Baby Time

Yes, It’s True

I’m pregnant. 14 weeks pregnant to be exact. I know I’ve done a pitiful job of hiding it, with my hints at “feeling crummy” for the past two months and all my complaints about the cold weather this summer, which might as well have been complaints about constant nausea while having a 55 degree month of July.

But, despite my daily pukefests and August’s faithful hovering behind me while I’ve vomited (such trauma for the little soul!), we survived. And for the past five days, I’ve turned a corner into my new life of eating something other than yogurt all day long.

This is where I should tell you something rich and deep about the beauty of this first trimester I have just passed, about the joy of watching how quickly my belly has popped out this time around, how lovely it is that my body already knows so much about building a child that it’s decided to grow at an exponential rate (much to my chagrin). I could say something about the relief of making it past those first 12 weeks, the weeks our culture says to carry as a secret in case the child is lost. (Why is it that we instruct ourselves to keep quiet during the most difficult season of pregnancy, when we most need help, when, if we suffer such a loss, we most need community?) I could say something about the joy of sharing this child with not only my husband but with my little boy who has already learned the art of belly kisses.

Or I can simply say that I’m blessed. I know that every week that passes by an actual person is being formed in me. This child is a person who will love and be loved, who will laugh and weep and dream and find joy in moments I cannot now imagine. He or she is a personality and a voice, a build of muscle, a type of hair, a color of eye, a width of nose.

I know that so many women struggle to bear children. I know that coming through this first trimester is a gift in itself. And I know that I don’t deserve all the good in my life. So, I’m grateful for grace, for a God who builds beautiful things in crazy, unbelievable ways (my body!). And for a God who is giving me the chance to be a mama to another person in this world. It is all perfectly normal and gloriously extravagant.