The Miracle of Pregnancy: Seeing the Creator in New Life

There are few moments in life as moving as the moment you discover you are expecting.

Alongside the overwhelming excitement, I found myself flooded with thoughts, and more than that, with insights I could not ignore. Your mind keeps returning to something almost impossible to grasp: a living being is developing inside my wife’s womb.

How did this happen? Where did this life come from?

The scientific explanation, that an embryo is formed through the successful meeting of sperm and egg, is certainly true. Yet I could not leave it there without probing the meaning behind it. Questions kept circling in my mind and would not let go.

How do sperm and egg become bones, muscles, and hair? How do sperm and egg become legs, hands, and fingernails? How do sperm and egg become a human brain that thinks, remembers, plans, and feels? How do sperm and egg form extraordinary organs like the heart and eyes, organs no human hand helped produce, organs no human hand contributed to in any way?

How do sperm and egg become a baby with a body that is designed, structured, orderly, and unbelievably complex? And the deepest question of all: how does something that begins as lifeless matter become life, a spiritual force that animates and sustains the body of the newborn?

The realization that a human being is formed here, with both body and soul, sent shivers through me, because it points to one unavoidable conclusion: a Creator must be involved, a power beyond us, infinite in wisdom and immense in ability.

Beyond the miracle unfolding right before our eyes, and especially for us, another truth sharpened in my heart: we had been given a gift, freely, a gift beyond measure. There are countless couples who pour out oceans of tears in prayer for a child. Couples who undergo exhausting medical treatments and sacrifice their bodies, their strength, and their finances just to merit becoming parents, to be called mother and father, and yet they are not answered.

And us? About two months after our wedding we learned we were expecting. Is there any greater unearned gift than this? Creator of the world, dear Father, what did I do to deserve this? I feel that no words of gratitude can match the magnitude of what He gave me and my wife. And at the same time I understand that the gratitude God truly asks of us is not only spoken. It is lived. It is closeness. It is making His will our will.

Illustration photo: Shutterstock

A Fetal Heartbeat Weeks 6 to 8

A fetal heartbeat is usually detected for the first time during weeks six to eight through an ultrasound.

Discovering that tiny pulse is one of the most emotional moments of pregnancy. It transforms the idea of pregnancy into something tangible and undeniable. Life is here, growing, quietly and steadily. On the screen you can see it as a tiny flicker, a dot that pulses with rhythm.

There is something breathtaking about those early weeks, looking at an ultrasound and seeing a beating heart when there are not yet visible organs around it. The heart appears alone, as if it arrived first to announce what is happening here.

I stared at the screen and felt tears begin to fall. Before my eyes a heart had formed, and its meaning was clear: life.

The heart, this masterpiece about the size of a fist, contracts continuously and will beat more than 2.5 billion times over the course of a seventy year lifespan. Every minute it sends about five liters of blood to every cell in the body. Over a lifetime, hundreds of millions of liters pass through it.

Even the most advanced physicians and scientists have not truly created a single heart that can fully replace the human heart, despite all their knowledge and equipment. The heart is designed with wisdom beyond our comprehension. No human hand built it. We received it as a gift within our bodies, without any effort of our own.

Who created this heart and placed it exactly where it belongs in the fetus’s chest? Where did it come from? How does it know when to beat, and how does it maintain a steady rhythm?

The wonder grows when you realize this is happening inside a fetus that is about one centimeter long and weighs around five grams.

The Early Anatomy Scan Weeks 14 to 16

Most of the fetus’s organs and systems begin forming in the earliest weeks of pregnancy. The early anatomy scan is an ultrasound in which the doctor carefully examines the fetus’s organs and verifies that they are developing properly.

The doctor began the scan and said, almost casually, “Now we’ll check the baby’s organs. Heart, lovely. Gallbladder, lovely. Five fingers, lovely. Spine, lovely.”

She moved from organ to organ, repeating the word lovely again and again. It sounded as if she were scanning groceries at a checkout counter: bread, milk, cottage cheese. But these are not groceries. Each organ is an entire world.

Sadly, many people experience pregnancy and birth as routine, as something expected and ordinary. They do not pause in awe, and they do not ask the obvious question: who is responsible for this astonishing creation, the human being?

I cannot sculpt a human body. I cannot even draw a full human form with accurate organs. So how could anyone seriously speak as if we created something this perfect and complex?

Yes, we were blessed to receive body and soul as a gift, without effort on our part. But the deeper questions remain and they demand attention. How was this extraordinary fetus formed? Where did the raw materials come from? Who built each organ with such precision, organs no human hand could produce? Who placed each organ exactly where it belongs, the heart in the chest, the teeth in the mouth, everything in its place? Who is responsible for the design, the order, and the activation of this magnificent system called the human body?

On the ultrasound we saw a living being about ten centimeters long and weighing around forty five grams. A body with legs, arms, a head, and so much more.

I asked myself: how are people not overwhelmed by this sight? If we were walking down the street and suddenly saw a person ten centimeters tall walking toward us, we would be stunned. So what is the difference between a ten centimeter human outside the womb and a ten centimeter human inside it?

