hormonal breakdown on friday night leading me to justify an expensive dinner at my favorite italian restaurant just because I felt "sad" (pregnancy is awesome),
homemade pancakes + strawberry slices + syrup on a sunny saturday morning; realizing with secret pleasure that I am now the "mom" making breakfast for her hungry little one and starving husband,
melting a little inside when I saw him come through the door with his curly hair adorably tussled and windblown from driving in his Jeep with the top down,
hours of shopping and chatting with an old friend who also happens to be expecting; discovering the unfashionable joy that is maternity pants comfort,
standing inside Target, watching in horror as he calmly informs me that a teeny tiny chunk of his tooth just inexplicably broke off into the piece of gum he was chewing (teeth stuff majorly freaks me out),
moonlit walk around the park with him; less romantic than it sounds; basically me in my pajamas trying to "exercise" for the baby,
gusts of wind bending the trees and whipping my hair into my face as I walked to my car this morning, signaling the end of summer and the beginning of fall.
arriving
So, a new blog! I am terribly excited. It feels like the start of a new school year. I'm ready and anxious to get going with freshly sharpened pencils in my backpack and unblemished notebook paper in my Trapper Keeper. (Did you know that they still make Trapper Keepers? Redesigned, of course, but still...awesome.)
Kudos to those of you who actually read my inaugural post in its entirety. What started as simply a way to establish context about where I am in my life quickly turned into a gargantuan post on a million different themes.
Kudos to those of you who actually read my inaugural post in its entirety. What started as simply a way to establish context about where I am in my life quickly turned into a gargantuan post on a million different themes.
I guess it's safe to say - I have a lot on my mind.
The goal is to update two or three times a week. I'm hopeful it won't be the all-baby-all-the-time channel, but let's face it: there's a HUMAN PERSON currently being assembled in my uterus. It doesn't get much bigger or more blogworthy than that.
Coming up next: new ultrasound photos of our little heirloom tomato; and also, an essay on why my child will probably just sleep in a drawer in my bedroom (working titles: Why I Hate Babies 'R' Us or Does This Make Me a Bad Mother?).
Labels:
with child
all things new
I was perched on the edge of the bathtub in our tiny bathroom, but let me tell you where I really was. I was sitting on the edge of the world.
My legs twitched nervously as they dangled over the black unknown. My stomach flip-flopped as I surveyed the dizzying heights and vast expanse.
In my hands, a plastic, one-line-or-two, modern day messenger from God.
********************
In the slow-motion moments before the answer was revealed to me, the questions and thoughts running through my head ranged from the rational {whatever happens, we are ready} to the joyful {a baby! a real baby of our very own!} to the fearful {what WERE we THINKING} and to the dramatic {my life is over}.
In the anxious moments between the before and the after, I contemplated the gravity, the hugeness, the sheer ENORMITY of the possibilities within my grasp.
In the hazy moments on the edge of the world, I wondered: will I tumble into the unknown or will I be pulled back to the comfortable, safe confines of my old life?
********************
In retrospect, I am surprised to discover that what stands out most in my mind now is NOT how I felt when I realized I was pregnant, but how I felt in those preceding moments described above.
I think of them now as transitional, transformational moments.
Like the slow unfolding of a college acceptance letter or the tentative first steps down the aisle to meet your beloved, these moments align our past with our future. They are the small, sometimes unnoticeable seams that bind the pieces of our lives.
They bridge the gap between who we are, and who we are becoming.
********************
A few months after we discovered my pregnancy, my husband presented me with a lovely necklace to commemorate this time in our lives. It is a small circle, with one half solid white gold and the other half encrusted with diamonds. When he gave it to me, he said that one half represented our life together before the baby, and the other half represented our new life together after.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
My body is rapidly changing to accommodate the growing life within. I am enduring aches and pains that never existed before. Skin breakouts the likes of which have not been seen since I was a teenager! Sleep deprivation, midnight hunger pains, hair loss... all for the sake of this new life.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
My soul is maturing in response to the emotional and mental challenges that come along with my new status as mother-to-be. I am learning patience, selflessness, and surrender.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
********************
I collapsed to the floor in a puddle of tears, my hand clutching the positive pregnancy test while my body trembled with the electrifying knowledge that I was no longer the person I was just seconds ago. It was not a time for pretense or controlled emotion; no, I felt as though my skin had been unzipped and my nerves left raw, exposed, and vulnerable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "...every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens."
Aware that an end had been achieved, I sensed immediately that I had arrived somewhere significant. That here, again, was a place to start from.
We fall from one edge of the world only to find ourselves walking toward a new precipice. Diving from deep to deeper. Climbing slowly out of ourselves and into the person we seek to become.
The transformation is life.
My legs twitched nervously as they dangled over the black unknown. My stomach flip-flopped as I surveyed the dizzying heights and vast expanse.
In my hands, a plastic, one-line-or-two, modern day messenger from God.
********************
In the slow-motion moments before the answer was revealed to me, the questions and thoughts running through my head ranged from the rational {whatever happens, we are ready} to the joyful {a baby! a real baby of our very own!} to the fearful {what WERE we THINKING} and to the dramatic {my life is over}.
In the anxious moments between the before and the after, I contemplated the gravity, the hugeness, the sheer ENORMITY of the possibilities within my grasp.
In the hazy moments on the edge of the world, I wondered: will I tumble into the unknown or will I be pulled back to the comfortable, safe confines of my old life?
********************
In retrospect, I am surprised to discover that what stands out most in my mind now is NOT how I felt when I realized I was pregnant, but how I felt in those preceding moments described above.
I think of them now as transitional, transformational moments.
Like the slow unfolding of a college acceptance letter or the tentative first steps down the aisle to meet your beloved, these moments align our past with our future. They are the small, sometimes unnoticeable seams that bind the pieces of our lives.
They bridge the gap between who we are, and who we are becoming.
********************
A few months after we discovered my pregnancy, my husband presented me with a lovely necklace to commemorate this time in our lives. It is a small circle, with one half solid white gold and the other half encrusted with diamonds. When he gave it to me, he said that one half represented our life together before the baby, and the other half represented our new life together after.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
My body is rapidly changing to accommodate the growing life within. I am enduring aches and pains that never existed before. Skin breakouts the likes of which have not been seen since I was a teenager! Sleep deprivation, midnight hunger pains, hair loss... all for the sake of this new life.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
My soul is maturing in response to the emotional and mental challenges that come along with my new status as mother-to-be. I am learning patience, selflessness, and surrender.
Who I am, who I am becoming.
********************
I collapsed to the floor in a puddle of tears, my hand clutching the positive pregnancy test while my body trembled with the electrifying knowledge that I was no longer the person I was just seconds ago. It was not a time for pretense or controlled emotion; no, I felt as though my skin had been unzipped and my nerves left raw, exposed, and vulnerable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "...every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens."
Aware that an end had been achieved, I sensed immediately that I had arrived somewhere significant. That here, again, was a place to start from.
We fall from one edge of the world only to find ourselves walking toward a new precipice. Diving from deep to deeper. Climbing slowly out of ourselves and into the person we seek to become.
The transformation is life.
Labels:
reflections,
with child
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