thankful for this. I am thankful that this baby was not an accident, and this baby is not just a "ball of cells" or "blob of tissue" or even just a "fetus". My heavenly Father knows this child perfectly because He is the One who gave life to this child. So you will never hear me (or my husband) refer to our baby as something that is "soon-to-be". We have a baby, though unborn. And we praise our glorious God, for this baby is fearfully and wonderfully made!