A Factory Within Weeks 1 to 40

Did you know there is a factory that produces body parts, hands, hearts, and eyes?

It operates continuously for nine months. It works with astonishing precision, creating organ after organ in perfect timing and perfect coordination, until a complete human body emerges, brand new, with integrated systems that function together in harmony. Every substance is measured. Every process happens at the right moment.

This factory is unique. It runs quietly. It does not pollute. Its materials are not imported. They are produced from within the system itself. And yet no human hand takes part in the manufacturing. No human hand contributes anything at all.

That factory, in a way almost too wondrous to state, is found in the womb of every pregnant woman.

Throughout the pregnancy we received live updates through a pregnancy tracking app, stage by stage, week by week. To watch this biological process is to see a precise plan that makes life possible, an intelligence present in every cell, every tissue, every organ, and every action of the living organism. Our bodies testify to purpose and intention. How does one single cell multiply into countless cells, and yet all of them function as one unified being with will, thoughts, and emotions?

Anyone who looks honestly at this process must ask one simple question: who is the brilliant manager of this factory?

What if there were a display window into the womb, and we could watch the fetus grow live, from a few grams to about three kilograms, while organs appear in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, completing each other into a planned and perfect body? A living being who moves and turns, who seems to look at you and smile, and often falls asleep. A baby surrounded by warm protective fluid, connected to an umbilical cord that delivers nourishment, and to a placenta that filters waste and foreign substances.

We are already transfixed by the screen during each ultrasound. If we had a window like an aquarium into the womb, would we ever sleep from excitement? Would we ever calm down from the wonder?

The Moment of Birth

The due date arrived. No contractions. The anticipation intensified, and my mind raced.

I know that after nine months the baby must come into the world. My wife knows it. Everyone knows it. But how does the fetus know? Who tells her? How does she know it is time? Does she have a calendar in the womb, counting days? How does she know what to do in order to emerge?

The more you think about it, the more astonishing it becomes that the fetus survives at all. Being inside another person’s body sounds frightening and unbelievable. Yet with even a simple glance you realize that for the fetus, the womb is a five star hotel, a perfectly designed environment that provides everything she needs. Nourishment arrives consistently through the umbilical cord. She floats in warm amniotic fluid. The system protects and sustains her with flawless care for nine months.

It is hard to grasp that a human being lives for nine months inside another human being. It is beyond me.

Week forty one. I stood with my wife in the delivery room, behind a curtain. I supported her from a distance, praying from the depths of my soul for an easy birth and for health for her and for our baby. From time to time I repeated Psalm one hundred, a psalm of thanksgiving, grateful to reach this moment.

And then it happened. The moment of birth. A living, breathing human being emerged from my wife’s body. I have no words.

Tears streamed down my face. My firstborn daughter entered the world, healthy and whole, weighing 3.326 kilograms.

I will never forget the image. My baby lay on my wife. Her skin had a deep purplish tone. Attached to her belly was a cord, the umbilical cord. Beside the bed lay a rounded mass, the placenta, which had emerged as well.

I rubbed my eyes and stared in awe at this tiny baby, who was nothing less than a living miracle. A beating heart. Breath. Two eyes, eyebrows, a nose, ears. Shaped lips. Sounds. Arms and legs moving. Eyes opening. And unbelievably, she already turned her head and moved her mouth to nurse.

How can this be? Moments ago she was inside my wife’s womb. A human within a human. It is impossible to grasp.

I asked myself: how can anyone witness birth and still believe that a human being can produce a perfect human being without the involvement of a higher power, without vast strength and infinite wisdom? The human being is formed with breathtaking intelligence, with coordinated systems, each organ in its place, each substance measured, each process timed perfectly. How could anyone think this was the result of an explosion, of chance?

Illustration photo: Shutterstock

A Personal Note

For me, birth was my private Mount Sinai. Birth cries out that there is a Creator. It was a moment of revelation I felt in my entire body.

It is a couple’s experience, supporting a woman in an hour of such power. It is a personal experience, I am becoming a father. It is a spiritual experience, who created these wonders. And all of it converges into one moment: the moment a human being comes forth from within a human being.

Hearing my daughter’s first cry shattered me. Beyond the joy that she was breathing on her own, I heard in her cry the voice of God speaking gently to me: I am here, my dear son.

There is no way to explain pregnancy and birth except with the words, “This is from God, it is wondrous in our eyes.”

Creator of the world, my beloved, my Maker, my Father, I want to say thank you for everything. Thank you for the Seven Blessings site through which you helped me meet my wife. Thank you for a perfect birth experience. Thank you for keeping my wife healthy and whole. Thank you for granting us the greatest gift of all, the gift of life. Thank you for being what you are to me.

Thank you for not giving up on me, for showing me the way back home with close guidance, infinite love, and precise personal providence, all for my own good.

May it be your will that these words enter the hearts of readers, and that I merit to raise and sanctify your Name through this article. I love you.

And the name chosen in Israel... Hallel.