“You would not have been born.” I remember clearly the conversation in which my mother uttered those words to me. I was 7 years old, and Mom had just shared with my sisters and I that she had miscarried her second child. Sharon, the oldest of child of the family, was only a few months old when the miscarriage took place. This child would have been born when Sharon was less than 1 year old. I was born approximately one year after this child’s due date.
I was not bothered in the least by my mother’s statement. In fact, I replied with absolute certainty, “Yes, I would. I would have been born to another family.” Mom tried to explain to me that life doesn’t work that way, but I was adamant. The fact that I had been born was proof enough for me that I was supposed to be born. It still is, in fact.
I thought about this conversation recently after watching the movie, ‘About Time’. The movie revolves around a family in which the men can go back in time and relive parts of their lives. At one point, the main character travels back a few years to try to change the outcome of an event and returns to his present life to find that his young daughter Posy has not been born, and he has a son instead. He realizes that his time travel somehow changed the dynamics of his child’s conception resulting in a different child. Fortunately, he is able to undo is time travel mistake and regain Posy.
The movie reminded me that every conception results in a unique child. If conception takes place in a different month, a different child is created–at least in terms of the physical DNA. If the miscarried child had been born, it certainly had the potential to impact the timing of the conception of the next child, namely me, and the 7 children who were born after me.
I am neither a theologian nor a geneticist, so I cannot say with any certainty how I would have been conceived and born if my parents’ second-conceived child have lived. I do, however, have complete confidence that my birth was part of God’s plan. The psalmist David wrote, “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.” (Psalm 139:16)
The rest of the Psalm reminds us that God know us intimately. He knows our thoughts and He knows where we are. There is no where that we can go to hide from God. He is always with us, walking with us and guiding us no matter where the path takes us. And He has known us since before we were formed. I have absolute assurance that my birth, and your birth, were part of God’s perfect plan.
My mother miscarried another baby 25 years or so after her first miscarriage. She was just as bereaved to have lost her 11th child, as she was to lose her 2nd child. She always carried those children in her heart, despite never getting the opportunity to meet them. She realized that all life is precious and that children are gifts from God. Psalm 127:3 tells us, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.”
Susan's Reflections 