Formed in the Womb

This is what the LORD says— He who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. Isaiah 44:2 (NIV)

I often focus on the efforts I make: my education, my skills, my talents.

Yet God made me, He formed me while I was still in the womb. Before I was even born, God formed me. How much of my personality, skills, strengths, weaknesses, habits, etc. are a result of how God formed me in the womb? All? Most? Some?

My daughter Catherine was born with a fetal tumor called a sacrococcygeal terratoma (SCT). This condition occurs in one in 40,000 births. No one knows for certain exactly how these fetal tumors form. The research we did theorized that an SCT is formed during the process of "differentiation."

When conception occurs, one cell is formed and then it multiplies, creating identical copies of the same cell. 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16, etc. After the one cell becomes a large enough amount of identical cells, then the cells begin to differentiate. The identical cells become skin cells, blood cells, bone cells, heart cells, brain cells, etc. All the different parts of our body.

The process of differentiation occurs within the first eight hours after conception. The experts believe that one of Catherine's cells became a fetal tumor cell, rather than what it should have been. One cell!! How tiny is a cell?

Having an SCT has drastically shaped her life.

Once born, Catherine spent several weeks in the NICU, with tubes, monitors, and all the other medical equipment needed to keep her alive. She had multiple caretakers every day. I could not pick her up; a nurse would wrap her in a blanket, safely protecting all of the medical equipment within the blanket, and hand her to me while I was seated. She had to obtain all of her nutrition through an IV, rather than a bottle.

When we finally got to take her home, we had to transform our bedroom into a medical facility. We had monitors and pumps set up next to her bassinet, with tubes and wires running to her body. Every day we had to take her to various specialists. The fetal tumor caused other organs to not form properly and so she has had problems with many systems in her body: her heart, kidneys, colon, bladder, etc. She has spent the first three years of her life, from the day she was born, as a patient. She has suffered and she has endured.

During one hospital stay her IV "infiltrated" her arm (came out of her vein). Three nurses worked on her arm, wiggling the needle around to try to get it back in the vein. Catherine sat calmly, ignoring the nurses and watching Barney. She is such a trooper. How many kids would have needed sedatives to endure an IV re-insertion?

We didn't even know we were pregnant when God had already allowed the error in differentiation to occur, causing Catherine to have a fetal tumor. Yet, He had already made her and formed her. He knew what personality traits she would need to endure all of her medical challenges. God gave her patience, maturity, calmness, focus. He allowed her to be able to seek comfort from just about anyone.

I am so awed by God's shaping and forming of us ... in the womb!