40 Weeks

It's hard to believe my due date has arrived and my baby has not.

"The Greatest Lie of Pregnancy is that it takes nine months to grow a baby. The TRUTH is that it takes forty weeks-ten long months lived in a parallel universe where each day is as a thousand years.

God seems to have a particular affinity for the number forty. Was it not forty days and forty nights before God stopped the rain and Noah saw sunshine? Was it not forty long years before the Israelites made it out of the desert? And didn't Jesus spend forty hungry days in the desert Himself? Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but one thing is evident: God is not generally in any particular hurry when He's doing His finest work.

Maybe making us wait is His way of getting our attention, of helping us realize He's up to something serious. Maybe He just knows we need some time to grow into the blessing He has in store.

Forty weeks is a long time to wait for anything, particularly when one's ankles appear to be retaining all the waters of Noah's flood. But I've got a hunch, when the miracle finally shows up, it will be the first rainbow and the Promised Land all rolled up into one squirmy little bundle." -Carolyn Arends

I can hardly wait.
(Although in my case the squirmy bundle will probably not be so little.)

Mom

The baby was so active last night, dancing his crazy dance in my ballroom belly. He responds to my voice, my touch. I felt a little sad at the thought that soon he will be living outside of me. We are so close; the connection is so strong. He is so much a part of me.

How does a mother ever let her baby go? I wondered.

My mom called to check on me this morning. I love when she does that. She asked me if I was sleeping, and if there was anything going on yet.

I told her no, I'm at WalMart, walking around trying to get some contractions started and so far, nothing to report. She told me to give up, go home, rest with my feet up. She didn't say she would call to check on me later. She didn't have to.

We hung up, and I realized the answer to my question:

How do mothers ever let their babies go?

Maybe they never do.

Mia

Anyone who knows Eric and me, knows that I am significantly more "our dog is a member of our family" minded than he. So, of course, it came as no surprise when he expressed concerns about Mia wanting to closely inspect and HEAVEN FORBID possibly even lick the baby.

That's why I cracked up when some friends of ours who have a two-week-old told me they were grilling their pediatrician about their Boston Terrier trying the same thing with their new baby.

He basically said, "It's obviously not the BEST thing for your dog to lick him...but you know when you go to Target or Walmart and touch the carts, then you touch your baby? That's WAAAAY worse."

I'm strangely comforted by that. and grossed out.

39 Weeks 3 Days. I need some affirmations.

The three words that best describe the birth experience I want are:

Safe. Empowering. Gentle.

• My mind and body can handle a labor of any kind
• I trust my instincts to know what I need in labor
• Babies are born when they are ready, not when doctors, midwives, or anyone else decides
• My body contains all the knowledge necessary to give birth to my baby
• My baby knows how and when to be born

Embracing what we DO want, rather than just avoiding what we DON'T, has really resonated with me. It's interesting that so many of the words we use for birth focus on what is absent:

un-medicated
un-hindered
un-inhibited

Pablo Picasso. Spanish Artist and Painter. 1881-1973

"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we all must work, to make the world worthy of its children."